Touch & Go US Vinilo y CD

Review: Big Boys are punk visionaries from Austin in Texas and they sure made a big bang with what they described as their "debut, sophomore, and final album." This bunch of renegades came up in the late 1970's Austin scene. The band was led by the dynamic Randy "Biscuit" Turner, alongside Tim Kerr, Chris Gates, and various drummers like Rey Washam. They infused their music with skate funk, which means they somewhat deviated from hardcore norms at the time. Their diverse sound touched on post-punk akin to The Minutemen and inclusion in Thrasher magazine's cult "skate comps" catapulted them to fame among 80s skate punk enthusiasts. Renowned for engaging their live audiences like few others, they fearlessly explored new musical realms, even tackling Kool and the Gang covers at one point.

Review: Hailing from the same early 80s Detroit scene as The Meatmen and the Necros, Negative Approach were pioneers in what would become known as hardcore punk. Their brutal, 30 second songs whip by in a flash, but there's so much urgency packed into each one of them. It's a totem of the first years of Touch & Go Records, faithfully repressed here on purple vinyl with the iconic Linda Blair artwork intact and sounding as punishing now as it did when it first lurched out of the underbelly of the Motor City. Who else could pack ten tracks onto a 7"?

Review: Produced by Brian Paulson at River North Recorders in Chicago and released by Touch and Go Records in April of 1991, the six songs on Slint's Spiderland (now reissued on the same label) methodically mapped a shadowy new continent of sound. The music is taut, menacing, and haunting; its structure built largely on absence and restraint, on the echoing space between the notes, but punctuated by sudden thrilling blasts of unfettered fury. It is a sound that no one had heard before and that no one will ever forget. The eerie, now-iconic black and white cover photo of the four-band member's heads breaking the surface of the water was taken by their friend Will Oldham. Spiderland spawned a whole new genre, frequently called post rock, and came to be regarded as one of the most important and influential records of the past thirty years.