Thanks to the inexplicable popularity of my Submit Music page — along with the endless number of releases I get via HumanHuman, Groover and SharePro — I always have a massive digital backlog of albums, EPs, singles and videos awaiting my perusal. Here’s another recent must-hear, along with the Bandcamp link so you can buy the music straight from the source. Tell ’em I sent ya. And if you’ve got something I need to hear, send it my way. If I think you’re half as good as you think you are, I just might include you next time.
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “First recorded and released a decade ago, No Two People Are Not On Fire, the seminal album by Birmingham band Tsien, has been fully remixed and remastered and available on all streaming services for the first time. Tsien (say: Shen), the band that had a local cult following, bring their brand of genre-hopping, raw aggression to the digital realm. And I do mean raw — it was recorded on a potato in a shitty lockup in central Birmingham with a budget of precisely fuck all. Treat yourself to a sonic experience like you’ve never heard before. Six microphones direct into a computer never sounded so weird.”
MY TWO CENTS: OK, so it’s 10 years old. So what? If you’ve never heard it before, it’s still new to you.
Besides, it’s not as if this long-gone U.K. outfit’s album sounds dated. In fact, it’s the freshest-sounding thing I’ve heard all week. Not to mention the most diverse — I gave up trying to count the number of genres in play halfway through the 10-minute long opening cut. And it’s just one of half a dozen freewheeling epics in attendance here — almost all of which contain a damned impressive amalgam of indie rock, post-grunge, prog, metal, thrash, math, sludge, noise, funk, and pretty much anything else under the sun. They definitely weren’t kidding about the weirdness. But it isn’t as raw-sounding as they claim. If anything, the production and sonic quality are more than tolerable. How they pulled this all off is honestly beyond me. I’m just glad they did. If you like much with an IQ higher than the bandmembers’ combined shoe sizes, you will too. For more info, check them out on Facebook.
