Coming May 16 : The Gotobeds – ‘Masterclass’

“Goes Away”, directed by Ryan Hinzer

I first encountered the Gotobeds in August 2014, at a benefit for the great rock bard Karl Hendricks in their mutual hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Gotobeds went on fashionably (if not voluntarily) late and proceeded to lay waste to anything else anyone tried to do that evening.
I took an abnormal number of photos and was made a fan for life.
This kind of instant affection happens to me, particularly in my jaded dotage, so very rarely that I feel it is worth noting.
Almost inevitably, an attempt to describe an unnameable jolt will devolve into predictable cliches.
I’m talking about old chestnuts like:
Bouncing off the walls
Spending about half an hour in a washing machine full of bolts and rose petals
Having sand thrown in your eyes just before being kissed vigorously on the neck
All of which are a) barely better than nothing on the word front but b) do apply, if lazily so, to the Gotobeds’ various, terrific issuances: on 12XU (to which they have happily returned), their erstwhile label Sub Pop, etc. And the latter two apply perhaps most especially to their terrific new record–’Masterclass’.
The Gotobeds have an unwavering commitment to bending and breaking things in the process of remaking them into something bolder and better (and, a couple of lineup changes to the contrary, not laying anyone off wantonly from critical government jobs). “Goes Away,” to wit, is remarkably fractured, chomping up the minutes, 0% rounded off as is their default setting–do not toy with perfection.
The Gotobeds are aggressive, cannily disjointed, occasionally raw propellent, with an ear for melody that leavens the entire enterprise with a reasonable, non-diabetes-inducing amount of sugar. The lovely-yet-scaly “Mirror Writing” is nearly six minutes long and somehow too short. “Second Sight” doesn’t pass for mellow but has guitar lines in the chorus that I’m pretty sure were written by Richard Carpenter on PCP (please fact-check).
All of the guitar playing that comes out of this band is 100% whacked (a wildly positive modifier, not to be confused with its opposite of “wack”)…oh what can I say to pique your interest, that you might understand through reference.
Hmmm…how about…Rowland S Howard riding on the shoulders of Lee Ranaldo through a house of mirrors. Hack move on my part. But perhaps it leaves the right taste in your mouth.
The complements to this wrangling and strangling are warm and charming vocals (albeit semi-buried), with perhaps surprising heart and richness to them, plus (crucially) an insistent, melodic bass guitar and beguilingly slushy drumming that together invite that most welcome and rare of rock sense-memory tingles (The Clean).
In closing, I will suggest:
Apprise your ears, brain, and genitalia of this brazen, scabrous, lovingly made record–the Gotobeds’ fourth or fifth depending on how many fingers you have left on your counting hand.
‘Masterclass’was spat out during a low point of recent human history–the Great Plague of 2020-2022–but as we should all know from watching the History Channel, there’s always a sub-sub-basement. And beautiful art, great music, good books–these things are necessary for survival, as well as being prime antidotes to the scourge of psyops-enabled doomscrolling.
If you’ve access to a better (or even marginally equivalent) ball of punk, surf, no-wave, Beat-adjacent literature (ala John Fante, namechecked herein) and bubblegum, a) I have serious doubts that you are telling the truth, but b) please let us all know because we can surely use it. – Tim Midyett

Recorded by My War Matt at the War Room, PGH
Mixed by Matt Barnhart at Electrical Audio or the apartment above Electrical where he lives.

Mastered by Carl Saff

Open Cary, Hazy Lazer, GS, Dane Adderall, NOT A SAVAGE, Public Figure, Smiley Cookie, Cary O’key Kicker-of-Dalton & AHZACH made the sounds on the big circle.

P&C 2025 The Gotobeds under license to 12XU

Coming April 25 : Blank Hellscape – ‘Hell 2’

(photo by Jacey Brianne)

‘Hell 2’ is not the first album from Austin’s Blank Hellscape, but it’s certainly the most fully-realized. OK, at least it’s the LONGEST. The self-professed three-piece nightmare band knocked around the claustrophobic end of the house show circuit for a longish spell but right around pre-‘dermic times, the trio of Ethan Billips, Max Deems and Andrew Nogay have morphed into a multi-dimensional synapse-snapper with little regard for genre nor their own self-preservation. On that front, ‘Hell 2’ was echelons in the making ; it would not be an exaggeration to say the writing/recording/editing process was arduous and lengthy enough it nearly took Blank Hellscape out of the game for good.

