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LP
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FTR 536LP
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"What's round on the ends and high in the middle? Why, the new LP by those proud Buckeyes, Sex Tide, of course. Ohio is the first album they've recorded with a full quartet line-up. Bassist Phillip Park and saxophonist Ryan Mcauley join the core duo (drummer/vocalist Aurelie Celine and guitarist Chris Corbin) to create a new fat-ass sound that continually conjures up visions of the 1970 Stooges. As with the previous Sex Tide LPs we've done -- Possession Sessions (FTR 325LP, 2017) and Flash Fuck / Vernacular Splatter (FTR 436LP, 2019) -- a lot of the vibes here are generated by Aurelie's relentless pounding and reckless vocals, along with Chris's truly unhinged guitar. With Park's bass holding things down in an entirely new way, and Mcauley's alto wailing for the ghost of Steve Mackay, Celine and Corbin are allowed the freedom to go even further out than usual. And this is a challenge neither of them can pass up. The new width of Sex Tide's sonic contextualism is evident from the start. 'Everything That Happens in the Dark' is outlined by blasted saxophone lines and riven down the middle by a bass line as thick as the trunk of a Buckeye (the state tree of Ohio.) And if the start of 'State Medical Board' doesn't make you think of a Funhouse-era remake of 'Real Cool Time,' you better sit down and have a cold compress. Once your bean is chill, you might well be able to appreciate the wildly crunching ebb and flow of the four tunes on side one. It's a massive event. And the flip is even more amazing, if you ask me. Over a bottom resembling the one created when the Cramps broke open the bones of Bo Diddley and Link Wray, things start with a freaked-out blues wail, before lurching into a something like a distended re-imagination of 8-Eyed Spy's version of Nancy Sinatra's 'Lightning's Girl.' The music just goes on riffing and wiggling from there, and the whole side flows together like a hot lava sundae from the volcano of your choice. And 'experts' may tell you the last volcanic activity in Ohio was back in the Devonian Period, but I suggest you fuck both them and the horse they rode in on. Ohio is nothing if not a large scale and very molten happening." --Byron Coley
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FTR 436LP
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"In 2017 we released the Possession Sessions LP (FTR 325LP) by this extraordinary Columbus, Ohio outfit. And while we wait for them to conjure up new fields of beautiful spew, we thought it might be a public service to make their first two EPs available as a single LP. Flash Fuck was released in 2013 by Tony Proccacino's visionary grunt-punk concern, A Wicked Company. Vernacular Splatter came out two years later on the great Columbus label, Superdreamer. Both of these records set our hair (what little of it there is) on fire, so when Mike Rep told us he'd recorded Possession Sessions we were on that bad bot like bees on a dead donkey. We finally got a chance to see 'em live at the last Cropped Out fest and they did not disappoint. Aurelie Celine stands at her drum kit, singing and playing with all the discordant orgone gush of Elisa Ambrogio back in the early Markers days, and Chris Corbin whips crazy avant-roots moves out of his guitar like they were low hanging fruit. Just bonkers. They had a third guy playing also, as they sometimes seem to do on records as well, and hey -- the extra flesh was a-okay. Sex Tide is a brilliant band by any standard. Don't be a moldy fig. Get with the program." --Byron Coley, 2019
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LP
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FTR 325LP
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"Third record, following a pair of amazing 12" near-LPs, by this Columbus howitzer. On their debut, Flash Fuck (A Wicked Company, 2013), they were a trio, but they subsequently dropped a guitarist. By the time they cut Vernacular Splatter (Superdreamer, 2015), they has found their true shape as a duo. With Aurelie on drums and vox, and Chris Corbin on guitar, they had pared their shit down to a tight-packed near-perfect two-person howl. For Possession Sessions they have retained that format, although legendary producer Mike Rep can't keep from making his guitar a deep deep part of the mix. And by hooking their braying sonic mule to Rep's stark, chopped production aesthetics, Sex Tide've created a sound that is naught but balling. All the shards that were present in their work earlier -- Gibson Bros., Cramps, Dead Moon, Pussy Galore, Churchmice, etc. -- have been compacted into a rough spew of concrete garbage rock that will have your ass spinning in its own special grave. Only quibble is that I'm not sure how much I've managed to wallow in the specifics of each song yet, since the whole thing flows wobbling and seamless, like a lost record by a band you wished had existed. Grubbiness of this particular style always initially seems like it should be roll-off-a-log easy. The chords are so basic, the thumping so primitive, the voices so devoted to unknown tongues, you'd imagine any monkey could do something similar. But man, it ain't easy. You can listen to a couple hundred records in this vein and maybe they'll all sound pretty good ('cause the style is so perfectly suited to R&R barbarians), but it's rare to hear anyone do it as well as this. Sex Tide's first couple of records are dazzlers, but this one goes way beyond that. And I'm betting it will stand up as an unparalleled booze party soundtrack for many years to come. So buy two. You're definitely gonna fuck up your first copy." --Byron Coley, 2017 Edition of 300.
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