NIFTY-50

Colin Scott, who used to write Cream of the Crop fanzine and released homemade CDRs through the Sally & Kev label back in the late 90s/early 00s, has set up a new label, Nifty-50, which has put out a series of factory-pressed CDRs in slim wallets. I reviewed the first release, Harvest Festival by The Conspiracy, earlier in this issue, and have since received a number of later CDs on the label.

THE CONSPIRACY have a second archival CD, Festivals, which covers a selection of their output from 2000-2023, including tracks taken from albums on the Metal Postcard, Pink Lemon, Jarmusic, TMR, and Gallipoli labels, as well as previously unreleased material. The CD comes with a photocopied handwritten insert with background info on the band and the tracks. There are 18 tracks here, travelling across some eclectic territory as expected with The Conspiracy, a band who have never been content to stick to just one style. There are great indiepop tracks like The Pulpit, The Plough, and Sound of One; the band seem unfairly ignored in the indiepop scene, a great shame as these are real classics of the genre. Moving away from pure indiepop but still adjacent to it is Blue Angel Agenda, which comes across like an indiefied Neil Young. The band also has an electronic side, as heard in tracks like Time with its combination of eerie electronics and storytelling; the dark-edged dancefloor stomp We Dance; OWTales, setting spooky, witchy lyrics to woozy hypnotic electronica; and Ambient Death which combines the motorik Kraftwerk thing with metally guitar and blast-beats.

The Conspiracy continue their archival exploration on a third CD, Two for Tea at the Harvest Festival, covering the same timespan as the previous album. There are 22 tracks here, some familiar, some not. St Columba is chiming janglepop with folky undercurrents; Helpless an effective mix of strummy acoustic indiepop and swirling psychedelic electronics; and Still Waters which adds a 70s powerpop dimension to their eclectic repertoire. They do a mindbending cover of The Beatles' Norwegian Wood, with echoey vocals over a spacey ambient soundscape. You also get the Hawkwind-esque Openings, the frenetic punk growl of Tourettes MkII, the harsh industrial electronica of Lariuum, and the floaty dreamlike pop of Green Ocean. A continually recommended band for the musically openminded.

While Nifty-50 is an eclectic label with a healthy disregard for genre boundaries, there's a general emphasis on punk, which seems to be Colin's musical first love. The remaining CDs lined up for review all fit within this pigeonhole to some degree, whether in terms of musical style or a broader punk aesthetic/philosophy. First we have the full-on, quickfire energy of Genocidal Velocity by THE MISPELT. In the main, this is very much on the rock side of punk, with tracks like Dead Man Walking and Drunk Town's choppy and squalling guitars highlighting this brand of punk's proximity to metal. They do venture into more melodic areas, such as with Alien which shows an addictive sense of fun. In general though, I'm not sure I'm really part of the core audience for this kind of music.

DROPPING LIKE FLIES' Another Deadly Virus, Another Wonder Drug is another heavy-hitting album that blurs the boundaries between punk rock and metal, while also taking their music into some unexpected territories. Lollipop Punk takes Millie Small's My Boy Lollipop as a starting point, diverting it down a fierce punk route. "Lollipop, lollipop, ooh lolly lollipop", they yell against a backdrop of thudding, juddering, punk-meets-metal guitars. Walk It Off Son is a political hip-hop/heavy metal crossover. Starve a Fever, Feed a Cold adds pulsing electronics and fast rapping to the manic shouting and slicing guitar noise, bringing an innovative dimension to the piece. The untitled final track is jazz- and rock-laced experimental hip-hop, pretty good stuff that puts an inventive modern spin on the familiar 80s hip-hop sound. Again this album is well outside of my usual listening areas, but I appreciated the band's raw energy and willingness to experiment with different genres.

SEVERED TENDONS have a self-titled 5-track EP out on Nifty-50. These are a female-led punk outfit whose music is, on the whole, much more pure punk than the other bands, with only one track showing an additional metal influence. That track is Someone, with searing metally guitar noise alongside Sex Pistols-ish shouty choruses contrasting with melodic verses. Religion OD's melodic punk sound is sure to appeal to fans of the more tuneful side of vintage punk eg Buzzcocks, Clash, etc. Old Punks Don't Bowl has an ultra-catchy buzzsaw pop sensibility that might even extend the band's appeal into the indiepop scene, having stuff in common with the Fat Tulips' noisier side, or some of the Subway bands. Social Engineering's pro-free thought lyrics kick out against brainwashing, while Getting Old shows a brash, self-mocking sense of humour. A more familiar, more relateable brand of punk than I was expecting, and I liked this EP much more than I thought I would.

The Mispelt and Dropping Like Flies CDs come with A4 photo/lyric sheets, and Severed Tendons comes with a band logo sticker.

Rounding up this article is a 6-track mini-album by EDGAR UNBALANCED, simply titled Punk. This one is punk in spirit but miles away from punk as a solidified genre. All the tracks have 'punk' in the title, the first one again entitled just Punk, featuring noisy riffage, clattering percussion and found sounds overlaid with quirky and frantic "Punk! Punk! Punk! Punk!" vocals that jump about like a crazed frog. Phat Punk with Viet Namer applies the cut-up experimental technique to what seems to be a kind of vintage Vietnamese soul, combined with a barrage of fast "Punk! Punk! Punk!"-ing. P.U.N.K. with The Conspiracy takes one of The Conspiracy's mellow electronic numbers as its basis, bringing in more punk narration and scratchy hissy vinyl crackle. Punks in the Knocking Shop features sexual moaning over an assortment of clattering and rattling sound effects and hip-hop-esque beats. Impact Punk has an American voice reeling off assorted dictionary definitions of punk amidst a discordant concoction of overlaid samples, before switching to what seems to be recordings from a British TV documentary on punk from when it was still a new genre. A punk interviewee talks about her embracing of 'anti-fashion' as a way of judging how people would react to her and whether they were worth knowing; it would screen out any man who was only interested in her as a sexual object. Final track Bang Bang Punk includes a bizarre juxtaposition of theatre music, piercing alarm bells and speech samples that overlap and merge surreally into each other. The album is an intriguing piece of aural art that gets to the root of punk as a philosophy while defying all stereotypical expectations of punk as a musical style.

More info on Nifty-50 at www.instagram.com/nifty50label and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573187635516

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