But before you declare, “better luck next time”, strap yourself in to your favorite listening chair / apparatus and bask in this sprawling double album, to these ears, an uncanny musical & lyrical representation of the confusing, scary and thoroughly oppressive state we currently find ourselves in (not specifically Texas, but yes, Texas, too). I could not be more proud to dub this their long-awaited MAGNUM OPUS, and not simply because doing so will totally fuck shit up for whoever puts out their next album.

Recorded 2020-2024 at our homes
Produced by Blank Hellscape
Additional production on A2 and B1 by Connor Schwanke

Mastered by Andrew Hernandez at Arroyo Audio
Lacquers cut by Carl Saff
Art by Shawn Reed

Blank Hellscape is
Ethan Billips – drum machines, synths, electronics
Andrew Nogay – vocals
Max Deems – guitar, tapes

p&c 2025 Diseased Tapes under license to 12XU

Coming May 16 : Water Damage – ‘Instruments’ 2XLP

Water Damage is ten people from one town and one sound from twelve people. For Instruments, the plus two are guitarist David Grubbs and saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, neither of whom blunt the angle or confound the aim. The tempo? Slow and low. Four tracks, averaging twenty minutes each, the pace never above a comfortable walk. The damage creeps, a forest becomes a mountain, and the faithful move forward. The album is named after Fugazi, in a manner, and “Reel 25” takes after the Shocklee Brothers, in a cry. Stop asking the lord how many drummers this band has and and ask him how much of your mind, babe. Some people say drone and same people say trance and some people say invocation through patterned unity. Some people just say rock and we let them set their clocks back. Lie down and let these holy treads flatten you. Just because Water Damage know what they are doing doesn’t mean you have to. Fix your hearts or die! – Sasha Frere-Jones

UK/EU orders – please visit our good friends at Cardinal Fuzz who are releasing ‘Instrument’ in your countries : cful.bandcamp.com

WATER DAMAGE is Mari Maurice, Thor Harris, Jonathan Horne, Nate Cross, Danielle Hills, George Dishner, Travis Austin, Mike Kanin, Greg Piwonka and Jeff Piwonka

Patrick Shirioishi – Baritone saxophone on Real 28
David Grubbs – Guitar on Reel 25, Reel 32

Engineered by Max Deems at Diseased Tapes Billion Dollar Studio. Mixed by Travis Austin, Mastered by Chris Hardman. Lacquers cut by Carl Saff.
Art and design by Greg Piwonka.

“India (Slight Return” written by Pärson Sound

Coming April 28 : Chris Brokaw – ‘Ghost Ship’

Chris Brokaw (photo by Ben Stas/Noise Floor)

Chris Brokaw – ‘Ghost Ship’
out April 28. 2025

Four years after his rock juggernaut PURITAN, Chris Brokaw delivers GHOST SHIP, a landscape meditation (at sea) for vocals and electric guitars.

I set out to make an 8 song statement like ‘Desert Shore’ or ‘Raw Power’, but it became a 9 song…something else. I’ve described it to friends as ‘Twin Peaks-ish’ but that feels only part right. The songs were written on a 60’s Teisco Del Rey electric guitar, set up by the Belgian luthier Flip Scipio with heavy gauge flat wound strings and an .80 gauge low E string tuned down to a low A, which reframes how you play the instrument. I wrote them all quickly in a kind of fever. – Brokaw

