All posts by pk

Good morning, E, Negative Work. Post-long weekend we may feel negative work, but you should feel Negative Work. Microtonal lines haunting the slashed ferocity of Zedek’s guitar and voice, over menaced drums. The work for this second album shows, an even fuller blend of their Come/Neptune/Karate/etc backgrounds. All those bands end with E, this week starts with E. Get negative.

E’s album Negative Work, pictured here in all its glory

Good morning, David Bowie, Diamond Dogs. 44 years old, and still confused after all this time. Birthed during dystopian 70s, dreaming of a 1984 musical, its birthday falls into a similar milieu (or worse). Always seems an autumn album, spring gives it a different cast. Hope? Maybe. Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)’s dark politics all too fitting. Let’s all be Rebel Rebels this Memorial Day!

Bowie’s Diamond Dogs, shown here in all its carnivalesque hues.

Good morning, Unnatural Ways, s/t. Back into more Unnatural Ways. Unsettled times demand unsettled music. Throbs and incantations— ev-ry-thing-is-be-ing-re-cord-ed—reverb vaults, hammondy pulse, syncs with train-morn shake-rattle of transport, escape. Then waltz into our electrified past, ok?

Good morning, Poster Children, Grand Bargain! Our 90s-past Tool of the Man returning after 14 years referencing policy 90 years past. We’ll take it. Rock-pop fury, people power, tight downbeat thud too strong, as ever, for radio. Finger-picking into greatness for its second act. Slow closer Safe Tonight may be one of their best. Trust the kids.


Good morning, Unnatural Ways, s/t. A lumpy haunted organ leads to Coltrane/Crimson-damaged shred-finger-pickin. Instrumental when not fronted by a Siouxsian cave peal. Into @avaavamendoza’s art-damaged rock garden we go. Unnatural, but naturally so. You’ll see.

The occasion of a royal wedding is a good reason to think of some Crass lyrics, like these from “Yes Sir, I Will”

The wealthy obscene with their obscene wealth Applaud the carnage from their grandstand It's as if they were at Ascot laying their bets; Five to one on the Four Horsemen!  They believe that money can buy them out of the responsibility That they have for the world that they bleed dry They are the true pornographers The real stylists in human perversion Rich educated tarts sit dumbly by Watching their fortunes rise and fall In the neatly pressed pin-striped trousers of the City Debutante whores... in rich men's castles  The ruling elite with their puppet figurehead Queen Elizabeth the Second, Regina-Vagina Strut about on the million of bodies That they have sacrificed to gain their position Who are these leaders but those who have made violence pay? Who are they but the inheritors of their ancestors greed and theft? Their blood stained flags are rags to our future Tattered remnant of our individual rights These rulers are common murderers and thieves But still we bow before them For how long will the masses be so pathetically manipulated by God, Queen and Country!?