Friday, March 27, 2009

sesper fave audio files 3: 7 inch boots




The great cover of the “Tamped Concrete” 7inch tells you everything you need to know: This is music from skateboarding (or bouncy-ball hopping, or whatever that thing is on the back cover…) straight-edge kids who love Metal and have fun with it. So it is metal-core from a time (1989) before that genre really took off. 7 Inch Boots were from Mühlheim, a.d. Ruhr, which isn’t too far from where I used to live. If my memory serves me well (and that’s not something that I would rely on) they were associated with, or at least friends with this small collective of people who published a vegan/political/straight-edge fanzine called “Think Again”. The “Think Again” people were a German version of what I imagine the Ebullition people must have been like: All very nice and righteous, and trying to save the planet by not exploiting honeybees and through various other grassroots movements. In any case, I would frequently bump into some of these guys from 7 Inch Boots at shows and I saw them play once or twice (I’d like to say that I saw them open for GO! on their European tour in ’91, but that is probably wrong).
And while this 7inch is very near and dear to my heart and brings back good memories, I am absolutely not posting this for the sentimental value alone. This is really powerful sludgy hardcore.
The second EP “3 Lieder für Bruce Lee” was recorded in 1991, but only released in 1995. Those 3 songs represent a clear progression towards even more sludge and they are more Melvins than hardcore. Not that that is a bad thing, but the intensity of these songs doesn’t reach that of “Tamped Concrete”. Still good, though.
As an interesting side note, the members of 7 Inch Boots would later go on to form Bohren & der Club of Gore (on LastFM). Bohren & der Club of Gore play an ambient, noir jazz, which I have heard described as “music for people for whom the Twin Peaks soundtrack is too hectic”. Yet, the band maintains a distinct dark “metal” aesthetic in their cover art and merchandise. If this kind of “doom jazz” is your thing, too, then you should definitely check them out. Bohren & der Club of Gore (official page). They are still around and apparently doing pretty well.
Anyway, check out these masterpieces of German mosh-core. And if for some strange coincidence you have anything to add about 7 Inch Boots, by all means please do!




DOWNLOAD 2 EP'S 7 INCH BOOTS

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