Home Blitz – All Through the Year EP (Sophomore Lounge)

I stumbled on Daniel DiMaggio in 2007 when I played a show in NYC with his Jandekian art band, Car Commercials. But he came out swinging a few years earlier as Home Blitz with a killer single that resembled Modern Lovers demos. With such a strong grasp of melody and noise, he was poised to get bigger during the “garage pop” 2010s- era, but instead he stuck to the underground with a string of bizarro records that touched on power-pop, UK folk-rock, noise collages and at the top of this colorful pyramid, his guiding light: Game Theory and their Paisley Underground-adjacent new wave sounds. HB is back with another totally bonkers work of art. I don’t know if I can even describe this blend of Milk N Cookies, drum machines and cracked actor piano recitations. Incredible String Band produced a freeform acid musical called “U”, that probably had something to do with Scientology. I feel like Daniel might have heard this record and took it as a gauntlet thrown down, another mad genius Home Blitz record in a string of many.

A Mt.St.Mtn. Records Appreciation

This label seems to be snatching up all my favorite Bay Area tapes and putting them on wax. Back in 2009, Mt.St.Mtn. put out one of the greatest Bay singles of all time, The Mantles “Don’t Lie”, a timeless track that ranks with any great 45 ever made: Lexicon Devil, La Bamba, Flipper’s Getaway…you name it. There’s also an old 45 by the underrated drone-folk artist Fursaxa and a newish LP by Blues Lawyer, who sound a bit like 100 Flowers. The Mantles record is long gone (Discogs has it hovering at $18), but check out the brand-new vinyl editions of Cindy and RE Seraphin, both excellent and reviewed in past columns.

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