now there is a 1 hour mix of 21 well-loved songs from 2023. Or 19 songs from 2023 and two songs previewing 2024 for JABS.
Please click HERE to stream the mix or download the file
For anyone that likes to read, there is a 6000-word, 24 page zine with text about each of these songs and MY FEELINGS that is available with all JABS mailorders for the next month or so. Also I am a little scramble-y right now so if you place an order this month it will probably take an extra couple of days to ship. Here is my apology: a 20% discount if you use the code COWABUNGADUDE (all caps) on the website through Dec 31.
Skingraft was a band from Rochester New York who made jarring, technical, rhythmically irregular death metal. They were my best friends in high school. At the time, Western New York metal was dominated by gore-obsessed brutality—even though they’d moved to Tampa a few years earlier, we still thought of Cannibal Corpse as a Buffalo band—and most of the bands we’d go see wrote relentless blasts of song with relentless descriptions of dead babies. Skingraft shrugged this style off, instead constructing elaborate, dynamic songs that paired howling and blast beats with brooding, minor-key melodies and deviant rhythms. “Worthless” lunges and twists like a sick animal but somehow is one of the catchiest songs I can think of? That stuttering opening riff lives in my brain for weeks at a time, its strangeness infectious. Skingraft recorded two songs at Dajhelon Studios in Rochester when they were juniors in high school and I am so excited to release them as a 7” in spring 2023, a brisk 30 years later.
The band members and I talked a lot about the record’s design, wanting it to feel unique, arcane, cursed. The covers are silkscreened on handmade paper. The paper was made by shredding and pulping 40+ bibles. For every seven copies of Skingraft made, one bible was removed from this world.
The 7″ is limited to 300 copies, pressed on colored vinyl, and includes a two-sided insert.
To hear both sides, read more, and pre-order, click HERE
same as last year, I made a 20 page zine as a companion program for the mix. I love writing about music but it always feels so sad posting things on the internet. Zine comes free with next 40 orders from JABS or if you want one and don’t want to order anything (???) email me at jabsrecords@gmail.com and I can probably send you one anyway
The OPEN MIKE KNIGHT LP is now available! OMK was an Oakland band from 2001 who were bratty and fun and brash and jarring. They were all very close friends, as evidenced by their shared language and near-telepathic shifts in mood and tempo. Their seven-song demo has been floating around for years, and has always deserved a wider release. Transferred/mastered by Fred Thomas and packaged in a carefully handmade sleeve, with a tipped-in photograph, silkscreened text, and a photo insert. Limited to 105 copies, which are numbered, in a variety of bright colored vinyl. More info and ordering here: https://www.jabsjabsjabs.com/product/open-mike-knight-open-mike-knight-lp/
Open Mike Knight were an Oakland band circa 2001. Their demo tape has been my favorite for two decades, if I made you a mix tape anytime between 2002 – 2009 one of these songs was on it no question. For me, they split the difference between two kinds of bay area musics that I love – the super nihilistic, bratty punk of Peechees/Tourettes/Gr’ups and the terse, sharp postpunk of Erase Errata or The Lies. The seven song LP reproduces the demo tape, newly remastered by Fred Thomas, and comes with a booklet of flyers and photos. Edition of 105 copies on translucent vinyl. Preorder and more information coming soon!
includes the songs I liked the most from 2021, the most crucial reissues, and a few connections to in-progress projects for JABS please click HERE to stream/download
A 24-page zine with writing about all 23 songs selected for this mix is included with all orders placed at JABS until copies run out. Alternately, send your mailing address to jabsrecords@gmail.com and I will send you a copy.
THE GRASS IS GREEN IN THE FIELDS FOR YOU is a unique and wonderful publisher based in Glasgow. Happy to announce that all titles are now available via JABS, click HERE to see everything in one place!
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Review of MODESSA – 7″ from Freak No-Hitter, Nov/Dec 2020 issue
