When I started this blog, I decided it would be unseemly to use this platform to hype the records I was releasing...I mean ya know, not that I couldn't mention them at all or whatever (click here!), but I created this outlet to talk about music that I'm personally enjoying, not records that I have some sort of interest in promoting. Well, this particular entry on the list may mean the end of that, but it's ok considering this album came out way back in 2007, and I've been jamming it on and off since then.
So, when I heard that plans to press this one up on wax had fallen through, I stepped up to take the helm. Now I may not even be releasing this particular record anyway, maybe something else, me and SJ is still talking, but no matter what happens, the record probably won't see the light of day til December or something, so I guess it doesn't matter, cause you'll have forgotten all about this by then....
For those not in the know, Social Junk is a band reigning originally from Huntington, West Virginia (now split between WV and Philly) made up of the core of Noah Anthony (currently rippin' down walls and gettin' folks sweatin' with his Night Burger project) and Heather Young (aka HNY, currently giving children nightmares with her sparse, ghostly spirit invocations) with occasional auxiliary members here and there. The band actually began as a standard four piece rock set up in 2002, but then evolved into some sort of mutant hybrid of new age folk music, shouting, scant percussion, and warbling noise, sounding frequently a little too straight for hardcore noise freaks, yet way too fucked up for the rockers....I first saw them in 2005, while wild man Zack Kouns (who is possibly the re-incarnation of wild man Wild Man Fischer) was still a member of the group, where they improvised a fantastically bizarre set, utilizing all kinds of gadgets I had never seen before, and shouting incomprehensibly while a slow groove rumbled far beneath the surface. Since then I've probably seen the band at least fifty times (in the interest of full disclosure: one of my previous bands did tour with them in 2008), and still they continue to amaze me.
But we're talking about records here, not shows. So what's up with SJ on record? Well, it depends. Their pre-2007 output runs the gamut from relatively straight ahead rock and folk, to drilling harshness and long winded atmospheric spook jams. Some of it is great, some of it is unlistenable; but while the band's earliest material occasionally lacks in ear-appeal, it's existence is actually quite important if only for the fact that it laid the groundwork for the two fantastic records they released in 2007 after reconciling their contradictory musical tendencies into one serious monster of a band. The first was Offering, the second, Dirty Cloud. What changed, you ask? Well, gone are the meandering blowouts of 2006's Trailer Witch and the dry muck of 2005's Champs, replaced instead with meticulously planned and orchestrated SONGS. (Also in the interest of full disclosure: most of the rest of this piece was taken from a write-up I penned back in December of 2007. chalk it up to laziness).
It's hard to talk about Dirty Cloud without mentioning Offering; whether the band intended it or not, I very much consider the albums companion pieces, and if Offering is some sort of sick desert nightmare in which you get sand in your eyes and your house burns down (and it most certainly is), Dirty Cloud is nothing if not it's somber afterthought, coming off like one final stroll through the wasteland that used to be your sanity. Not nearly as as ugly as it's predecessor, many of the songs, such as the nine-minute 'Bloodletting', instead of building into massive wasteland proportions cruise to a peaceful warm place, offering droning, uneasy comfort instead of the violent bone-shattering aggression present on Offering. Additionally, Young's angelic vocals are more prominently featured, while Anthony's vocals are much calmer in general and often carry heavy effects processing. The album still has it's share of noisers of course, 'Lands or Sands' sounds like someone trying to yell at you from across the bridge in a panic inducing traffic jam and 'Ramblin' Pines' sounds like the support beams holding that bridge snapping as easily as a rubber band while AM radio plays, barely audible on your car stereo; overall however, Dirty Cloud tends to hover somewhere above the melee like some barely visible glow through the, uh, clouds (yeah I know, real creative descriptive writing huh?). Anyway, I think there is always something to be said for an album that you can create and maintain your own concept around independent of the artist's vision. Both Offering and Dirty Cloud (perhaps my all time faves by SJ, for sure both in the top three, which ain't no joke when considering the band has like twenty or something out there) are such records, and the creepy crud that they shore up in my mind freaks me out pretty hard, which is why I love them so much. Highly recommended to anyone with an open mind. To obtain music, write to the band here, then go check out Noah's rad tape label, R.T. Champs here.
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