Notes From The Record Room: August Weak Won & Too — David Keenan, Helen, Faith Coloccia + Tashi Dorji, Tropical Fuck Storm, Dis Fig
Record Room: Sunday, 8/16
Current listening: Heathen Axe — s/t (2026, Deathgod Records)
Halfway through August. Summer’s death knell is weeks away from being rung. Can’t say that I’m sad to see it go.
I finally finished reading David Keenan’s remarkable collection of music criticism, Volcanic Tongue: A Time-Travelling Evangelist’s Guide to Late 20th-Century Underground Music. Keenan’s writing is enviably distinct, the observations made and conclusions drawn beautifully articulated and conceived. I’ll be using the Invisible Jukebox and The Primer columns as a reference list of artists and albums to dig for, locate, and absorb. His ability to adapt to the temperaments of the artists he profiled was also considerable in some cases, Marshall Allen’s interview specifically comes to mind.
As a read, it’s a heavy lift, but well worth the time invested. Kind of makes me want to quit writing, to be honest. I’ll never be that good.
Untitled, 8/7/26
Helen
Linda’s Head
kranky
Releases: 10/2/26
Gummy, poppy, and dreamy, Helen’s “Dead Shark II,” one of two new songs from the band’s upcoming album, Linda’s Head, is an aural blur, its otherwise whip-sharp instrumentation and heightened sway set beneath hazy sonic gloss, ethereal garage tuned to Shangri-Las.
With Linda’s Head, Helen—the work of Grouper’s Liz Harris, bassist Scott Simmons, and drummer Jed Bindeman—break an 11-year silence following the release of their first LP, The Original Faces, in 2015. Noting Harris’s work as Grouper, her penchant for composed lo-fi and the implicit aural distance she uses to envelope her instrumentation—2013’s The Man Who Died In His Boat immediately comes to mind—Helen’s airy rock shares those attributes despite the band’s 60s pop lean. For whatever commonality Helen may share with Vivian Girls or Dum Dum Girls, there’s a noticeable lack of sugar for the ears.
Linda’s Head is scheduled to release 10/2/26 via kranky.
P.S. Two tracks were premiered when news of Linda’s Head surfaced, but Bandcamp clips don’t seem to embed well lately, so I’m sticking with YouTube clips for now. That said, you can go to the links below the video and access the Bandcamp hyperlink so you can hear the album’s title track.
Faith Coloccia + Tashi Dorji
And Their Power
Was Alive
Whited Sepulchre
Releases: 9/25/26
Devotees of improvisation and drone, multi-instrumentalist Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer, SIGE Records) and guitarist Tashi Dorji have partnered for the upcoming And Their Power Was Alive, which is releasing 9/25/26 via Whited Sepulchre.
Conceptually, And Their Power Was Alive is tied to land and people’s relationship to it, perhaps the ease at which resources are sought after and stripped, razed and left in ruin, overdeveloped and corrupted. Though unclear as to how these observations are handled musically—maybe this work is meant as acknowledgement-as-eulogy—the album’s first single, “Short Lived Echo,” is beautifully somber, gorgeous piano strokes building a melodic theme as Coloccia’s delicate vocal exhibits a warm, albeit melancholic, manner. Haunting vocal melodies grace the backdrop, cutting in and out of clarity, gloriously emerging before a series of tonal specters begin to intermingle, sonorous and brittle as their articulations layer. The application of repetition and free noise that Coloccia and Dorji commit to in “Short Lived Echo” is delicate, light.
This collaboration follows Dorji’s low clouds hang, this land is on fire, which was released in January of this year via Drag City.
Tropical Fuck Storm
Inflatable Graveyard,
Vol. 2
Fire Records
Releases: 10/16/26
It’s happened on a number of occasions that I’ve risked having a band or artist’s discography ruined for me by witnessing them play live, the downfall truly had when the performance fails to live up to whatever above-subpar version a producer had managed to tweak into acceptability and then churn out so it could be committed to some listenable format. For Tropical Fuck Storm, however, the live version is always the version I want to hear, (not that the studio version is any less worthwhile).
In 2024, TFS released (full title) Tropical Fuck Storm's Inflatable Graveyard, a two-volume live album capturing the band’s 10/22/22 performance at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. Admittedly, live albums tend to be dubious ventures, especially in the day and age of Record Store Day exclusives, a format at times deemed (rightfully in many cases) a needless and cynical cash grab. Ignoring for now those live albums that stand as cultural signposts—citing John Coltrane’s Live At The Village Vanguard, Hawkwind’s Space Ritual, The Who’s Live At Leeds, The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East, Woodstock… Eee Tee See—a live album can also demonstrate a band’s worth, Inflatable Graveyard’s well-curated setlist and captured electricity is more faithful to the band’s sonic identity than any studio has captured thus far.
As of 8/13, it was announced Inflatable Graveyard would get a sequel, Inflatable Graveyard,
Vol. 2, which is due to release 10/16/26 via Fire Records. This installment of what may evolve into a live series was recorded at New York’s TV Eye. A rendition of “Stepping On A Rake,” from 2025’s Fairyland Codex, has surfaced for review.
Also, TFS put out a cover of Nirvana’s “Aneurysm,” and I can’t think of a more appropriate song for them to interpret. If I’m lucky enough to see them perform again, I hope they add this tribute to the setlist.
Dis Fig
What To Make Of These Mortal Hands
Thrill Jockey Records
Releases: 10/23/26
I became aware of singer/producer Dis Fig (Felicia Chen) through her collaboration with The Body for 2024’s Orchids of a Futile Heaven. While I’m acquainted well enough with The Body’s yowling and cement-cracking volume, the net they cast when it comes to collabs is wide enough to often result in some compelling (or at least interesting) work. Orchids… exhibited enough of a departure from The Body’s ooze and aaaaaaaaaahs to act intro to Chen’s brand of sound design and dark fascinations.
Chen is releasing What To Make Of These Mortal Hands via Thrill Jockey on 10/23/26. “The Account” is the first single from the album, spoken word performed by the wind between overtop quaking bass thumps and hyper-sped hi-hat, stylized trance-evocative unease. Chen’s vocals are shrouded in reverb, quivering and reverberating with every inflection and fading deep into the expanse.
Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead
