Hello and welcome to this week’s Foundation Vinyl newsletter! And it is another packed edition to get stuck into:

• Featured New Arrivals from Golpe and Quarantine
• Austerity Forever, featuring ConSec, Enemy, and Lethal
• Shows and Tours, including full details of Damage Is Done 4 plus freshly announced shows from Pest Control and Restraining Order
• Coming Soon, with a slew of cracking new releases in the offing

It is always an exciting day when a new set of records lands at our door, and this consignment, which arrived a few weeks back, was particularly anticipated.  The wait to achieve sufficient critical mass to make the shipping costs viable and its then rather leisurely journey from the US via Poland had rather whetted the appetite.  And while I do check out records via Bandcamp, it is really just to taste them – it’s not until the physical record is in my hands that I allow myself to get fully stuck-in.  Happily, I was not disappointed.

KAPOW!!  Swirling saxophone seizes the attention before Enemy lock into their infectiously ferocious stride, a rampantly fluid rhythm section fuelling their blistering debut LP, Maladjusted.  KRUNCH!!  Still reeling, I’m promptly floored again in brutal fashion as ConSec strap me to the Wheel Of Pain for a lesson in searing, high-octane hardcore.  THWACK!!  And as I pick myself up off the floor, Lethal stomp all over me once again with the relentless, nihilistic precision of Lethal’s Hardcore Hit Parade.

These are a great trio of records to listen to in close proximity to one other.  Straight-up US hardcore played with fierce intensity, but each displaying the craft and invention to render their own very distinctive take.  But as I listened, there was also a powerful lyrical connection that became increasingly evident.  Now that hardcore bands often share similar lyrical preoccupations is hardly news.  There was a unity, however, to not only the focus, but also the specificity of the language that was powerfully consistent.

‘Can’t afford to live, Can’t afford to die…Digging my own grave, I’m living on a killing wage’ (Killing Wage by Enemy)

The theme was that of the modern-day work environment.  Challenging the ideological underpinnings of our economic system has long been a foundational theme for many hardcore bands.  However, in wider society, economics has become a widely depoliticised subject, the realm of the technocrat, now that it has been settled that there is no alternative to the fabled market forces.  Needless to say, this depoliticisation should not be mistaken for an actual absence of politics, as the foreclosure of debate and the enforced consensus is clearly serving a political agenda.

‘Working for nothing, and living for less, pointless life, never getting rest, I’m already dead, a pig slowly bled’ (When Will I Sleep? by Lethal)

And work is one of the arenas that this political agenda is most evident.  The origins lie in the austerity that is so integral to the survival of capitalist economies.  Many aspects of our current economic inequality are rooted in how the modern-day state has been so aggressively reconstituted to serve the needs of capital – there is always much talk of shrinking the state, but the markets have, in fact, repurposed the state to create and protect their commercial ‘opportunities’.  But the roots of austerity economics run even deeper.

‘My whole life and everyone I see, has been forged with a shield made of meat’ (Meat Shield by ConSec)

A book that I found hugely insightful in understanding the historical origins of austerity is The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity And Paved The Way To Fascism by political economist Clara Mattei.  It is a comparative study, firmly contextualised in our present, of how austerity economic policies were deployed with remarkable synchronicity in both democratic Britain and authoritarian Italy in the aftermath of World War I to stifle social resistance, fracture worker co-operation, and protect the interests of capital.

It is intriguing to trace the origins of austerity and identify the connections between then and our current malaise, not least in highlighting how the disingenuous narrative of balancing the books continues to be used to justify policies that are, in reality, focused on promoting the entrenchment of privilege at the expense of wider society.  Often, we think of austerity as being a case of cutting budgets to welfare provision and reducing public services and these are, of course, a central element.  But Mattei also very powerfully illustrates how regressive taxation, privatisation, wage repression, and employment deregulation are equally integral to its execution.

‘Morals for the masses, your views, ideals, flavor of the weak…validate your urban fear, social fad, moral gag’ (Compromise by Enemy)

Which brings us swinging back to the present day where much work is characterised by insecurity masquerading as ‘flexibility’, zero-hour contracts, stagnating wages, and surveillance capitalism, all in the context of soaring costs of living and entrenched inequality.  For the past four decades, the balance between labour and capital, or people and profit, has relentlessly swung back to where it was prior to the new social settlement that followed on from World War II.  Already the implications are seeping into political life with the othering of the disadvantaged and marginalised, as if bizarrely they are somehow the cause, echoing the march of European authoritarianism throughout the 1920s and 1930s as it morphs into contemporary populist forms.

‘Must be nice to be so naïve, and to think they’re just gonna change, usefully standing aside, you’re just more of their prey’ (Quick To Forget by ConSec)

I must admit I always try and take an optimistic view in these notes as change is possible, alternatives can be realised.  But in a week where we’ve seen the supposedly social democratic leader of our next likely government praising a former Prime Minister who set in motion the processes that have ravaged our public services, was complicit in the cover-up of the gross police negligence that caused 97 deaths at Hillsborough, and sanctioned state violence against striking workers, it does cause a pause for thought.  These three records vividly bring to life the attrition that this cycle of enforced austerity inflicts and remind us that it would indeed be naïve to expect those in power to be the agents of change.  And to be clear – they also boast some utterly fabulous tunes to boot!

