Corporate Funded Killing Technology
Some Party is a newsletter sharing the latest in independent Canadian rock'n'roll, curated more-or-less weekly by Adam White. Each edition explores punk, garage, psych, and otherwise uncategorizable indie rock, drawing lines from proto to post and taking some weird diversions along the way.
I'm trying something different this week - fewer updates in a single edition. Five, to be exact, as an arbitrary limit. Maybe it's an easier read. Beats me. This isn't for your benefit.
In the past, I've likely declared that I feel little pressure to keep this newsletter comprehensive. That's a cool-guy punk rock thing to say, but it's really more of an aspiration than the truth. My brain thrives on inertia and cruelly revels at the chance to do nothing about my ever-growing inbox. So here are exactly five updates --- because five seems like a damn fine number, and it's certainly less than seven, nine, or even fifteen. We'll see how it plays out.
⌘+A+delete / breathe
S.H.I.T.: "Corporate Funded Killing Technology"
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Toronto hardcore institution S.H.I.T. recently unveiled "Corporate Funded Killing Technology," the first single from their upcoming 12" For A Better World. The new record's now available for pre-order through La Vida Es Un Mus and Iron Lung Records.
The band recorded with Tallies' Dylan Frankland at Palace Studios on April 8 (the day of the solar eclipse, if cosmic concurrencies matter to you). Fucked Up's Jonah Falco mixed new material with Arthur Rizk mastering. The seven-song set arrives on October 18, wrapped in killer artwork by vocalist Ryan Tong.
Sorry State Records' Daniel Lupton lauds the new material as a return to the guitar attack of the band's early catalogue. He raves:
"While S.H.I.T.'s previous 12" leaned into the gnarlier, more chaotic aspects of their sound, For a Better World returns to the infectious bouncy rhythms and earworm riffing that made S.H.I.T.'s 7" EPs classics of modern punk. S.H.I.T. has always been a riff machine, and For a Better World adds... to their bulging canon of monster hooks.
Like Metallica or the Ramones, S.H.I.T. writes the kind of riffs that beg you to pick up a guitar and strum along, but only the most dedicated practitioners will approach the energy of those relentless downstrokes that have lit up so many 21st-century pits..."
This release features the finished studio versions of some demos we previewed in early 2023 ("Haunted" and "Imminent Destruction"). Those tracks surfaced over a year ago, paired with Crucifix and Blitz covers. In May of 2022, S.H.I.T. issued a 7" compiling their pandemic-era "Hidden In Eternity" and "Eraser III" singles. The band's most recent LP, What Do You Stand For?, came out in 2018.
VICTIME: "M.A."
Watch on YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
This week, the noisy Québec post-punk trio VICTIME resurfaced with "M.A.," the first single from their sophomore full-length. That album, titled En conversation avec, arrives October 25 through Mothland. The new 10-track record follows a five-year silence from the group, last heard on the 2019 EP Mi-tronc, mi-jambe.
The new track percolates with industrial flourishes atop a droning undercurrent - a sample of a promised hybrid of noise rock, trip-hop, IDM, and no wave. They explain:
"It is a very delicate piece for Laurence [Gauthier-Brown]. The lyrics are very personal, the innermost words she has written to date. It is about the many aggressions the female folk have to endure on a daily basis. Musically, the piece is built around a drum loop played by Samuel [Gougoux], which was re-sampled and overdubbed with the band."
You can see "M.A." visualized in a new video from director Liam Hamilton. He commented on the piece:
"For this project, I wanted to match the experimental nature of the track with a unique visual by combining live action footage with digital scenes I had made in Blender. By printing the frames out in black and white with a thermal printer, the final product resembles early film."
VICTIME features vocalist/keyboardist Laurence Gauthier-Brown (of Ponctuation and Pure Carrière), guitarist Simone Provencher (Album), and drummer Samuel Gougoux (TDA and a recent addition to Corridor).
Chris Burns & His Going Concerns: Kablooey!
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Last week Montreal veteran Chris Burns shared Kablooey!, a rollicking ten-song full-length with his band The Going Concerns. The album arrived through Celluloid Lunch Records, the latest in a 40-year journey for Burns, who played his first gig as a teenager in 1982.
The label touts the album as "the culmination of everything [Burns] has experienced, learned, unlearned, toiled over, honed and forgotten throughout his musical adventures." That journey includes stints with Terminal Sunglasses, American Devices, Itchy Self, Nutsak, Crackpot, The Ratchet Orchestra, and most recently Thee Retail Simps (a partial list, to be sure). The record's a joy, a freewheeling rock'n'roll love letter played with an effortless swagger and a knowing wink.
Burns recorded in 2021 at Montreal's Hotel 2 Tango Studios, tracking the songs in a 48-hour stint over Halloween weekend with Thierry Amar. The band features the Simps' Joe Chamandy on guitar, Kate Erickson of Fightface on bass, and Will Glass drumming. Glass and Burns played together back during the Crackpot days.
Golden Shitters: Love Blows
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Two toilet bands in a single edition? This new shortened format's nothing but class.
Hamilton junk trio Golden Shitters have a new EP out through Ugly Pop Records. The four-song Love Blows picks up the plot from the band's debut, delivering what the label rightfully describes as "concise, furious punk rock" in the shameless lineage of Ramones. The guiding light's tinted, the label notes, with "traces of deadpan Spits barrage, snotty early Weasel tuneage, and blazing hard rock leads."
The Shitters feature Matt Ellis (Anxious Pleasers, The Vapids) and Dave Tyson (Dark Trip, Sam Coffey & the Iron Lungs) trading off on guitar and bass, backed by The Dirty Nil's Kyle Fisher on drums. Everyone's singing at one point or another.
The new record follows the band's self-titled debut LP, issued last October through Memorable But Not Honorable Records. That album spawned a live record earlier this year, with Live at Veragogo capturing the record's Halloween release show.
Look for the trio at Toronto's Velvet Underground on December 14 with DVTR and Wine Lips. A European trek is in the works for April of 2025.
Heavenly Sweetheart: "$300" (ft. Liquid Mike)
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Toronto Heavenly Sweetheart waste no time on "$300," a power-pop confection that does everything you could hope for in under two minutes. It's the third release and fifth crunchy track issued by the group this year, another hooky yet succinct outing that finds them straddling the shoulders of Teenage Fanclub and pre-excess Weezer.
Heavenly Sweetheart is another side gig from Matty Morand and Sam Bielanski of the bubblegum punk group PONY. On drums, they're backed by Sean Carpenter of Windsor's mighty Psychic Void. This time out, they've also brought along Michigan power-pop artist Liquid Mike, who sings backup.
"$300" follows the band's June single pairing "Forgot Something" and "Gotta Go." Heavenly Sweetheart first surfaced in the spring with "A Little Worse" and "Another Sunny Day." Last year PONY-proper issued their sophomore LP Velveteen via Take This To Heart Records.
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