JETPACK - S/T - 1999

This fall, I started playing with a few dudes from Sick Electric (Haywire is one of my favorite albums).  They’ve been around playing music for a little longer than I have.  Jimmy (the guitarist/vocalist) knows I’m pretty deep into the maths, and he dropped a major nugget on me:  Jetpack’s one and only full-length album, released in 1999. 

“Who is Jetpack?”, you may ask.  Jetpack is Keith Souza’s band from the late ‘90s.  “OK, but who is Keith Souza?” 

Well:  have you heard Battles’s Mirrored?  Fang Island’s Fang Island?  The Body?  The Psychic Paramount?  Lightning Bolt?  Neptune?  Daughters?  Tyondai Braxton’s Central Market?  Six Finger Satellite?  The Chinese Stars?  Yeah.  Keith Souza recorded all of those at his studio, Machines with Magnets. 

“Well that’s all well and good, but what does the thing actually sound like?”  You’re pretty insistent with the questions there, chief.  But trust me, the thing sounds fucking awesome.  Angular riffs.  Fuzz bass.  Strained vocal harmonies.  Weird songs.  Snaky grooves.  You’re gonna want to listen to this thing over and over and over and over and over. 

Jetpack has no internet presence whatsoever, and it seems like the only way to get this sweet, sweet album is through your good friends at Plenty of Swords!

So get to it, already! 

A Minor Forest - Inindependence

Classic and classy is how this early 90's San Francisco based math rock group could be described. Like their peers of the moment they subscribed to the darker end of the math rock color wheel. Rhythms are where the group stands out the most and drummer Andee Connors does a great job keeping everything reigned in. With only a few releases this three piece tends to get less praise than is deserved for sure. Can get a bit noisy in spots but alas twas a mark of the times and doesn't really hurt at all. In my opinion A Minor Forest bears a closer resemblance to our modern math rock than other groups of the Albini decade so if nothing else its worth a look.


Inindependence

Main Source- Breaking Atoms- 1991

While away on my incredible hiatus, i found myself in the parking lot of some conservation land, waiting for the rain to subside and the sun to finally make another appearance so we could resume filming for the Fire Pit. We were straight chilling, just killing time, and a group of the film crew decided to take a leave and head off to the Red Roof Inn to get some serious business done on the ceramic titanic, the ill toilet bowl action. Some of the actors were chilling in the car that decided to take off for the non-woodland facilities, and i invited them to chill in my car in the rain. Mike G and Keith popped in my ride, Keith hitting the back seat for some quick shut eye, and Mike G chilling shotgun. The two of us started talking hiphop, once again spurred from my love of Bizarre Ride and Madlib. Dude knows his shit; he has a serious background in loving all kinds of music, but has a large chunk of his heart dedicated to the art of rhyming and beatsmithery.

This is a dedication, and a recommendation through osmosis, from the library of Mike G.