This section lays no claims to being a definitive listing!  It is simply gigs coming up in London that catch my eye and that I think people who read this newsletter might be interested in.  I will always try and highlight where a show forms part of a wider UK tour.

8^th December Portrayal of Guilt, Street Grease, Death Goals (Moth Club)

9^th December The Grey, Aeir, Under The Ashes (The Bird’s Nest)

10^th December Short Fuse, Caged, Depravity plus more (New Cross Inn / UK Tour)

13^th December Helmet plus support (The Dome)

14^th December Jesus Piece, Stiff Meds plus more (Oslo / UK Tour)

16^th December Knuckledust, Last Orders, Living Martyr plus more (Black Heart)

12^th-14^th January Reality Unfolds Fest (New Cross Inn / including Fuming Mouth, Genocide Pact, Iron Deficiency, Wreathe plus many more)

13^th January Venomous Concept plus support (Downstairs at The Dome / CANCELLED)

17^th January Restraining Order, Layback, Prey , Dynamite, Tethered (New Cross Inn)

18^th January Samiam, Sam Russo, Uzumaki (New Cross Inn)

27^th January Pizzatramp, Rash Decision, Rank plus more (New Cross Inn)

5^th February Mutually Assured Destruction plus support (New Cross Inn)

24^th February Fiddlehead, MS Paint, Wrong Man (The Garage / UK Tour)

25^th February Pest Control, Demonstration of Power plus more (Black Heart / UK Tour)

29^th February Damage Is Done 4 – Fairytale, Take It In Blood, Bullsshit, Subdued, Ikhras, Violent Offence (New River Studios)

1^st March Damage Is Done 4 – Fugitive, Illusion, Ninebar, Pest Control, Imposter, Instructor plus more (Colour Factory)

2^nd March Damage Is Done 4 – Framtid, Quarantine, The Flex, T.S. Warspite, Stingray, The Annihilated, Mazandaran  plus more (Colour Factory)

3^rd March Damage Is Done 4 – Visibly High, Rat Cage, Layback, Träume, Middleman, Turbo plus more (New River Studios)

9^th March Opium Lord, Torpor, Jotnarr, Harrowed (New Cross Inn)

2^nd April Spaced, Going Off, Shooting Daggers, Ikhras (New Cross Inn / UK Tour)

Cut Piece ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Sabotage/Dirt Cult)

Daydream ‘Reaching For Eternity’ 12-inch (Sabotage/Black Water)

False Fed ‘Let Them Eat Fake’ 12-inch (Neurot)

Hubert Selby Jr Infants ‘Have You Ever Seen A Crow?…Or An Eel?’ 12-inch (Scene Report)

Long Knife ‘Curb Stomp Earth’ 12-inch (Sabotage/Black Water)

Pageninetynine ‘Document #8’ 12-inch (Persistent Vision)

Paint It Black ‘Famine’ 12-inch (Revelation)

Pi$$er ‘Too Busy Eating Gruel…’ 12-inch (Scene Report)

Racetraitor ‘Creation And The Timeless Order Of Things’ 12-inch (Good Fight)

Screensaver ‘Decent Shapes’ 12-inch (Upset The Rhythm)

Stress Positions ‘Harsh Reality’ 12-inch (Three One G)

Syndrome 81 ‘Prisons Imaginaires’ 12-inch (Sabotage/Black Water)

Tozcos ‘Infernal’ 12-inch (Quality Control HQ)

Vintage Crop ‘Springtime’ 7-inch (Upset The Rhythm)

Hello and welcome to this week’s Foundation Vinyl newsletter! Plenty to get stuck into this week:

• Featured New Arrivals from Mutant Strain, Golpe, and Woodstock 99 plus a Savageheads restock
• Fictitious Afterlives, featuring By The Grace Of God, Die Young, and Franz Nicolay
• Shows and Tours, including new dates from Stiff Meds and Venomous Concept
• Coming Soon, with some cracking co-releases between Sabotage and Black Water Records

And also just a quick thank you to everyone who was able to snap up a record or two over the past two weeks to support the Fisher FC fundraiser on behalf of Time & Talents.  We were able to donate £100 and the appeal overall raised £834.

As I was writing last week’s Dark Myths, Venomous Realities, which explored Alex CF’s (Fall of Efrafa, Carnist, Morrow, and Wreathe) The Book of Venym: An Egalitarian Demonology, on which Wreathe’s forthcoming debut LP is based, I got to thinking of other hardcore and punk band members who have gone on to publish fictional works.

