HATEBEAK / LONGMONT POTION CASTLE/ Split 7" (Reptilian)
LPC have been noted for some funny prank call-type stuff in the past, this 7" finds them doing two blazing metal instrumentals where every guitar trick/effect in the book gets whipped out and compressed into two short tracks. The real oddity here though is Hatebeak's side; they are boasting as being the premier (and only I imagine) metal band fronted by a parrot. Yes, a parrot. There's a picture of him in the band photos, his name is Waldo, and he's flapping his wings. The track titles: "Beak of Putrifaction" and "God of Empty Nest". The vocals sound heavily processed in the studio though, and I am not sure the squawks are live along with the band, they seem kind of edited in, but there's also some human-sounding cookie-monster growling happening, it's a bit difficult knowing exactly what's happening here. But great concept nonetheless, maybe a live recording should be the follow-up. The band claims the next split single is going for feature a band fronted by a dog, too.

LES MOUCHES / You're Worth More To Me Than 1000 Christians (Block Block Block)
Toronto group made up of folks from, among other groups, The Hidden Cameras and Picastro. In the sea of ambitious quietcore bands that have burst through the floodgates ever since Low reared their heads in the 90's, the variety of emotions and the sheer attention to the craft sets Les Mouches heads above the rest in my recent memory, adding some very strange curveballs indeed. Gentle, warm passages of folksy strum are sometimes punctuated by some sideways-walking electric guitar inflections, at times primitive sawing of strings, swells of groaning, laptop-induced loopage and even full fledged kinda panic attacks on the vocalist's behalf. It's a very unorthodox approach to this kind of music, one that takes some initial decoding, because you're not sure that the same band is really on the same page together, but once you give in to it, the combinations of ideas all make perfect cohesive sense. This Toronto label is fairly new and has been showing some great promise too if this is any example.

DJ POLYMORPHIC / The Song of Songs
Alan Bishop from the Sun City Girls sent this in; and this is a guy who knows his perverse pop sugar rush pleasures (I've heard all about the genius of Nelly from him on email, and in return I've detailed the somewhat bizarre FMU pockets of TATU obsession). Recently I mailed him the Chartsweep CD, a nonstop K-tel-commercial-like spew of 5 second snippets of every 80s top 40 hit in a 45 minute river of insanity, and he sent us this incredible piece of art from some Seattle fellows who take an A-Minor based typical pop chord progression and sing a medley of every pop song imaginable in that key. The trick: it's often three or four of them going simultaneously. The music is generated in a constant forward motion, but you're hearing a melange of voices (all DJ Polymorphic) rambling through a pile-up of hits from Foreigner's "Urgent", to U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to Tom Petty's "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", but voices and hooks pop up on top of each other, like some giant heap of bands all performing at the same time fighting to be heard over each other. If hooks like Irene Cara's "What a Feeling" latch onto your cerebellum like some kind of succubus, imagine what hearing all of these songs together in one sit-down will do. Your head explodes, honest. Thanks, Alan!