“You need to listen to GHOST SHIP from beginning to end. Stand too close to the speaker holding a plastic cup of seltzer with lime and really crank it up. If you have a purple light bulb, screw that into the ceiling fixture, and it will be like seeing Brokaw play the kind of live Brokaw set that puts you on the bottom of the ocean, standing under a transmission tower with a semicircle of effects pedals at its feet. If I’m making this sound vaporous, consider the conversational chords of ‘8 Or 9 Things’, the sharply descending final notes of ‘Profile’, or the extinction burst of ‘Anything Anymore’. Think of echolocation: sonics defining space and distance, time elapsing, the disappearance of something – maybe drugs or a doomed love, possibly in the same form. ‘I’m a ghost ship on a long trip / and if you come aboard I’ll never run ashore.'” – Mimi Lipson

Chris Brokaw is perhaps best known for his work with the bands Codeine and Come. He has released over two dozen solo albums of instrumental and vocal music since 2002, and played in The New Year, Pullman, Charnel Ground and the Lemonheads. He has scored nine films, most recently ‘Crookedfinger’ by Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund, and written for dance and arts associations, most recently ‘Lowlands’ with Rimi/Imir in Stavangar, Norway. He has recorded and performed as an accompanist to Thurston Moore, Christina Rosenvinge, Rhys Chatham, Jennifer O’Connor, Steve Wynn and GG Allin. Currently he plays in Lupa Citta (with Sarah Black and Jenn Gori), the Martha’s Vineyard Ferries (with Bob Weston and Elisha Wiesner) and the Chris Brokaw Rock Band (with Clint Conley and Luther Gray). He continues to perform periodically with Codeine and Come; and will be touring internationally on GHOST SHIP both solo and in his trio.

Recorded & mixed by Paul Kolderie at Wool\y Mammoth MA and Camp St. NY October and November 2024.

Mastered by Carl Saff

All songs by Chris Brokaw
C&P Calimoxcho Music BMI

Corer photo by CB

Coming March 28 : Shit and Shine – ‘Mannheim HBF’

Shit and Shine – ‘Mannheim Hbf’   (12XU 162-1)

out March 28, 2025

so the bad news is,  in a fit of pique, I asked Chat GPT (nicely) to compose a one-sheet for the new Shit and Shine double album, ‘Mannheim HBF’.  The even worse news (yes, even worse than resorting to such tactics) is that the resulting biography is halfway passable and on some levels, superior to the sort of thing being published by what’s left of our weekly coupon-shoppers.  But for fuck’s sake my friends, Craig Clouse did not get to where he is today today by settling for halfway passable and neither should you.  That Shit and Shine’s discography is vast and dizzying is already well established ; what’s not nearly as established are these recordings being specifically dizzying. I don’t know if there’s anyone else in modern music as skilled in waltzing around the periphery of so many disparate idioms (“noise”, being one of the least prominent this time around) and somehow, against all odds, tying ‘em together in the most intricate of knots.  And who doesn’t love knots?

We all have our favorite ways to experience music that’s all-engulfing, but whether your preferred method is thru a stadium sized sound system or ear buds affixed as you’ve leapt off the tallest building in Bastrop, TX (the Jerry Fay Wilhelm Center for the Performing Arts, since you asked), not for the first time, Shit and Shine is entirely appropriate in either instance, possibly every instance.  There are moments where I think this is a club record.  The Friars Club, however.

Far be it from me to provide guidelines for how and when you take in ‘Mannheim HBF’.  “No interruptions”, “no distractions” are merely suggestions on the label’s part, though we cannot be held responsible for what happens if you ignore ‘em.   Thank you.

Coming March 21 : Ed Kuepper & Jim White – ‘After The Flood’

Ed Kuepper & Jim White – ‘After The Flood’  (12XU 166-1)
out March 21, 2025

In the final days of February 2022, Brisbane received approximately 80 per cent ofmthe city’s average annual rainfall in a mere 72 hours. Upstream, Wivenhoe Dam, the city’s main flood mitigation strategy, received close to three Sydney Harbour’s worth of water in less than three days. Nearly 3000 Brisbane streets were flooded and highways were closed for days, isolating some communities. Thirteen people lost their lives and over 23,000 properties were flood-affected.


Let’s go back in time. Back in the mid-90s the Dirty Three opened for Ed Kuepper in Melbourne. That’s when Ed and Jim first crossed paths. Jim of course was well-aware of Ed; who wasn’t? This was an artist who had redefined Australian music not just once with The Saints, not just twice with Laughing Clowns, but was at it again for a third time. under his own name. For his part Ed was watching Jim play and making  a mental note.

