“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured greater age would calm my fever…Nothing has worked…all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we not take a trip; a trip takes us.” - John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1960)
A Wicked Company - having previously seated five seditious acts of combustible menace at our table from 2013-2015 - was just about to disappear into another 19 year breather (cf. our carbonic precursing at Vertical Records), lay back and bear witness to the kind of hell we wrought. That was THE PLAN (not to mention, our credit card was maxed). No sooner did we commit to this plan of senescence than did it unravel in our face. A PATH trip back from Hoboken one summer night in 2014 resulted in a chance meeting with an agent provocateur of the Rathaus clan, ECMO The Rat, who slipped us the band’s first cassingle, the cover garishly inked in vomity reds and purples. Four or five consecutive listens to the shrill incandescence of FSK/ECD (aka ✰Rathaus✰), however, and we were convinced: THE RAT WAVE IS UPON US. Rathaus followed with a second ugly spool of basement stabs in early 2015 (✰Rathaus Rathaus✰) and then somehow roped local bon vivant Jordan Lovelace (Tournament/Pampers/ occasional Foster Care drummer) into producing five new abdabs of charred alert in the summer of 2015, which we now thankfully hold in our hands as ✰Rathaus Rathaus Rathaus✰.
RATHAUS: there are three. The previously mentioned ECMO is the unmistakable ringleader, the chill shrill, as has been opined. Wrapping herself in the guitar barb of the first Teenage Jesus & The Jerks 7”, she conjures an unanticipated swell of treble. Lurking in the shadows of her own Brainplan Records since the late 00s under various home recorded guises (Car Phyte. Dr. Evilletown. Hatecha. Circle Moons…), ECMO owns a four track heritage as wonky and innovative as any messthetic from decades previous. (ECMO also dances and plays real instruments, like, professionally!) David Rat seems to’ve been tethered to ECMO since high school, but those are not tales for AWC to tell. What’s more to the point is how he’s evolved from a dumb thwacker of the bass instrument to a sleeveless Lemmy of stewed moonbeams- pupils pinned to the back of his skull, neck throbbing and more density with each passing song. There’ve been times during Rathaus sets when David crashes through the ceiling like a super fuzz big muff beanstalk. Jesus. Anchoring these malcontents is Peter Rat and his barely-there kit (snare, tom, cymbal). Gnashing within a monochromatic palette of american primitive percussion, Peter thrusts the two stander uppers into a zone of malfeasance and together, they hurt. It may sound like just noise to your pappy, but he is, after all, a dolt. What we have here is nothing less than a trip into the UPPER REGISTERS OF A RAT ROCK FUTURE, one we could not have known existed had we planned it.
✰Rathaus Rathaus Rathaus✰ is your ticket into the nest.
credits
released June 6, 2016
RATHAUS are:
✰ECMO Rat✰ Slash n burn
✰David Rat✰ neck throb
✰Peter Rat✰ monocromatic american primitive
Recorded by ✰Jordan Lovelace✰ at Spice World
Cover art by ✰Justin Moore✰
Insert art by ✰Carrie Quartly✰
A Wicked Company is a NYC based distant relative to ye olde Vertical Records by way of some carbonic DNA (FB link below).
AWC will serve as our current rent party for cosmic crunk, outer limits, fire music, mutant zoundz, stuzzadelic noise, beard rock and a 2013 vintage of combustible sonic arts. We also partner with secular coalitions and practitioners of free thought akteon....more
supported by 4 fans who also own “Rathaus Rathaus Rathaus”
I am a really big fan of TOYOTA n i’ve loved them for a couple years now. I enjoy this record very much and glad i was able to get it for memory’s in the future to pass on to my children n keep them updated on real music. thanks guys. (ps if ur could restock the RAPIDPROTOTYPE vinyl it be appreciated i couldn’t get it before it sold out and it’s my favorite record by y’all) Much love, Celeste From SD. (also come play down here one day i wanna start a fucking pit) go fuck yourself celeste
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