Screen Vinyl Image calls its music a mixture of shoegaze, electronica and psychedelia, and that’s as good a description as anything that we would have come up with. The Virginia duo’s latest album is Interceptors (Custom Made Music), and if you are into bands like My Bloody Valentine, Spacemen 3, the Jesus And Mary Chain and Suicide, you should seek it out. MAGNET asked Jake and Kim Reid to make us a mix tape.
“Lost In Repeat” (download):
https://magnetmagazine.com/audio/LostInRepeat.mp3
Curve “Horror Head”
We think this is one of the coolest songs ever written—both when we first heard it years ago before we ever met and now. Video
John Carpenter “Assault On Precinct 13”
We list John Carpenter as one of our big influences, and this track is a good example why. Minimal beats and a massive bass line with creepy synth lines that build up make for an amazingly powerful soundtrack to a very cool film. We really like how simple his ideas were for his movies in terms of soundtrack, yet we don’t think many people will argue that those minimal melodies and synths not only play a major part in a Carpenter film but also just happened to be a big influence to the Italy’s Italo Disco scene in the ’80s. See also: The Fog, Escape From New York and, of course, Halloween. Video
Cabaret Voltaire “Nag Nag Nag”
This sounds like a surf song gone horribly awry. It’s kind of along the lines of another fave band of ours, the Jesus And Mary Chain, but this is way more sinister. Video
Rude 66 “The 1000 Year Storm”
This song has all the right amazing elements to it. A really catchy synth line, a heavy electronic beat, atmospheric synths floating around and, of course, a very surreal breakdown. Just one of the many cool songs off of Rude’s amazing 2009 release, Sadistic Tendencies. Video
Ceremony “Don’t Leave Me Behind”
This song explodes in and doesn’t really give you a chance to breathe until it’s over. We just did a tour in Tokyo with them, and we go back a long way with these guys when our old bands (Skywave and Alcian Blue) used to tour together all the time. This video was edited by one of the band members, John Fedowitz, who also has done lots of live video for us as well as guesting with us live on bass and guitar. You can find the track on the split 12-inch we released with them last year. Video
Suicide “Touch Me”
There isn’t much we can say about Suicide that hasn’t already been said. The quality of this video is extremely lo-fi; you get 6:39 of a rare look at Suicide in their element (NYC) and doing what they do best. Video
Public Enemy “Shut ‘Em Down”
There isn’t one thing about Public Enemy that can’t be classified as “epic.” It is literally an all-out assault of sound, and this is one of our favorite tracks by the group. The beat and bass seek to destroy any speaker system you have, the samples exist in a realm of being both super tight and chaotic at the same time, and Chuck D’s message holds just as much power and truth as it did when this track was released. Video
Sonic Youth “Mote”
We recently stayed at our label owner’s house, and he has all these tiny TVs stacked up against a wall and they are all hooked up to one VCR. He put on the Goo videos after a gig, and the experience was cool as shit. This is just one of our many favorite Youth songs. Video
New Order “Confusion”
This is from the Pumped Full Of Drugs Factory release; since we just got back from Shinjuku, it seemed appropriate to list this. It’s also New Order when they had tons and tons of analog synths and gear onstage. Four people controlling all this stuff, no programmed anything or laptops, and it sounds tight as hell. Video
Patrick Cowley “Tech-No-Logical World”
This song is off of Patrick’s last album, Mind Warp. It sounds like a science-fiction film put to a dance beat and is just one of the many awesome and innovative songs he has created. Patrick was a very important pioneer of electronic dance music, and like many folks in the ’80s, he left the world far too young. Video