Time passed… a lot of time passed. Jim left the country with the Dirty Three and built a formidable reputation as a collaborator and sideman. Ed was in his pomp, touring and releasing albums, building a remarkable body of work that now stands at over 50 albums.

Roll forward to 2020. Time became malleable, even these most industrious of artists found themselves with time to kill. Jim was unexpectedly back in Australia, in fact stranded in Australia. Despite all the complexities of the pandemic Ed recognised an opportunity to capture the collaboration he’d long had in mind.

The original idea was for the two of them to do a few shows together. It would be ‘casual’. But it proved to be anything but. Amidst the on-off restrictions and the threat of the virus the tour was a turbulent ride. They performed two sold out nights at the Sydney Opera House and fluked the only gig at Rising before the Melbourne Festival was cancelled. Other gigs were blown out and plans would be changed at the last minute. Touring was precarious with Ed and Jim unsure when restrictions would be announced, leaving them high and dry or forcing them to drive cross county late at night to cross state lines before the borders were closed. Ed refers to them at one point “operating like a guerrilla outfit on the NSW/Queensland border.”

In amidst this turmoil a musical bond was forged. Ed appreciated Jim’s “rhythmic intent. It’s intuition based” he explains. “With Jim there’s an overlap of influences but Jim has his own character. “

The duo grasped an opportunity to enter Melbourne’s Sound Park Studio. Working quickly over four days they captured the music they had been performing. “We took what we’d been doing live and brought it into the studio” Ed recalls. “It was important that we captured the immediacy of what we’d been doing, that it wasn’t laboured over. Everything was laid down live”.

The resulting album features eight tracks that provide, as Ed puts it “The broadest representation of what we did, with the most variety.” The widescreen selection of songs gives a tracking shot of Ed’s career to date. The earliest song reimagined here is The Saints’ “Swing For The Crime”, which originally appeared in 1978 on the ‘Prehistoric Sounds’ album. Ed’s early 80s band Laughing Clowns is generously represented and rewired with the songs “Crying Dance”, “The Year Of The Bloated Goat” and “Collapse Board”. His solo career is deeply mined for reworked hidden gems; “Demolition” and “Miracles” (both from 2007’s ‘Jean Lee & the Yellow Dog’) and “The Ruins’”(from 2015’s ‘Lost Cities’). “The 16 Days” originally appeared on Ed’s second album under his own name, ‘Rooms of the Magnificent’ in 1986.

More time has passed. Many of Ed’s long out of print albums have been reissued, his work with The Saints has been released globally as a deluxe boxed set. There has been associated touring with original Saints drummer Ivor Hay, Mick Harvey (Birthday Party/Bad Seeds), Mark Arm (Mudhoney) and Peter Oxley (Sunnyboys) joining Ed on the road. (“The towering impression left by the nights proceeding? That Kuepper is a motherfucker of a guitar player, his sound just as molten and unrelenting as back in the day – Uncut UK). Jim White remains as prodigious as ever, releasing his debut solo album, rekindling the Dirty Three for their biggest Australian tour and highest charting album. Creatively restless as ever he has recently worked with The Hard Quartet, Marisa Anderson, Bill Callahan, Myriam Gendron and Xylouris White.

Deep into their careers, at the top of their game, ever curious, changing and searching, Ed and Jim reach another high-water mark.

After The Flood

Recorded and mixed by Idge at Sound Park Studio, Melbourne, Spring 2023
Produced by Ed Kuepper and Jim White

(‘After The Flood’ is being released in Australa and New Zealand by Remote Control
remotecontrolrecords.com.au)

Coming January 24 : USA/Mexico – ‘Live In Paris’

USA/Mexico – ‘Live In Paris’ (12XU 146-1)
out January 24, 2025

‘Live In Paris’ is the 4th album from the Austin TX trio USA/Mexico, and their first since 2021’s ‘Del Rio’.  As the title suggests, the album was recorded live at Paris’ Le Petit Bain in March of this year.

