Hex Forever
Hex Forever
d/B Lathe Kut Records 2009
“Mostly in Vancouver / mostly live.” Still in high school, living in Abbotsford, starving for new exciting records, I drained hours on transit to spend a couple hours in a wet, cold, smoky East Hastings basement. Despite the excitement, I felt queasy when Emergency Room Vol. 1 came out, numbered. No one imagined there was no expiry date, but I knew that ambitious optimism would turn sour when the cops “Not In My City“‘d it. In a couple decades we’ll see the Volume 2 DVD (obsolete format). Until then, this ultra-limited clear lathe-cut 10” is the appendix we have.
Reasonable clarity, bands picked to play their best songs, glossy photo book accompanying, Emergency Room Vol. 1 was a scene’s healthy pride. Contrast, Hex Forever is ten scratchy tracks off the scabbier, anti-entertainment edge of weird punk. It knows how abrasive it is, and the record runs together in the blown-out hiss. Jesse Taylor’s vanity took nine recordings he happened to have and cut them into a record, nobody can own, and anybody can ruin.
Through the scars, Hex Forever is an honest document. The cover, via Nic Hughes, is the style that soaked Vancouver’s socks, and sets the tone. Everything’s raw, and doesn’t always work. You can’t hear what’s going on half the time and impressions are limited to vague attitudes. Often being abrasive is tedious, but Mutators’ Paper Words is as intense as their singles, and completists can find a lost White Lung song that someone “Are you recording it?”s through.
Is anyone going to romanticize the $4 cans of PBR in cold concrete bunkers? Hex Forever might sober them up. You can hear the excitement in Emergency Room Vol. 1 and a lot of the singles from that time, but Hex Forever is a little more what it was like to be damp and uncomfortable and barely hear what was happening at a show with bands trying to abuse a crowd who would stand there, bored but tolerant.
1 / Female Health Cax Coders “Ms. Ts 2002”
2 / White Lung The Pharmacist “Lamplighter 2007”
3 / Nons Figure it Out “The Royal 2003”
4 / Night Wounds Black Humour “Live in Napa, CA 2007”
5 / Die Monitr Batss Girls of War “Holoscene, PDX 2004”
6 / Twin Crystals Christian Wife / Cancer “Pat’s Pub 2006”
7 / Mutators Paper Words “Lamplighter 2007”
8 / Shearing Pinx Crime Waves “Urban Lounge, Salt Lake City 2008”
9 / Modern Creatures In Patterns “Emergency Room 2008
“All tracks recorded live by J. Taylor on mini-disc / mostly in Vancouver / mostly live, except #8 rec. by SHPX on cassette. Cover art by Nxc Hxghxs. 31 copies lathe cut in New Zealand 2009.”
12 01 13 / Die Monitr Batss / Female Health / Modern Creatures / Mutators / Night Wounds / Nons / Shearing Pinx / Twin Crystals / Vancouver / White Lung / record / review / 2009 / criticism / media
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