There is always a flow of memoirs and biographies that are at least hardcore punk adjacent, but the majority that I have delved into have been somewhat sterile affairs.  Tour diaries have proven rather more fertile.  Broken Summers (2004) by Henry Rollins details both his campaigning on behalf of the Memphis Three and a Rollins Band world tour between 2001 and 2003.  Despite having read it nearly twenty years ago, it remains a book still surprisingly firmly etched in my mind.  Not so much the specific details, but rather the atmosphere it evoked – a sheer relentlessness that felt an authentic, unvarnished insight into Rollins’ persona.

Forays into fiction, however, are rather rarer.  But three other examples did come to mind, each quite different to the other, and Alex CF’s work.  The first is by Franz Nicolay.  Nicolay played in the rather splendid World Inferno/Friendship Society, and then The Hold Steady, before heading out as a solo artist.  He now has a fine series of exuberant, wryly observed folk-punk albums under his belt, most recently New River.  As it happens, he also wrote perhaps my favourite tour diary, The Humourless Ladies of Border Control (2016), which I touched on in Trains, Ferries, and Water Fountains.  It is a thoroughly engaging exploration of touring Central and Eastern Europe, and his insights from Ukraine are now even more affecting.

After this, he published his first novel, Someone Should Pay For Your Pain (2021), which explores the life of a touring musician, from the days of being in a local scene punk band to becoming a solo artist. A brief flirtation with breakthrough success evaporates before the protagonist locks into a relentless touring schedule of seemingly ever-diminishing returns.  Of course, Nicolay knows aspects of this journey very well, but he also has the skill as a writer to bring it vigorously to life. The novel deftly renders the solitude of life on the road, poignantly insightful, but also laced with a delightfully dark humour.

The second novel is Cane Field (2019) by Daniel Austin.  Musically, Austin (then Daniel Albaugh) is best known as the front person for the politically charged metallic hardcore band, Die Young, who to me have always represented the sonic embodiment of the feral offspring of Catharsis and Trial. They were initially active from 2002 to 2009, including the release of the fiercely visceral 2007 full-length, Graven Images, before reforming in 2013, with the ensuing releases, such as Chosen Path and No Illusions, no less ferocious.  Renowned for their utterly relentless touring schedule during their first phase, the band is still active, but understandably rather less intensively so.

Austin has also published three poetry anthologies, but Cane Field is his only novel to date, and it tells the story of young man from the suburbs of Houston trying to get to grips with the world and the disappointments of his youth.  Not unusually for a debut novel, you again sense a strong autobiographical inspiration that also draws on Austin’s many years on the road with Die Young.  While I must admit that it didn’t entirely capture me, it is clearly a thoroughly sincere and heartfelt work, and one that convincingly depicts the emotional upheaval and uncertainties of entering adulthood.

The final of our novels is The City, Awake (2016) by Duncan Barlow, the third of four he has published.  Barlow is guitarist with By The Grace Of God (BTGOG), and prior to that Endpoint and Guilt, as well as a university lecturer in English.  BTGOG, who coincidentally also popped up in Trains, Ferries and Water Fountains, are a politically strident band hailing from Louisville, who have honed a blistering blend of surging melodic hardcore and socially thought-provoking lyrical concerns.  They released two searing LPs – Perspective and Three Steps To A Better Democracy – and the For The Love of Indie Rock EP between 1996 and 1999, before returning with 2018’s bristling Above Fear 12-inch.

The City, Awake is essentially a noir thriller reimagined through the prism of five lookalikes, who each wake up in their respective hotel rooms with no memory, and a cryptic note in their pocket.  We follow their responses to their predicament, which both mirror and interlink with each other.  In the wrong hands, there is much that could go wrong with an experimental structure of this type.  Barlow, however, manages it so adroitly that those pitfalls become its strength, and a thoroughly satisfying rhythm emerges as the layers of plot are revealed.  His pared, punchy yet lyrical prose also works effectively to conjure a darkly dystopian setting.

By definition, hardcore and punk music demands lyrically that often quite complex themes be distilled to their very essence, capable of being clearly expressed in two-to-three-minute blasts of intensity.  Not simplified, but certainly honed to their leanest form, yet in a way that effectively primes engagement with the ideas being explored.  Writing no doubt allows such ideas and themes to be examined in a more expansive and incremental form, which poses its own distinctive opportunities and challenges.  And, in each case, it is intriguing to see musicians who have brought significant pleasure begin to deploy their creative energies through an alternative medium.

www.daniel-austin.com

www.duncanbbarlow.com

www.franznicolay.com

This section lays no claims to being a definitive listing!  It is simply gigs coming up in London that catch my eye and that I think people who read this newsletter might be interested in.  I will always try and highlight where a show forms part of a wider UK tour.

