Colhendo Desespero

Not for everyone. You've probably seen this sentence often associated with bands, labels or zines that wanted to give themselves a trve underground aura. You know, just to give you the feeling you're part of something special & exclusive. But, in an era where both punk/hc & extreme metal have been decontextualized and deprived of their original meaning to become another meaningless product for insecure teens looking out for an easy rebellious identity, it just sounds like mere posturing. Although, it still fits in perfectly for a band like Putrefacao Humana. Here we are entering in one of the darkest corner of brazilian noisecore underground. A very obscure band from the early 90s that's almost unlistenable. And when I say this, I mean that this trio makes bands like Ulster, Necrobutcher or Noise sound overproduced and polished. Shit-fi recording and noise not music attitude at their worst (or best, according to your point of view). Before being repressed on wax for the first and only time three years ago, "Colhendo Desespero" was originally released as a demo tape in 1994 and, according to the artwork, it features 85 tracks. But, unlike more "organized" noise bands like Anal Cunt or GBN(!!), here you can't really say when a track start and finishes. It's just a blurred mess 'till side one ends. Then, you'll flip it to side B and it's again an aural butchery until the end. Honestly, everything is so messed up and confused that it can only make you say: "what the fuck is going on here?". But that's part of the charm of it: while their resources were obviously very limited, they still put so much passion and energy in what they were doing to make the final result epic. This was pressed in a limited quantity of 300 copies and it's still available out there. But, seriously, it's not for everyone. It's just for the true noisecore fanatics!

Desastre Humano

Last summer I visited Nicaragua. While organizing our trip, I realized that my knowledge of this country's scene started & ended with Sacred Reich "surf nicaragua" 12" (great song, btw). I've asked to some internet nerds who seem to know every obscure band from the most remote places on earth with no success. On the process of trying to get any infos, I've ended up chatting with this guy from Costa Rica on instagram. He knew jackshit about nicaraguan scene but at least he introduced me to Flor De Cana (the best Rum from there) for which I of course developed an addiction as soon as I landed in Managua. He also got me curious about Costa Rica so I started looking around for good bands from there as well. One of my first discover was grindcore band Exacerbacion. When I saw they had an ep on SPHC, I knew I must check them out. Flash forward to 6 months later, and I've finally managed to get a copy of their "Desastre Humano" 7". This is old school grindcore the way it was supposed to be played: songs are fucking memorable, not just mere blast beats & virtuosity bullshit. Music is raw and brutal but, on the other side, they keep it simple and direct and, most importantly, they have great catchy riffs as well, if that makes any sense when we are talking about grindcore. Kinda like Terrorizer, if you got my point. These guys have been releasing tapes & records in the underground scene for 10 years but, since they are not coming from a cool western country, they are not getting the recognition they definitely deserve. And that's a shame, since this is some of the best grindcore I've listened to in the last 10 years. So do yourself a favour and check them out since Exacerbacion simply rules!

Danger Situation

Αντίδραση"Κατάσταση Κινδύνου". No, I'm not trying to improve the intellectual level of this blog by throwing down random greek letters to get rid of you dumb punks. I'm talking about one of the highlights of the greek punk/hardcore scene: Antidrasi (reaction) debut lp "Κατάσταση Κινδύνου" (danger situation). The greek scene has always been not well-known outside of their borders. I guess  the main reason was the language barrier: their peculiar alphabet made it simply impossible for non-greek speaking fans to remember the band's names. Nonetheless, in the early 80s' greece had a strong punk scene with incredibly solid bands such as Stress or Γενιά Του Χάους (Chaos Generation). While hardcore was already sprouting all around europe, over there it erupted only around mid/late 80s'. One of the first band doing it was Antidrasi. Their 1989 debut ep "Αίμα Στους Δρόμους" (blood in the streets), released by Wipe Out! Records, is unanimously recognized as the very first hardcore slab of wax that ever came outta greece (one of my TOP WANT, by the way). Their debut full length was released the following year on the same label and it's a milestone: rough, without compromises and energic HC with a sound and songwriting that remind a lot hc/punk bands from mexico & south america from the very same period. You know I'm a sucker for this kind of sound so I immediately felt in love for Antidrasi as soon as I discovered them recently (never paid attention to the greek scene until recently, shame on me!). The artwork features a zombie-cop with a greek flag dripping blood so, even if you don't understand a single word of their lyrics, it's not too hard to figure out that they are not talking about tzatziki or moussakà. Greece has always had a strong political protest tradition (as we saw as well in recent years), so of course it's not a big surprise that its punk/hc bands are extremely political.

There are three presses of this record: the first one from comes with a 'zine, 2 posters and stickers (if you can provide scans, please get in touch); a repress from the same year without inserts and different labels (the one I got) and a third and final press from 1993 on red wax. I've got mine for very cheap so it's not that hard to find a copy for a good price if you look around...