Myelin Sheaths "Stackticon" ep

(Bachelor) This the Sheat! Not sure exactly what kind of atoms are combining to create this new number in the Periodic Table of the Trash Rock Elements, but I know that you can make both drugs and bombs out of it.

Goodnight Loving “The Goodnight Loving Supper Club,” "Nothing Conquers Us" b/w "Scary Bad"

(Dirtnap) So sublimely 60s that this isn't even retro...it's time warp. And it's better than 1/2 the beat bands playing Berlin and 1/4 of the stuff clogging Brian Wilson's head that decade.

Cotton Candy "Top Notch & First Rate"

(Teen Beat) The first thing to report is that, as samples make clear, this is very much referencing the title band from Ron Howard's Made For TV directorial debut, a band whose rivals, Rapid Fire, have been profiled in this magazine's pages. Along those lines, the album is littered with samples, references, and delightful ad jingle cover songs not limited to, but certainly favoring the 1970s. Making that completely unproblematic are the actual songs that fill space between jingles and jangles that are more rooted in the 60s and 80s (Brit pop fey awesomeness) and 90s and 00s (indie and robot dance music aesthetics), in most cases simultaneously. I can't begin to describe the LP's sublime aesthetics packaging or the thrill of hearing Cotton Candy win yet another Battle of the Bands. Sweet!

OTEP "Smash the Control Machine"

(Victory) This could be worse. 

Airfix Kits "Playing Both Sides" b/w "Leaving"

(Dirtnap) You'll be playing both sides...of this single over and over! If this working class British accent is fake that makes this record twice as awesome. Or Oi!-some, though it's Oi!-er in accent than execution (more post-punk wave-ish).

Indian Wars "If You Want Me" ep

(Bachelor) A nice combo of outsider one man band style wild playing (though this is a 4 piece) and some serious 60s garage record collection influence makes we want to make love not wars with these Natives.

The Monkey Power Trio "Tearing Down the Parthenon"

(PSMR) Every year five monkey friends get together and be a band for one day, and write and record some semi-improvised pop tunes they wrote that day with no previous writing or rehearsal. So this is the 14th day of the band's existence, and the 14th year. Tehn, like their monkey house brothers, they fling stuff at the wall and see what sticks, then they release a record every year of the best (?) of the mess. This year's offering of flingings started off slow woth some sappy love stuff, but the b-sode was about a robot manster with telephone hands and a ends with a song that sounds like Daniel Johnston trying to start a Shoes cover band. And it rhymes Africa Sauce with Albatross.

Mr. Russia "Boys Keep Swinging" 7"

(Lens) A part 1 and 2 classic No-Wave meets Bauhaus meets Patrick Cowley's "Menergy" meets Jayne County's elocution coach. This ominous update of the Fast's "Boys Will Be Boys" declares Mr. R to be one of Chicago's best combo's working today. Boys always work it out, indeed!

Coconut Coolouts "Halloween Party Songs"

(Dirtnap) The best Halloween records I ever spun 1.) a copy of the "Bela Lugosi is Dead" 12" that I played at 16rpm as the soundtrack to a Maze of Darkness I made in my apartment as part of a haunted house. 2.) When we got too lazy to keep starting the record over every half hour or so we switched to the locked groove noise outro on Sonic Youth "Evol" (I think, does that have a locked groove?). Anyhoo, that's moot now, because I should have just put this record on, torn down the black sheets and garbage bags, got rid of the tilting pallets on the floor, turned on the lights, and just had everyone dance like rabid werewolves to joyful ditties about monsters crashing regular people's parties! This is a genuine joyful novelty single! Best record of the 21st Century by far (sorry Beyonce and Michael Buble).

Globes on Remote "The Woo-Hoo-Hoo"

(www.globesonremote.com) If raves involved dance parties in your grandma's rec room with the neighborhood kids and the drugs of choice were sugar cereal and pixie sticks instead of X and coke than this would be the best rave band ever.