Tony Price, Lammping, and Hunchback
Tony Price
Mark VI // Telephone Explosion Records
Next up for review, we have the new release from Toronto-Based producer Tony Price. The new album is MARK VI and comes to us via Telephone Explosion Records. Tony Price (pseudonym for Anthony Nemet) has built an impressive resume, doing production on albums for the likes of U.S. Girls, Young Guv, Ice Cream, Badge Époque Ensemble, Miss World, and Michael Rault. Tony Price continues to showcase his production skills in exciting ways on this sixth full-length album MARK VI.
Tony Price has built an impressive catalogue of releases, including I Prefer Coca Cola (2017), Celica Absolu (2018), 86’d (2019), La Vie (2019) and Interview/ Discount (2020). In 2017 he founded Maximum Exposure, a record label and creative services unit tasked with providing top-notch knob-twiddling to the musical underground of the 2020s.
Tony Price introduced MARK VI with the pre-release track, "L'Escorte." While previous singles held a little more in common with late-night funk and Chicago house, this latest cut – which features Evan Cartwright (U.S. Girls, Cola) on drums, Miss World on vocals and Andy Haas on saxophone – finds Price cutting a sound closer to that of post-punk/dance-punk legends, ESG and Liquid Liquid. Speaking about the track, he says: "This is what I imagine it would have sounded like to stand outside of Paradise Garage in NYC in 1983 while taxi cabs knocked bumpers, street buskers played sax solos nearby, and security guards checked cards while the dubbed out sounds of downtown mutant disco leaked through the walls."
The new record from Price brings with it an exciting story. Towards the end of 2020, Tony purchased a 1981 Lincoln Continental Mark VI – the namesake for the album – off a former radio DJ and archivist in New Mexico. In the trunk of the car was a bag full of cassette tapes of homemade mixes and radio show recordings from the late 1980s that featured the kinetic clank of Detroit Techno, bombastic Def Jam instrumentals, TR-808 freestyle workouts, jacked-up Chicago House, and hundreds of advertisements for outmoded products and redundant services.
MARK VI pays homage to the sounds found in this car and, ultimately, the journey it took Price on as he drove back to Toronto. It utilizes early samplers like the Ensoniq Mirage and various drum machines and synthesizers to recreate the giddy aesthetic – Tony endeavoured to summon an album that celebrated the unabashed eclecticism, futurism and explosive production techniques of the music and commercials he heard.
- Earl D
Lammping
Stars We Lost // We Are Busy Bodies
It was typical day. I was out for a winter walk in mid March of 2022 just checking out new music like any other day. I had found a new album with some wild album art. A beach scene with gorgeous pastel pink and purple hues. A beach party of beings in groovy matching beach wear, and they’re all hanging around a really rad looking van. Oooo I’m intrigued. So naturally I press play…
Unknowingly I had pressed play, and it triggered a time warp. Sucked into a wormhole of wild proportions. I wasn’t scared but it was all the sense I could make of what was going on. There were swirling colours, and sparkling space dust particles whizzing past me. Until splat. I land in gelatinous matter. I’m okay. I stand up and shake the jelly off me and look around. It seems I’ve time warped right into the album cover of the Stars We Lost EP by Toronto’s deadliest psychedelic rock fusion Lammping.
I see the beach party so I make my way over to say hello and hope for the best. I’ve never time warped into am album cover before so I don’t know just how this is going to go.
I approach, and give a friendly “Hey there!” They respond with a friendly wave, and offer me some headphones. So I put them on, and instantly began levitating as they continued their beach party. I somehow get enveloped in a bubble of sound, and begin to float away. Just go with it.
The first thing I hear is a tantalizing guitar doing a scaling riff with a keyboard harmonizing along. The distant cymbal in the background. A timeline jump begins, and I watch my hands dissolve. Enveloped in an Everlasting Moor as flecks of the 90’s flash through my mind. Sound waves that remind me of Beck. No constraints of time and sound barriers in this song. The heavy fuzz, and bass reverberate through me. Some cellular sound healing is happening. It sparks a 60’s sound wave that shines ever so brightly. Bringing a Beatles-esque sugary sweetness. Joined with a watery guitar vibe. A progression begins. Then the bass, and the heavy fuzz chime in. This song has left a sonic impact on me. All times combined on one timeline..that truly was one cool “Everlasting Moor”. I will want to try that one again.
Still just floating around in my sound bubble, I float into a place called House of Shadows. It’s got an easy going vibe to it. The constraints of time and space don’t seem to apply to this House of Shadows. The house has a flipping river running through it! Just the most peculiar thing. Not making much sense but the acoustic strumming along is comforting none the less. There is someone at the door who says, “Follow me. Follow me”. “Slipping in the river and the water don’t rise” I’m having some hesitancy as a scene from a Piers Anthony novel replays through my mind. I still don’t understand how a river can run through a house but we’re not in Kansas or Canada for that matter. But when the electric guitar kicks in with its psychedelic sounds you begin to get comfortable and ease into it. The homeowner assures me “But I’ll be there for you no matter what you do”, and “Make yourself at home at the Home of Shadows”. I’m too hesitant to stick around. I thank the home owner kindly and leave. I feel like there’s still more that I’m supposed to see and hear!
