All Gone Records New Bandcamp Special

Detroit’s answer to Xpressway or Siltbreeze, All Gone Records has been at it way out on the fringe since 2009. I’m guessing it’s mainly one or two anti-social people with drinking and/or drug problems, but that’s the majority of decent underground music. This crew worships the 4-track, and in this day and age that is an aesthetic choice, whereas in the original wave it was really the only option for home recorders. But why not choose it? 4-tracks are beautiful instruments unto themselves, and software developers are now emulating them for their digital plugins. That’s the recording quality of All Gone; the music ranges from PRICK DECAY type kitchen noise experiments to more DADAMAH style ramshackle electric folk rock with wasted vocals. THE BIBS were the flagship band and brought the most song-oriented work. They released a rather brilliant LP on Soft Abuse a few years ago, still one of my favorite LPs of the last ten years, but the new bandcamp page pulls out a few tape gems released in editions of zero. The label has a connection with the like-minded Albert’s Basement from Australia, so we also get tapes by some of their artists. STRANGE STAINS combines warbled childlike vocal melodies with dark throbbing Casio pulses, while MAD NANNA (who maybe deserve their own column) made melted atonal early DEAD C -ish rock, a term I’m using very loosely. I’m very excited to see All Gone are going digital. It’s been difficult to hear most of this hermetic and wonderful noise… hope they keep posting ‘em…

Bonus Listening:

Writing about All Gone’s connection to Albert’s Basement reminded me of a defunct (?) Australian band I wanted to write about, LOVE CHANTS. This band lived in the broken-down cobwebby world of early JANDEK and LOREN MAZZACANE CONNORS. A couple thin sounding guitar pluck and twang sad notes while someone gently howls and mumbles over top. You could also mention CODEINE, cuz they occasionally move along a depressed beat, but this is way looser and more mangled.