Selexia/Snowbeasts-split cassette, No Sides Records 2025

 

 

No Sides Records is one busy label these days. A month or so back Disaster Amnesiac received an email from the Chicago based concern with a list of late 2025 releases. It was stacked, and due to technical issues with my old ass Mac it was not possible to cop the pre-releases linked in said email. Now that their official release date is upon us, though, that's a different story, so let's start with split cassette from Selexia and Snowbeasts. This seemingly untitled album features four tunes with a twist. Each group placed one of their own tracks upon it, and then the other remixed it and placed that one on as well. Selexia leads things off with None Remain. Their original version features Cold Wave synth stabs, a propulsive sequenced beat that has an incredibly phat bass drum sound, and female vocals that show up with an icy, detached manner. The occasional sampled rando voice also arises out of the dance matrix of this song. It'd probably be perfect for a post-apocalypse dance party in some bombed out downtown American metropolis. Snowbeasts' remix of None Remain compresses the drums' sounds a bit and adds a bit more action from some sort of synthesizer, along with choral vocal touches. The main vocal track is buried a bit deeper within the mix, and it's as if a survivor of the last days were hearing it while hurrying away from post-human orcs intent on putting zombie bites on the last humans. Forged In Fire is the Snowbeasts contribution to the collaboration. This tune's programmed rhythm machine beat is a real banger: it can move your butt or your imagination, depending on whether you're seated or standing. Astute Dub influences emerge as layers are peeled back and then reapplied. Wordless vocals and chromatic keyboard riffs bring the thing home. This frenetic piece of EDM is a genuine rocker, and fans of the genre's multi-decades long aesthetics will find plenty of spookiness and urban decay with which to step to. The Selexia remix of Forged In Fire is much like the None Remain one in that the initial drum track is amended somewhat. A crackin' snare drum sound, much reminiscent to this listener of the one utilized by The Normal so many years ago, pushes its initial moments into a chilly breakdown before emerging again. A single note keyboard pulse wraps the remix up, and, again, you'll likely find yourself out on the floor, any floor, should you have any kind of heart pulse whatsoever. This split release from Selexia and Snowbeasts hits well and hard. Grab it for your New Years Eve party and treat those in attendance to some effective Dance/Trance music sounds! That's Disaster Amnesiac's birthday so don't forget to invite me, too.

Burning Palms-False Prophet; Baby Tooth Records, 2017

 

It was a few weeks ago that Disaster Amnesiac found myself drifting past the cassette section at Wooden Tooth Records on Congress St. in Tucson, a diminutive (in comparison to the vinyl focus of the store) area, yet one filled with an appealing assortment of releases, current and historical. As this drifting occurred one tape grabbed and kept my gaze: False Prophet by Tucson band Burning Palms. It just had an aura about it, one that convinced me pretty much immediately to carry it on over to the register and make it mine. Very happy to have done so, for within its duration there has been a lot of really groovy listening that's flown from the speakers of two systems a mi casita. Nightstalker starts the proceedings off and it introduces the overall aesthetic modalities of Burning Palms. The band cooked up a sound that melded Psychedelic guitar tones with elegantly simple percussive pounding and actually sung vocal parts. This blend propels songs which evoke Manchester 1979, or London 1980, or  the Los Angeles Divisions of 1981-89 and perhaps certain dudes in East San Francisco Bay circa 1999. Within these similarities though there beats the pounding heart of a band with its own originality, its own voice literally and figuratively. Physically impactful rhythmic playing of a very Stooges-like manner and hooky melodic changes characterize The Tarot. Raw Goth power. There have been times when Disaster Amnesiac has heard the lyrics of False Prophet as being some kind of Christian overcoming story, but that is probably my own subjective bias. Still, they tell the tale of some type of renunciation that was a long time coming, and they are insightful. The guitars are flavored in a deliciously South West ways, Surf Punk arpeggio spiraling out over bracing drum kit pound. On Lies, the addition of Noise touches from electronics and theremin mix with stun guitar sounds and yet another effectively simple drum performance. Burning Palms absolutely stick the ending, too. The group's more experimental side emerges on Dusk. Disaster Amnesiac has heard it as moody American Industrial Goth of a quite Cleveland 1978 mode. As I've listened to Wax & Wane, it's been wondered if this one was often used as the climactic event of Burning Palms live sets. It feels as if it could have been played for extended periods as the assembled audiences' consciousnesses aligned with those of the performers in of the moment Rock 'n Roll Bacchanalia. Not that it ever gets messy, though: another drum tight ending leads us to side B...on which The Pressure drops frenetic key changes and wild feedback which make the song. Faster paced runaway train action in the vocal department means drama! Ritual Psych moves and characteristically appealing vocal moves ride atop fuzzy guitar tones on Explode. Astute use of shakers and tambourine color and enhance the drums. Dawn and The Dagger continue the ritual feel of their predecessor on the second side of False Prophet. These two songs feel very much of a piece, and I wonder if they were performed as such when Burning Palms hit stages in Arizona and wherever else they traveled to. The latter has a very moving turnaround part after the verses that sends out those blissful melodic steps which never fails to excite. Brandon Ugstad, such a great drummer here and everywhere else on the release. A bit more aggro pacing is used on Take Me as it drives towards a breakdown. The most Metal sounding title that Burning Palms had is that of The Sword. It's a mid-paced banger of fuzzed guitar hypnosis! Harmony singing and ceremonial drumming push into a conclusion of rave up moments that end the album perfectly. Such a well performed, engineered, and sequenced document, Burning Palms members Simone Stopford, Daniel Walker, Sathya Honey, Brandon Ugstad, Steve Romaniello, and Sunanda Bruno must have mightily pleased with False Prophet. Going back to the counter at Wooden Tooth, the guy that was manning it told me that this band's members scattered to the winds a few years back. What can we do to convince them of having a reunion show here in Tucson?