The Record Store Day Official List came out yesterday, and as much as I feel that Record Store Day is a great way to make record collecting a lot less fun, there ARE a number of surf-relevant releases this year. So if you're heading to the stores on April 16th, here are some things being released that day that you might be looking for.
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One of the things I like about instrumental music is that you're free to craft your own narrative from the music. This is still the case with Los Surfer Compadres' new album, but they've given you a lot of thought pieces to help you along on their album art: surfing with swords, aliens, a cookout, a protest, a bird with a ring on its talon, an angry god...
AGGRESSIVELY ARMED with fresh material today from the likes of Amphibian Man, Les Tigres du Futur, Genki Genki Panic, Los Tiros, Thee Sturgeons, Matt Foy, The Delstroyers, The Hang-Ten Hangmen AND more new-to-the-show 45s than I'll likely end up playing. GONNA BE GOOD!
This looks like the debut EP from Minnesota's Thee Sturgeons, and they have a lot of fun with it. The most straight-forward surf is "Giant Squid Attack" which already has some fun tradeoffs between guitar parts, but tracks like "Sand Dune" is where I think they're really coming from. Surrounding its middle-eastern flair, is a surprisingly loud fuzzy bass bubbling into a weirdo bellydancing beat with farfisa hovering all around.
While I think it has gotten better in the 2010s, I think it's understated how often poor sound engineering has held back an otherwise decent surf record. What we have here is the opposite story. Genki Genki Panic's previous releases weren't hampered by their production, but "Spooky Fingers" makes an amazing impression in an instant, setting a brand new idea of what this band is about.
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