24^th November Bob Mould plus support (The Garage / UK Tour)

24^th November Another Subculture Weekender (Spanners / Hellish Torment, Moist Crevice, PC World, Rubber, Skitter)

25^th November Another Subculture Weekender (Ivy House / including Gimic, Hygeine, Morreadoras, Plastics, Sniffany & The Nits)

5^th December Militarie Gun, Spiritual Cramp plus more (The Dome)

8^th December Portrayal of Guilt, Street Grease, Death Goals (Moth Club)

9^th December The Grey, Aeir, Under The Ashes (The Bird’s Nest)

10^th December Short Fuse, Caged, Depravity plus more (New Cross Inn / UK Tour)

13^th December Helmet plus support (The Dome)

14^th December Jesus Piece, Stiff Meds plus more (Oslo / UK Tour)

16^th December Knuckledust, Last Orders, Living Martyr plus more (Black Heart)

12^th-14^th January Reality Unfolds Fest (New Cross Inn / including Fuming Mouth, Genocide Pact, Iron Deficiency plus many more)

13^th January Venomous Concept plus support (Downstairs at The Dome)

18^th January Samiam, Sam Russo, Uzumaki (New Cross Inn)

27^th January Pizzatramp, Rash Decision, Rank plus more (New Cross Inn)

5^th February Mutually Assured Destruction plus support (New Cross Inn)

24^th February Fiddlehead, MS Paint, Wrong Man (The Garage / UK Tour)

29^th February – 3^rd March Damage Is Done 4 (Various Venues / including Framtid, Fugitive, Quarantine, Illusions, The Annihilated, Fairytale, The Flex, Instructor, Pest Control, Rat Cage, Subdued plus many more to be announced with ticket details on 3rd December)

9^th March Opium Lord, Torpor, Jotnarr, Harrowed (New Cross Inn)

Cut Piece ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Sabotage/Dirt Cult)

Daydream ‘Reaching For Eternity’ 12-inch (Sabotage/Black Water)

Long Knife ‘Curb Stomp Earth’ 12-inch (Sabotage/Black Water)

Syndrome 81 ‘Prisons Imaginaires’ 12-inch (Sabotage/Black Water)

Hello and welcome to this week’s Foundation Vinyl newsletter! We have a stacked line-up to enjoy:

• Featured New Arrivals from Enemy, ConSec, Lethal, and Grand Scheme
• Dark Myths, Venomous Realities, featuring Wreathe
• Fisher FC Time and Talents Fundraiser
• Shows and Tours, including the latest on next March’s Damage Is Done 4
• Coming Soon, including some great new releases from Sorry State Records

Last week, we announced a pre-order for the debut LP from Wreathe, The Land Is Not An Idle God.  Wreathe are a new crust hardcore band from London featuring members of Fall of Efrafa, Morrow, and Aboricidio.  Musically, the band build vigorously on the foundations of those three bands – roared, often layered, frequently call-and-response vocals, entwined in raucous tandem with towering melancholic riffage and a thunderous rhythm section.  A palpable rage courses through the sonic onslaught, but one that is matched with a defiant optimism that, collectively, all is not lost.

‘But in the burgeoning fruit of democracy, we find a parasite that craves all, seizes all…it will spread that rot until all are consumed.’

Lyrically, the album follows the path of Fall of Efrafa and Morrow in also being a concept album, a theme I wrote about a little while back in A Pessimist In Search of Dystopia.  This album’s source material is a work of fiction written by vocalist Alex CF, The Book of Venym: An Egalitarian Demonology, and I thought it would be interesting to explore its ideas in a little more detail.  In some senses, it is a difficult book to categorise in that, while it creates its world in remarkable detail, not all of its philosophical thoughts are explicitly explained.  Rather, it seeks to prime further reflection and interpretation around its central concepts.  The language itself is a mixture of prose and verse (and sometimes something somewhere in-between), which positions the narrator as perhaps living in the late 19^th century.  It is written almost as a stream of consciousness, as the narrator grapples with visions of humanity’s fate, conjuring images of the writer feverishly writing down their thoughts late at night by lamp, as if gripped by some spectral force.

‘To see the other as a foot stall to stand upon, to starve us of teaching so that our reasoning is impeded?’

The thrust of the narrator’s visions are focused on how humanity is becoming divorced from the natural word that gave birth to it, driven both by the consequences of human evolution and its own innate sense of superiority.  These dreams introduce us to the philosophy and invocation of a pantheon of pagan nature deities, known as The Increscent, who represent the act of becoming greater than oneself, and who will be provoked to action by humanity’s behaviour.  I will leave the specifics of the world of The Increscent for individual readers to dive into, but I would like to specifically explore the wider themes that the book seeks to address through the creation of this world.  I can’t claim to be a huge reader of fantasy, but while it can often function as a form of escapism, mythologies can also be a powerful way of examining issues from alternative perspectives and escaping the strictures of polarised contemporary debates.

‘The Beast, the great Enemy knows no other course of action, and its tentacles wriggle where none are watching.  They will grow, coil into new patterns, new interpretations of the same strategies.  Divide and conquer, divide and conquer’.

