Akashic Vinyl & CDs

Notes: "Just A Minor Threat" is a book of Glen E. Friedman's most outstanding photographs of the Washington, DC, band Minor Threat, one of the most influential hardcore punk bands in music history. While the book offers Friedman's best-known photographs of the band, most of the pictures in this volume, shot in 1982 and '83, have never been seen before. The book has writing by Jello Biafra, Alec MacKaye, Guy Picciotto, Zack de la Rocha, Jamie Shanahan, and Ian F. Svenonius.

Review: Released along with a compelling narrative of the artist acquiring gear acquisition syndrome itself, SWLABR releases their rough n' ready collection EP 'MCMXCI'. Somewhere on the intersection of bleep techno and acid, this is a total work of art, said to have been conceived back in 1991 but which has only surfaced now, in 2023; and in which every constituent part sounds to have come from the same or a similar source. These are said to include a 4-track tape recorder; a 707; a JX-8P "going cheap". From 'Microbe' and 'Acid Pop' to 'Carnal Knowledge' and 'Neu Ordnung', it's as if the lifeblood of musical history runs in the circuitry of the gear itself, "tape hiss included", a fetishistic displacement onto objects; the machines use the artist, not the other way around as is popularly thought.