Buzzhowl Records is a label formed for all the right reasons. A passion project, its stated aim is to get music out there by bands they think people should know about (an ethos that fuelled the alt-rock labels of the late 80s and 90s and a rare spark of light in an ever-more-commercial industry). Covering noise-rock, drone, math-rock, post-rock, alt-rock, grunge and pretty much anything else within such a gloriously scuzzy bracket the label is, as you might imagine, right up our street and their inaugural release is a compilation featuring ten awesome bands that deserve to be on your radar.
The album gets off to a good start with the sneering punk frenzy of Gravves, whose ‘Power Bomb Baby’ comes off like Sonic Youth covering the Backyard Babies, all garage-trash attitude and guitar-mangling excess. It’s a sparky opening to the compilation and a sign that Buzzhowl have set their sights high from the outset. Next up, Bo Gritz (‘mother’) summon the spirit of early Swans to deliver a bass-heavy clusterfuck of no-wave noise and misanthropic rage. Slower and darker than Gravves’ offering, it’s the ideal follow up in that it does not attempt to compete, instead adopting a sheet metal approach that will leave you with your ears ringing and a dazed grin upon your aching face. Upping the pace and stripping back the layers of sound, Prayer Group recall the likes of 7 year bitch, Greg Sage and Mudhoney, with the ramshackle, garage noise of ‘heat’. It’s cool and no one really makes music like this anymore… but they should. Next up Genevan industrial noise-mongers H E X conjure up a compellingly dense soundscape with ‘Collider’, a six-minute track that sounds like Kraftwork molesting Foetus with Mogwai on hand to witness the violation. It’s dark, atmospheric and quite unlike the more organic sounds that have gone before, underscoring the eclectic tastes of Buzzhowl. Quite unfeasibly brilliant, H E X are one of those bands who are genuinely pushing the sonic envelope to hitherto unexplored environments and you’ll want to hear more long before the track draws to its increasingly seismic conclusion. The first half concludes with the jarring, dissonant noise of post-punkers thank, whose ‘punching band’ draws in synths and other creepy noise before exploding into a barely-coherent sonic scree, the tension of which comes from wondering when the whole thing is going to plunge off the rails. With a vocal that finds itself initially lost in the ennui of the TV generation before an unreasoned rage descends in a red mist, thank are the closest that anyone’s yet come to emulating the brazen, art-rock fury of Mclusky and they bring the first half of the compilation to a cataclysmic end.
Opening the second half, Dead tenants take jazz-infused drumming and cruelly distorted bass and then layer it with searing, treble-heavy guitar in an attempt to cause the listener to white out under the assault. They very nearly succeed. In contrast, Typical Hunks employ a drum machine to lend mechanistic weight to their blistering exhortations, the discordant guitars and distorted vocals recalling early Sonic Youth and the myrical bands from the Org Records stable. Things stay short, sharp and violent as Die! Die! Die! Deliver a lo-fi blast that sounds like it was recorded at the back of a live show, on a Dictaphone housed in a kettle. Punk as fuck, this New Zealand three-piece compromise for no one and earn their place on the compilation via the sheer brazenness of their approach. The enigmatic Dog maintain the brutality but offer a more coherent approach commensurate with the five-minute run-time of ‘hello bits’. A track that draws from the best elements of Fugazi and At the Drive in, ‘hello bits’ is a last-minute highlight on a compilation chock-full of awesome moments. The compilation comes to an end with the nihilistic hell of Don’t Try’s ‘I’m so wry’, a harder edged version of Tidal Channel, with disaffected vocals buried under a venerable wreckage of barely coherent guitar and simplistic drum machine clatter. As a statement of intent it’s fairly unequivocal – Buzzhowl will not sacrifice art on the venal altar of commerce – and it makes for the perfect introduction to a label that has the potential to follow in the footsteps of C/Z, Nefarious Industries and SST as a champion of the underground.
I tend to approach compilation albums with caution. It’s rare you’ll find one so lovingly compiled, but then it’s important to remember that this is a label debut and Buzzhowl have much riding on it. As a statement of artistic integrity it is pretty much perfect and the ten bands gathered here are all excellent with not a weak link among them. Care has also gone into the sequencing and the album flows from one track to the next, never lumping together anything that sounds too similar and really showcasing the diversity of interests that lies at the core of Buzzhowl’s formation. With the record industry a vast, bloated entity choking on its own greed and vice, the emergence of genuinely independent labels with a passion for their art is more essential than ever and Buzzhowl, if they can maintain their quality and integrity, have demonstrated an early adeptness that could see them become scene leaders. 9