On my reading, The Book of Venym has three overarching themes.  The first we have already touched on, namely humanity’s increasing dislocation from the natural world.  Traced through the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions to the future of the narrator’s visions and our present, the narrator maps how our interaction with nature has morphed from a form of mutual reciprocity into seeking to harness nature for purposes of exploitation and extraction.  These processes irrevocably damage nature, inhibiting the necessary processes of renewal.  This first theme feeds into the second, which is how just as greed has ruptured humanity’s relationship with nature, so it has corrupted its relationship with itself.  An ideological hegemony has been forged that privileges a creed of rampant individualism over that of the collective, valorising the ‘free market’ at the expense of the social good.  A society distorted to the benefit of corporate interests and profit.  This in turn gives rise to the third theme, which is a culture that is fuelled by a distrust of the ‘other’.  As economic inequality is exacerbated and public infrastructure degraded by these warped priorities, so people’s insecurity sows the need to blame someone, often the already most marginalised, to reconcile what is happening.  So, this is a tale not of conspiracy, but of how governing rationalities saturate a society’s thinking and shape its perception of itself.

‘We must reclaim our sense of egalitarianism…We cannot rest until all are seen, all are listened to, and all are heard’.

And the book’s rallying cry to address this cycle is for a rebirth of egalitarianism.  In other words, a recognition of the power of community and the realisation that working together for the collective good has the potential to be far more powerful than the forces arrayed against.  Importantly, this notion of egalitarianism appears cognisant of the need to recognise the intersections of both economic and social identities, which have become increasingly disconnected in the public discourse.  As such, exploring, in rather different ways, some of the ideas examined when discussing the brilliant new Habak / Lagrimas split LP in Hardcore Is Where The Home Is.

The Book of Venym is a beautifully illustrated, relatively slender book.  But it is a work rich in detail and layers that I suspect will reveal themselves in new ways as it is revisited.  So, I hope my initial reading does justice to some of the ideas and concepts that are being teased out.  Anyway, for those of you who like your crushing riffs partnered with lyrical ideas of equivalent heft, The Land Is Not An Idle God should hit that sweet spot very nicely indeed.

The Land Is Not An Idle God is up for pre-order now at www.foundationvinyl.com.  This is the European pressing from Alerta Antifascista Records.  The North American pressing is being handled by Persistent Vision Records.  You can listen to the album at www.wreathepunx.bandcamp.com and you can find The Book of Venym: An Egalitarian Demonology at www.artofalexcf.com.  All quotes are taken from The Book of Venym.

Fisher FC, Bermondsey’s supporter-owned and volunteer-run non-league football club, are hosting their annual Community Day this Saturday (18th November) versus Whitstable Town.

The club are dedicating their fundraising efforts to support local South London charity, Time and Talents.  We would like to do our bit to support the appeal, so we will be donating 10% of all sales (bar shipping costs) between 2nd and 16th November (ends tomorrow!).

So, if there’s a record you’ve had your eye on for a little while, now is the time to make it happen!

And if you live in London and enjoy your football, but are tired of extortionate prices, plastic seats, and bad beer, get your yourself down to the Fish for the game.  Fisher will be donating £1 for each paying spectator to Time & Talents, as well as running a fund-raising half-time raffle on their behalf.

This section lays no claims to being a definitive listing!  It is simply gigs coming up in London that catch my eye and that I think people who read this newsletter might be interested in.  I will always try and highlight where a show forms part of a wider UK tour.

18^th November Axegrinder, Civilised Society?, Zero Again plus more (New Cross Inn)

19^th November Chain Whip, Johnny Throttle, Shade (New River Studios / UK Tour)

21^st November Slapshot, Death Before Dishonor plus more (New Cross Inn / UK Tour)

24^th November Bob Mould plus support (The Garage / UK Tour)

24^th November Another Subculture Weekender (Spanners / Hellish Torment, Moist Crevice, PC World, Rubber, Skitter)

25^th November Another Subculture Weekender (Ivy House / including Gimic, Hygeine, Morreadoras, Plastics, Sniffany & The Nits)

8^th December Portrayal of Guilt, Street Grease, Death Goals (Moth Club)

9^th December The Grey, Aeir, Under The Ashes (The Bird’s Nest)

10^th December Short Fuse, Caged, Depravity, plus more (New Cross Inn / UK Tour)

13^th December Helmet plus support (The Dome)

14^th December Jesus Piece plus support (Oslo)

12^th-14^th January Reality Unfolds Fest (New Cross Inn / including Fuming Mouth, Genocide Pact, Iron Deficiency plus many more)

18^th January Samiam, Sam Russo, Uzumaki (New Cross Inn)

5^th February Mutually Assured Destruction plus support (New Cross Inn)

24^th February Fiddlehead, MS Paint, Wrong Man (The Garage / UK Tour)

29^th February – 3^rd March Damage Is Done 4 (Various Venues / including Framtid, Fugitive, Quarantine, Illusions, The Annihilated, Fairytale, The Flex, Instructor, Pest Control, Rat Cage, Subdued plus many more to be announced with ticket details on 3rd December)