As on their prior studio albums, the group remains guitarist Craig Clouse (Shit and Shine), bassist Nate Cross (Water Damage, Marriage) and drummer King Coffey (Butthole Surfers).

Again, in keeping with established tradition, the album is being released by 12XU in North America and Riot Season Records in the UK and Europe.

Mastered by James Plotkin

Coming November 1 : Voice Imitator – ‘Of How Hits’ (12XU 161-1_)

Voice Imitator – “Of How Hits’ (12XU 161-1)

In attempting to write this dispatch on the second Voice Imitator album my instinct is to pitch them as somewhat of an antidote to the current ills of what could be described as the post-Noise Rock landscape. I’m trying not to tread too far down the path of negativity and slander, so let’s just say that while on paper they share basic characteristics with popular groups in the pigfuck to frat rock pipeline, Voice Imitator possess a tact and vision scantly seen in Repetition Orientated Rock.

(Directed by Xavier Irvine
Produced bu Voice Imitator and Xavier Irvine)

On ‘Of How Hits’ the members decades long individual and collaborative experiences in punk/rock, the avant-garde and electronic music, are further honed to form an internal logic that doesn’t merely cut and paste from these experiences, but creates a distinctive and singular group sensibility. Self conscious subcultural baggage is removed from past youth music experiences, only the molten core remains.

With each listen the distinction between traditional band and synthesized modes becomes harder to distinguish, like a zoomed in Killing Joke welding itself to Robert Hood’s technominimalism. Lyrics reflect the surreal banailty and horrors of modern existence, like a co-worker recapping their interstate trip away to the Banksy exhibition. The album ender, ‘On Cloud Nine As One Of Three Percent’ can only be compared to Lou Reed and Metallica’s ‘Junior Dad’. In short, affecting contemporary music. – Nic Warnock (Repressed Records / R.I.P Society
Records)

preorder :

https://voiceimitator12xu.bandcamp.com/album/of-how-hits

http://12xu.bigcartel.com/product/voice-imitator-of-how-hits-lp-12xu-161-1

Coming October 25 : Mope Grooves – ‘Box Of Dark Roses’

Through the fog of our grief in the wake of the earth-shattering loss of our beloved angel Stevie, on this day which would have been her 35th birthday, we announce the release of Mope Groove’s final album; Box of Dark Roses. A 27 song, 2XLP of songs that Stevie prepared for release before she left. In addition to the music, Stevie provided extensive liner notes to accompany the album. These are included with the album in the form of a zine, or as a digital PDF, respectively. 
 
“If i’m ever hard to get a hold of u can find my whole heart in here.”
-Stevie (from her liner notes)
 
Rest in peace sweet angel. We love you forever. 

Stevie provided the following statement on the album before her departure: 
 
“all artist profits and digital proceeds will be redistributed in perpetuity to incarcerated or formerly incarcerated survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, especially the many women and other gender marginalized ppl incarcerated for defending themselves against their attackers. funds will be allocated to the Survived and Punished NY Mutual Aid Fund, a comparable organization, or directly into commissary funds or fundraisers of incarcerated survivors.
 
“box of dark roses is a 27 song LP where the same images repeat and repeat until you might have some idea of what roses have to do with armed struggle, trans autonomy, losing your house (again), angels, women political prisoners, violence returned to sender, suicided poets, refusing to recant, insisting on life, & how the revenge of twenty billion screaming ghost women could unmake the worst of all possible worlds”

liner notes, lyrics, credits : https://12xu.net/mope-grooves-box-of-dark-roses/

FOR UK/EU orders: https://night-school.bandcamp.com

(preorder from Bandcamp)

(preorder from 12XU)

performance by stevie (lowercase, no last name, she/her), cap (lowercase, no last name, they/them), Lee Butterfield (they/them), Penny Olives (she/her), Elias Williamson (they/them), Izzy Dupuis, Ana Díaz Sacco (she/they), Clinton O’Brien, Evan Mersky, Ana María Rodríguez (she/her), Ray Aggs (they/them), & Kyle Raquipiso

mastered by Carl Saff

pressed in Chicago by Smashed Plastic