There’s suddenly an “Interlude” of a chorus of voices and a groovy riff that seems to be transporting me somewhere else. I’m floating towards what I can only describe as a wall or a veil of sorts. Maybe it’s a curtain. As I am drawn to, and approach. The veil lifts. I am somewhere “Beyond The Veil”. The lighting is very bright. I have to rub my eyes, and see if my eyes are actually deceiving me. I shouldn’t doubt anything at this point. My eyes wide at all the gorgeous colours, and light. Very rainbow. Even more spectrums of colours that I thought were possible. . “Take a look around feel the sights and tastes, and sounds”. I see flower beds of imaginable variety. There’s a sweet bass line and catchy guitar riff that seem that make me feel as if I’m moving in slow motion. I come upon a band playing. They must just be finishing up their set as they seem to be singing a Thank you song of sorts with a groovy 70’s vibe. I think this band is from Alpha Centauri! They sure are a kind, friendly bunch. Full of gratitude. I hope they play a second set.
I’m floating again. Away from the stage. Away from the bright colours, and rainbows. I’m floating down, down, down. Not sure where I’m heading this time. I see some specks in the distance. A familiar pastel pink and purple hue in the sky. I’m drifting back down to the beach party it seems. I see the party's still going on full tilt. I wave to everyone. They wave back and gather around as I softly land on the sand. They’re smiling at me as the sound bubble disintegrates. I take off the headphones, and hand them back. We chat for a while about the cool sounds, and sights I’ve seen. They speak to me in another language but we seem to have a total understanding of what each other is saying. I thank them kindly for allowing me to have this experience! They assure me I am welcome back anytime, and that the party doesn’t stop at Lammping / Stars We Lost. My body starts tingling again. I’m time jumping again.
When I come to I’m right where I began. Out on the snowy trail walking just like before. Wow. That was wild. I didn’t even have smoke. That was something trippy for sure. But you know what? I’m definitely gonna go back to the land of Lammping / Stars We Lost again! Next time though…I’m bringing a bunch of friends! You're coming too right? Everyone needs to experience all the radness Lammping has to offer. Take this story and go give them a listen. Your ears and mind will truly thank you for the great escape. Hope you have a good space travels!
Be good to each other.
Love Always,
Green Noreen
Hunchback
303 // Self-released
Edmonton’s resident garage rock fuzz-o-nauts Hunchback are well-versed in the fine art of crafting foot stomping crowd pleasers. Anyone who’s had the chance to see them play in a crowded bar on Whyte Ave sometime in the past five-ish years has felt the frenetic energy of their performances, marked by speedy power chords, high volume, and fantastically unintelligible lyrics. But make no mistake: Hunchback is a slippery group. On their debut album 303, they kick off from the plugged-in-and-cranked-up 4/4 fuzzy blues riffs of the more archetypal garage territory and plunge headfirst into labyrinthine song structures and athletic rhythms, contorting their sound into a veritable Gordian knot of power-trio mayhem.
Scorching opener ‘Disillusion’ ascends from spartan strums into an all-out battery, while the intro to ‘Primal Instincts’ shines with a wonky rhythm that lurches and tugs with all the ferocity of a drunk wild animal before launching into a an ever-evolving sprawl of manic riffs that spill into one another at a dizzying pace. Here, Riley Chernoff’s virtuosic drumming is at the very verge of collapse, driving each swerve of the guitars right to the edge of complete chaos, to the point where one could imagine a thin trail of smoke rising from his drum sticks at the end of the take.
Lead single ‘Ace’ feels like something of a Hunchback classic, recalling the synth blips and organ accents of earlier releases like the ‘Avalon’ single from 2018 (which makes a reappearance here on track five as the revamped ‘Avalon v.2’). The production is sharpened to a fine point, dueling guitar solos ripping up the walls on either side of the stereo field. Charmingly dissonant ‘Between’ lives up to its title as the unsettled guitars feel murkily off-key and the swift meter modulations disorient and confound as much as they satisfy. By the time track six ‘Chosen’ comes around the magic trick begins to run thin, though the performances show no sign of flagging, and the climatic freak-out makes for a memorable highlight. Stand-out track ‘Anamnesis’ sinks Hunchback into a gloriously murky realm of sludge, a welcome interlude of riffs meaty enough for a French dip sandwich.
Without surrendering an inch of their bare-knuckle aesthetic, Hunchback has delivered a fiery debut that blends the tried-and-true sound of brick-wall guitar chords and overdriven vocals with the abrupt turns and sonic textures of 70s psych. The result is as exciting as it is intoxicating, a collection of songs that welcomes equally the psychedelic promise of Art Nouveau pastiche and the concrete harshness of Brutalism, a tightrope act that will undoubtedly be a calling card for Hunchback’s bright future ahead.
- Harman Burns