9^th March Opium Lord, Torpor, Jotnarr, Harrowed (New Cross Inn)

Golpe ‘La Colpa È Solo Tua’ 12-inch (Sorry State)

Mutant Strain ‘Murder of Crows’ 12-inch (Sorry Sate)

Woodstock 99 ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Sorry State)

Hello and welcome to this week’s Foundation Vinyl newsletter!  A packed edition this week, so let’s get stuck in right way:

• Featured New Arrivals from Closet Witch, Mazandaran, Möney, and Fredag den 13:e
• Synth Resistance Is Futile, featuring Home Front and Subdued
• Wreathe Pre-Order: The Land Is Not An Idle God
• Fisher FC Time and Talents Fundraiser
• Shows and Tours, including further news on the Damage Is Done 4 line-up
• Coming Soon, including some great new releases from Discos Enfermos, 11PM, Not For The Weak, Phobia, and Sorry State

So, a couple of weekends back, I was confronted with something of a dilemma, with two very enticing gigs on the Friday (Stingray / T.S. Warspite) and Saturday (Home Front / Subdued).  Back-to-backs are quite difficult to engineer these days (yep, Londoner complaining about there being too many great gigs to go to…), so a choice was going to have to be made.  All things being equal, I would most probably have leaned towards catching Stingray on the back of their quite brilliant new LP, Fortress Britain, but then the flyer language caught my eye: Fancy Dress Mandatory.  And if there is one thing that I hold a deep, unyielding aversion to beyond all things, it is fancy dress.  Decision made, and let’s face it Home Front and Subdued is no bad back-up is it?

Anyway, I got down to New River Studios (loving the new layout), unfortunately, just as Rifle concluded their set but was well ensconced by the time Subdued hit the stage.  Now you would be unlikely to claim that Subdued have quite the stage presence of some of their more energetic peers, but every time I have caught them over the last year, the sheer intensity of their bristling anarcho-punk delivery has gone up yet another impressive notch.  Central to this I suspect is their guitarist (who was also in the fabulous Permission) who never fails to conjure a seemingly instinctual onslaught that is equal parts subtlety and ferocity, fiercely disciplined yet also boldly pushing the limits.

And so, to the headliners, Home Front.  Now I must confess that I can sometimes be rather slow in adopting new forms of instrumentation into my punk palette.  I remember feeling rather uneasy when first entranced by the shuddering drum machines of the early industrial pioneers of Godflesh and Pitchshifter, a sense that took me some years to fully shed.  And while for some reason a spot of violin or cello never worried, the appearance of keyboards was rarely welcomed.  It just didn’t seem to fit, well, with my preconceptions anyway.  Because let’s face it, how is a keyboard more ‘artificial’ than an electric guitar and a battery of effects pedals?  Although to be fair, my earliest encounters with synths in hardcore punk often seemed a touch inorganic, flirting with an idea, rather than exploring it with conviction.

However, the sheer weight of great new electronic-led punk that has been released over the past few years has undeniably swept away any last vestiges of reluctance on my part.  Indeed, the term synth-punk feels increasingly reductive (although it is a shorthand I will no doubt continue to employ liberally!) bearing in mind the diversity of where this form of punk is being taken – from the dance-orientated dark wave of Adult’s Becoming Undone (2022) and the elegiac beauty of Tulips’ Tangled In Transition (2023), to the wonderfully understated textures of Optic Sink’s Glass Blocks (2023), that has seeped irresistibly into a position of almost constant rotation on my turntable.

But the release that perhaps terminally broke the dam for me was Home Front’s cracking debut LP, Think Of The Lie (2021).  I found its euphoric melancholy pretty hard to resist as they took some vivid 1980s’ influences from The Cure to Echo And The Bunnymen via The Eurythmics and reanimated them with a vibrant electronic punk twist.  And this year’s Games of Power took things into even more expansive directions.

And Home Front’s recipe is also particularly well suited to the live setting, which can pose challenges to some of the more electronic-orientated bands.  Firstly, their sound is imbued with a punk energy and sheer danceability that translates well to the stage.  Secondly, keyboardist / drummer Clint Frazier sheds his instruments to take on the role of frontperson, and clearly revels in doing so, ensuring a pronounced physicality to the band’s performance.  And, finally, the touring band (Home Front record as a duo) are not only accomplished musicians, but clearly throw themselves into proceedings with impressive abandon from the pounding drummer and sweat-drenched keyboardist to the swirling bassist, who spent a considerable portion of the night swamped in the stage’s cobweb decorations.

Well, it proved quite the show and thankfully, for this miserable killjoy at least, there was barely any fancy dress on display at all…

We are delighted to announce a pre-order for the European pressing from Alerta Antifascista Records of Wreathe’s debut album, The Land Is Not An Idle God.  It is available to pre-order from our store from today and is expected to ship in late February 2024.  Persistent Vision Records are handling the North American pressing and release.

