New Releases: Stolen, LuvPlastik, Nice Legs, Stolen Joy, Torturing Nurse, Wang Fujiu

Coming back at ya with the latest releases to be taking up space on my slowly dying hard drive. Acts out of Chengdu, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, and even Taiwan and Seoul. Why yes, we are crossing borders. New sounds from Stolen, LuvPlastik, Stolen Joy, Torturing Nurse, Wang Fujiu, and Nice Legs. Enjoy.

Chendgu indie outfit, Stolen, in the midst of a China tour, have released the closest thing we’ll get to a full-blown LP from the up and comers who have been receiving a shit ton of ink as of late. Demos is a collection of the five piece band’s newest work and it is indeed a nice introduction to the band’s brand of melodic post punk mixed with electronic cold wave rock. Terrible breakdown I know, but trust me – in a few years there will be bands cited as sounding like Stolen. What impresses the most how tight it all comes together. Killer guitars, dark synthesizers, a singer who actually sings, and lyrics that engages with a modern China that\’s more splintered than ever due to technology. Refined but never clean. Dark but never off-putting, Stolen might just have what it takes. Gran and give it a listen here.

I’ve talked plenty about my dirty little crush on filthy fuzzed out garage rock duo LuvPlastik – even to the point I’m outsourcing my love for them. So instead of going on about their side of the latest cassette split from Nasty Wizard Recordings, I wanna go off on how fucking awesome Seoul-based fuzz-pop outfit Nice Legs. Immediately won me over. Some of the tightest, delightful, spunky music I’ve had the pleasure of putting my ears to in some time. Type of stuff that bitch slaps a sunny smile upon one’s face. Let’s get these cats down here already. Purchase and give it a twirl over here.

Something’s in the water down in Hangzhou, casue the stuff I’m hearing out of there is on it’s own wavelength. Much of this can be traced back to Lost Manual, a Hangzhou-based indie music and art label, founded by Spice front man ChenChenChen (陈陈陈) and band manager Xiaofen (小粉). Stolen Joy is one of the labels’ promising acts, a six-piece outfit that indulges in a variety of genres and regurgitates it out into something new and might I add, not too shoddy. Take their self-titled EP, released earlier this year, where post rock, indietroncia, and psychedelic folk collide to create an intoxicating soundscape that’s lead by a singer with some serious chops. I’m game – check out the band’s EP here.

All right, time to melt some brains – how about two dosages of hardcore ears-bleeding harsh noise to put your kids to bed with. And cover art to make your grandmother miss the good ol’ times. Well, Shanghai-based Huashan Records has you covered with their latest – a split between Shanghai harsh noise arch nemesis Torturing Nurse and Taiwan experimental noise artist pioneer Wang Fujui. Side A with Torturing Nurse – a plane crash, albeit the longest one ever, with the air plowing in as the plane tears itself apart, with moments of silence for each passenger’s moment of peace before, well, you know. Side B with Wang Fujui – what the Transformers would sound like if they were in fact made of metal, with cogs, combustion chambers, ratchets – the whole works; literally, sounds like a machine crying in agony, in some sort of trance (likely seizure) in some factory. Geez. My cat is freaking the fuck out. Just listen to it already.