Labels: Shorter Recordings
Review by: james pacanowski
If it seems like this is the only band/artist I ever review on here nowadays, it’s because it pretty much is. There’s not a whole lot more I can add about Graham Repulski I have not mentioned precisely 4 times before; he’s an avid follower of the Robert Pollard school of songwriting, distorting poppy indie rock songs into short, occasionally jarring bursts of noise and melodicism. Like if your copy of The Verlaine’s ‘Death & The Maiden’ 7″ had warped, or you played The Mice’s ‘Scooter’ at the wrong speed. The mastering is even done by Todd Tobias, which pretty much completes the GBV comparison.
The first side of this cassette is the Lineman Poems EP, and it kicks off in miserable fashion with acoustic downer ‘Rancid Hearts’, which seems to borrow heavily from the Pollard school of symbolism as well as it talks about robots, vampires and beer. Other stand out tracks on this side include the aptly named ‘Tight Thuds’ and the mercifully shimmering instrumental track ‘I’m Not An Earthquake’ that breaks up the misery briefly before slamming straight back in to the broken music box sounding jumble of ‘Adding Madly’.
The second side is the Liquid Pig Heart EP, which begins with the fine but relatively forgetful ‘Piss on Ice’. This side – and the entire tape – is highlighted however by the following track, the magnificent ‘Rip Van Winkle’; smouldering, sad and psychedelic, it’s about as interesting as an indie rock song can get. It’s immediately followed by the quiet and wistful ‘Man Behind The Sun’, before ending on ‘Asleep At The Deep’ – a thick, jangling song that sounds like a cut off of an 80’s Flying Nun comp, only layered over itself multiple times.
There’s yet more to come from this astonishingly prolific artist in the near future, but now is as good a time as any to get yourself acquainted with Graham Repulski.