Featuring members of Fall of Efrafa, Morrow, and Arboricidio, this is the debut LP from London’s Wreathe.  Roared, often layered, call-and-response vocals interplay with towering melancholic crust riffage and a thunderous rhythm section to deliver a sonic battery of invigorating, defiant intensity.  The album’s lyrics are based on vocalist Alex CF’s book, The Book of Venym: An Egalitarian Demonology.  This is a fictional exploration of the philosophy and invocation of a pantheon of pagan nature deities, known as the Increscent, ‘a battle cry for the much-beleaguered idea of compassion above self-interest and bigotry’.  Guest vocalist appearance from Autarch’s Jamie Pratt.

Fisher FC, Bermondsey’s supporter-owned and volunteer-run non-league football club, are hosting their annual Community Day on Saturday 18th November versus Whitstable Town.

The club are dedicating their fundraising efforts to support local South London charity, Time and Talents.  We would like to do our bit to support the appeal, so we will be donating 10% of all sales (bar shipping costs) between 2nd and 16th November.

So, if there’s a record you’ve had your eye on for a little while, now is the time to make it happen!

And if you live in London and enjoy your football, but are tired of extortionate prices, plastic seats, and bad beer, get your yourself down to the Fish for the game.  Fisher will be donating £1 for each paying spectator to Time and Talents, as well as running a fund-raising half-time raffle on their behalf.

Thanks to everyone who has been able to support so far!

This section lays no claims to being a definitive listing!  It is simply gigs coming up in London that catch my eye and that I think people who read this newsletter might be interested in.  I will always try and highlight where a show forms part of a wider UK tour.

9^th November Rifle, Mindless, Catholic Block (The George Tavern / UK Tour)

9^th November Jonah Matranga plus support (The Slaughtered Lamb / UK Tour)

11^th November Diaz Brothers, Toronto Blessings, The Charlamagnes, Dinosaur Skull (Hope & Anchor / UK Tour)

12^th November Filth Is Eternal, Death Goals, How Long You Been Driving, Closed Hands (New Cross Inn)

13^th November Madball, Ironed Out, Rash Decision, False Reality (The Underworld / UK Tour)

18^th November Axegrinder, Civilised Society?, Zero Again plus more (New Cross Inn)

19^th November Chain Whip, Johnny Throttle, Shade (New River Studios / UK Tour)

21^st November Slapshot, Death Before Dishonor plus more (New Cross Inn / UK Tour)

24^th November Bob Mould plus support (The Garage / UK Tour)

24^th November Another Subculture Weekender (Spanners / Hellish Torment, Moist Crevice, PC World, Rubber, Skitter)

25^th November Another Subculture Weekender (Ivy House / including Gimic, Hygeine, Morreadoras, Plastics, Sniffany & The Nits)

8^th December Portrayal of Guilt, Street Grease, Death Goals (Moth Club)

9^th December The Grey, Aeir, Under The Ashes (The Bird’s Nest)

13^th December Helmet plus support (The Dome)

14^th December Jesus Piece plus support (Oslo)

12^th-14^th January Reality Unfolds Fest (New Cross Inn / including Fuming Mouth, Genocide Pact, Iron Deficiency plus many more)

18^th January Samiam, Sam Russo, Uzumaki (New Cross Inn)

5^th February Mutually Assured Destruction plus support (New Cross Inn)

24^th February Fiddlehead, MS Paint, Wrong Man (The Garage / UK Tour)

29^th February – 3^rd March Damage Is Done 4 (Various Venues / including Framtid, Fugitive, Quarantine, Illusions, The Annihilated, Fairytale, The Flex, Instructor, Pest Control, Rat Cage, Subdued plus many more to be announced with ticket details on 3rd December)

9^th March Opium Lord, Torpor, Jotnarr, Harrowed (New Cross Inn)

Cimiterium ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Phobia)

Consec ‘Wheel of Pain’ 12-inch (Not For The Weak)

Enemy ‘Maladjusted’ 12-inch (11PM)

Golpe ‘La Colpa È Solo Tua’ 12-inch (Sorry State)

Grand Scheme ‘Numbers Game’ 7-inch (11PM)

Hez ‘Panamaniacs’ 12-inch (Discos Enfermos)

Kinetic Orbital Strike ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Phobia)

Lethal ‘Lethal’s Hardcore Hit Parade’ 7-inch (11PM)

Mutant Strain ‘Murder of Crows’ 12-inch (Sorry Sate)

Woodstock 99 ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Sorry State)

Hello and welcome to this week’s Foundation Vinyl newsletter!  Lots of cracking new music to discuss this week plus news of a charity fundraiser we hope you may be able to support:

• Featured New Arrivals, including the Destruct / Dissekerad / Rat Cage / Scarecrow split Screaming Death LP plus new releases from Stiff Meds and Total Nada as well as a Hellnation reissue
• Footballing Fish and Community DIY
• Shows and Tours
• Coming Soon, including some great new releases from Circus Of The Macabre, Discos Enfermos, 11PM, Not For The Weak, Phobia, Quality Control HQ, and Sorry State

Football, like music, is best done DIY.  It can act as a hugely positive force for empowering communities at a time when much professional sport can seem like simply another vehicle for fiancialised excess.  And you don’t get much more DIY than Bermondsey’s Fisher FC – a wholly supporter-owned, volunteer-run mutual society.

