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Above Ground was a fleeting yet no less important piece in the awesome DIY Christchurch scene of the early '80s. Together only for a short period in 1983, the band was comprised of Bill Direen (Vacuum / Builders), Carol Direen, Maryrose Crook (Max Block / Renderers) and Stuart Page (Axemen). They combined a ubiquitous and detached Velvet Underground vibe and a smattering of early Modern Lovers keyboard angst with some kind of Sky Saxon / Seeds psychedelic mojo. Above Ground was a formidable outfit in their brief existence and deserve more than a mere footnote in the history of one of the most vibrant scenes to exist in the past 30 years. Gone Aiwa originally saw life as a limited-edition cassette made to order and sold to various shops and at the occasional gig. So unless you were there (and chances are, you weren't), it's a good bet this material will be fresh to your ears-though two tracks did see the light of day on the Direen / Builders retrospective CD, Max Quiz, released by Flying Nun in the mid '90s. Gone Aiwa the album is finally realized, and what a wonderful thing it is to behold. Just goes to show it's never too late. Siltbreeze. Recommended.

The Shadow Ring's excursions into rock's most primitive territories have created something of their own musical language, and Hold Onto I.D. follows up excellently in this vein — the band's abrasive minimalism is in fine, eerie form, but also sports a post-punk angularity that keeps the album as much in line with This Heat or the Fall as it is with gritty New Zealand projects like This Kind of Punishment. There is, of course, the fact that many music lovers might find this work completely unlistenable, but the select niche of listeners who have loved the Shadow Ring's earlier work will undoubtedly find Hold Onto I.D. a thrilling advancement of their musical aims. Long out-of-print CD on Siltbreeze.

Leave it to the NME to embellish a term like “shit-gaze and in doing so codify the current DIY threadbare scrape of Times New Viking, Psychedelic Horseshit, and Tyvek. Nosurprise that the greatest shit-gazer of all time was none other than Samuel Coleridge, an avowed Brit who, plied full of laudanum,would sit for hours and stare at his bowel movements,writing copious notes on their color, texture, etc. “Monday? Oh,stool journal, to where didst thine weekend go?At any rate, it’shard to gauge how much mileage the eNeMEy can get with sucha phrase, but cross your fingers it hangs around long enough for Eat Skull to share in the odorous mirth. Call their genre whatever you want; Eat Skull will be ensconced in the stately pleasure-dome at Xanadu, waiting for the checks to clear.Biscuit crumbs and tea stains be damned, Eat Skull are a quartet hailing from Portland, Oregon, co-masterminded by Rob Enbom(former bushwacker in the ranks of Hospitals and Hole Class) and another original Hospital, Rod Meyer (the greates tliving genius of punk). Previous Eat Skull efforts include a cassette-only EP and a pair of 7-inches, all of which might be outof print. Like their brethren and forebears, Eat Skull runs a post pattern deep beyond pop and punk. They bring to the game an extrasensory appreciation of New Zealand’s South Island Sound(Great Unwashed, Axemen), Cleveland art-damage skronk(Modern Art Studio, X-X), and the wretched excess of forgotten Midwest hardcore (Stiff Legged Sheep, Chemotherapy).In other words, just what you need!Pip, pip matey, rum, sodomy, chin up and all that. Sick to Death is sure to be a lock for many year-end bests or Tom Lax’s(DJ) name isn’t Kublai Khan.800 copies, vinyl only. Siltbreeze.

With two acclaimed seven-inches under their belt, The Mantles answer the call for more with a stunning debut LP sure to please all who cross its path. The Mantles have beendead-on in distilling a contemporary pop / psych concoctionthat mixes equal parts early Chills with early Dream Syndicate and really, who among us wouldn t want abottle of that with which to quietly tipple the day away? Recorded by Greg Ashley, the LP taps said hybrid, andif anything, burrows deeper into the core of rock, extract ingessential magma that fuses early SF Ballroom psychedelia, Byrds-ian jangle-pop, and the Velvet Underground sextraordinary ability for serpentine leads and bridges. Andyep, that pretty much covers all the bases. Look for the bandto embark on their first US tour in September, supporting Ty Segall coast to coast. Siltbreeze.