The club was founded in 2009, when its predecessor Fisher Athletic went bankrupt, with supporters determined to rebuild their club as a community enterprise.  Initially exiled to play in Dulwich, Fisher secured a return to Bermondsey and Rotherhithe in 2016 at the St Paul’s Sports Ground.  Since then, the Fish have gone from strength to strength, and are now firmly embedded back in their local community, including providing junior football for 200-plus kids from age 5 up to 18.

Each year, the club hosts an annual Community Day, which is this year being held on Saturday 18^th November at the match versus Whitstable Town.  The club are dedicating their efforts to raising money for local charity Time & Talents that has been working to strengthen and support neighbourhood ties in the local area for over 100 years, having initially been founded in the 1870s to challenge the gender status quo.

We would like to do our bit to support.  So, 10% of all our sales (bar shipping costs) from tomorrow (Thursday 2nd November) until Thursday 16th November will be donated to Time & Talents via the club fundraising appeal.

So, if there’s a record you’ve had your eye on for a little while, now is the time to make it happen!

And if you live in London and enjoy your football, but are tired of extortionate prices, plastic seats, and bad beer, get your yourself down to the Fish for the game.  Fisher will be donating £1 for each paying spectator to Time & Talents, as well as running a fund-raising half-time raffle on their behalf.

This section lays no claims to being a definitive listing!  It is simply gigs coming up in London that catch my eye and that I think people who read this newsletter might be interested in.  I will always try and highlight where a show forms part of a wider UK tour.

3^rd November Last Wishes, Splitknuckle,  Dynamite, False Reality plus more (New River Studios)

4^th November Pest Control, Hellbound, T.S. Warspite, Stiff Meds, Layback plus more  (MOT / SOLD OUT)

9^th November Jonah Matranga plus support (The Slaughtered Lamb / UK Tour)

11^th November Diaz Brothers, Toronto Blessings, The Charlamagnes, Dinosaur Skull (Hope & Anchor / UK Tour)

12^th November Filth Is Eternal, Death Goals, How Long You Been Driving, Closed Hands (New Cross Inn)

13^th November Madball, Ironed Out, Rash Decision, False Reality (The Underworld / UK Tour)

18^th November Axegrinder, Civilised Society?, Zero Again plus more (New Cross Inn)

19^th November Chain Whip, Johnny Throttle, Shade (New River Studios / UK Tour)

21^st November Slapshot, Death Before Dishonor plus more (New Cross Inn / UK Tour)

24^th November Bob Mould plus support (The Garage / UK Tour)

24^th November Another Subculture Weekender (Spanners / Hellish Torment, Moist Crevice, PC World, Rubber, Skitter)

25^th November Another Subculture Weekender (Ivy House / including Gimic, Hygeine, Morreadoras, Plastics, Sniffany & The Nits)

8^th December Portrayal of Guilt, Street Grease, Death Goals (Moth Club)

9^th December The Grey, Aeir, Under The Ashes (The Bird’s Nest)

13^th December Helmet plus support (The Dome)

14^th December Jesus Piece plus support (Oslo)

12^th-14^th January Reality Unfolds Fest (New Cross Inn / including Fuming Mouth, Genocide Pact, Iron Deficiency plus many more)

18^th January Samiam, Sam Russo, Uzumaki (New Cross Inn)

5^th February Mutually Assured Destruction plus support (New Cross Inn)

24^th February Fiddlehead, MS Paint, Wrong Man (The Garage / UK Tour)

1^st – 3^rd March Damage Is Done IV (Various Venues / including Fugitive, Quarantine, and Illusions plus many more to be announced)

9^th March Opium Lord, Torpor, Jotnarr, Harrowed (New Cross Inn)

Cimiterium ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Phobia)

Closet Witch ‘Chiaroscuro’ 12-inch (Circle Of The Macabre)

Consec ‘Wheel of Pain’ 12-inch (Not For The Weak)

Enemy ‘Maladjusted’ 12-inch (11PM)

Fredag Den 13:e ‘Mänskliga Gränstillstånd’ 12-inch (Phobia)

Golpe ‘La Colpa È Solo Tua’ 12-inch (Sorry State)

Grand Scheme ‘Numbers Game’ 7-inch (11PM)

Hez ‘Panamaniacs’ 12-inch (Discos Enfermos)

Kinetic Orbital Strike ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Phobia)

Lethal ‘Lethal’s Hardcore Hit Parade’ 7-inch (11PM)

Mazandaran ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Quality Control HQ)

Möney ‘Punk Demo’ 7-inch (Discos Enfermos)

Mutant Strain ‘Murder of Crows’ 12-inch (Sorry Sate)

Woodstock 99 ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (Sorry State)