Notes From The Record Room: Bandcamp Friday, Heathen Axe, PISS
“HEY, TOURISTS! LOCALS, TOO!,” 4/24/26
Record Room: Friday, 5/1
Lamenting the last swig of this morning’s coffee and opting for water for the remainder of the day, I’ve been playing catch-up for what feels like weeks now, attempting care and attention when scribbling thoughts and opinions while managing an inbox that perpetually (and figuratively) runneth over. Times like these I wish I had staff writers, but I remain a lone fan clinging to a dead medium. I’m grateful for every eye I get.
In the works:
March and April stragglers that I intend to make a dent in this weekend.
Buys & Receipt: Some 2026 albums have been acquired, but I’ve yet to give them a spin. Details will be posted.
NOW JAZZ NOW: The recently released free jazz/improv compendium authored by Byron Coley, Mats Gustafsson, and Thurston Moore got the wheels turning a little bit, so I’m revisiting some of my own personal favorite LPs of same persuasion. That’s ongoing for now as I’ve more pressing stuff to cover, but I’ve been slowly taking notes.
It’s the first of May. It’s also Bandcamp Friday.
Today’s purchases are as follows:
Heathen Axe
s/t
Deathgod Records
Released: 5/1/26
Surprise! John Dwyer dropped another record from a new band of his before we’re halfway through 2026, just in time for May’s round of Bandcamp Friday.
Heathen Axe is composed of Dwyer, bassist Tom Dolas, and drummer John Hodge and the entire Heathen Axe record is available to sample on YouTube. Dwyer’s gone the RidingEasy route, perhaps digesting every volume of Brown Acid and caking his guitar strings in wet clay. At times, this band sounds like Blue Cheer going shitgaze: muck-drenched, bad ass, and pushed all the way into the red:
The album was available as a “beer” variant, which had sold out before I’d become aware of this band. Naturally, a repress of the variant was announced after I’d already purchased the LP on standard black. Oh well…
Links:
Heathen Axe — Bandcamp
“I WANTED TO MAKE A TOTALLY FRIED RECORDING, QUICK AND DIRTY. SORT OF A CATHARTIC EXPULSION.
CLEAN THE COBWEBS
I RECENTLY BOUGHT A VESTAX MR44 (THE BEST SOUNDING 4 TRACK EVER IMHO) THE SAME 4 TRACK I RECORDED SOME COACHWHIPS. EARLY OCS ETC ON
NOW WE HAD THE TOOLS WE NEEDED SO I SPENT A WEEK WRITING RIFFS AND BROUGHT THEM TO TOM DOLAS AND JOHN HODGE.
WE RAN THEM ONE TIME AND THEN RECORDED THEM ON THE SECOND GO.
LOOSELY IMPROVISED AND UNHINGED.
EVERYTHING TURNED ALL THE WAY UP
HOPE YOU DIG
PLAY LOUD
FOR FANS OF MAINLINER, HIGH RISE, COMETS ON FIRE, HAIR POLICE”
Photo Credit: Grace Grignon
Announced this week was the signing of Vancouver natives PISS to Sub Pop. A live video was made available along with the announcement, a get-to-know-ya for those of us not in-the-know. The video is titled Live Under Oak Street Bridge, and features the quartet harsh’ing some of the mellow preceding their performance, the sounds of light traffic and kids at play ultimately buried beneath catharsis and confrontation. PISS may resonate with fans of the virulent and shrapnel-laden guitar violence of Couch Slut.
Links:
PISS — Bandcamp / Instagram
Sub Pop — Official / Bandcamp / Instagram
Links, knowledge, and sounds were handed over courtesy of Sub Pop:
PISS, the evocative, noisy, genre-bending 4-piece punk band from Vancouver, B.C are announcing today that they have signed to Sub Pop for the world and in Canada with Paper Bag Records. Ahead of the new material we are all eagerly awaiting, PISS has scheduled international headlining and festival dates spanning the spring, summer, and fall of 2026, beginning Saturday, May 2nd, in Liverpool, UK, at Sound City Festival and running through Thursday, November 5th, in Reykjavik, IS, at Iceland Airwaves.
Highlights of this announcement include headlining shows in Glasgow, London, Manchester, and Paris in May, as well as appearances at festivals like The Great Escape, London Calling, Pickathon, End of the Road, and Brighton Psych Festival. Additional live dates to be announced soon. Please find a current list of dates below.
Post-Trash says of the band, “PISS are a lightning bolt. The Vancouver-based punk band’s debut three demos blurs the lines between hardcore, art-rock, and experimental poetry. PISS hits with the same onslaught of being thunderstruck.” DIY offers this, “The group combine their music with spoken word poetry, visual art, and experimental performance, putting on a show that blurs the lines between wildly complex interpersonal and political themes, with a beautifully human feel to it.” Meanwhile, Exclaim says, "More than any other local hardcore band today, PISS place crucial emphasis on words, those of both singer and poet-at-heart Taylor Zantingh's and, through audio samples, feminist activist Andrea Dworkin's (ever committed to accessibility, the quartet also includes captions in its videos). Over corrosive noise and riffs that clench, wrench and tear like the jaws of life, Zantingh unpacks her experiences with body image issues and codependency as she shouts, growls, and shrieks in protest against enculturated ideas about female sexuality and the subjugation of women...with iron determination, PISS are putting in the work, learning skills and habits that can nourish anyone. Pay attention and follow along." Finally, The Line of Best Fit says of the band’s music and live show, “Weeks after getting to chat with the members of PISS online, I am now here witnessing their live power. It is like nothing I have ever seen before… a sound that’s entirely new and stunningly raw.”Sat. May 02 - Liverpool, UK - Sound City Festival
Sun. May 03 - Leeds, UK - Gold Sounds Festival
Wed. May 06 - Glasgow, UK - Hug and Pint
Thu. May 07 - Manchester, UK - Yes (Basement)
Sat. May 09 - Wrexham, UK - FOCUS Wales Festival
Mon. May 11 - London, UK - Lexington [Sold Out]
Thu. May 14 - Brighton, UK - The Great Escape Festival
Sat. May 16 - Amsterdam, NL - London Calling Festival
Sun. May 17 - Brussels, BE - Les Nuits Botanique Festival
Tue. May 19 - Paris, FR - Le Klub
Wed. May 20 - Rennes, FR - Antipode
Sat. May 23 - Bristol, UK - Dot to Dot Festival
Sun. May 24 - Nottingham, UK - Dot to Dot Festival
Thu. Jul. 30 - Happy Valley, OR - Pickathon
Sat. Aug. 01 - Sackville, NB - Sappyfest
Fri. Aug. 28 - Eindhoven, NL - Hit The City Festival
Fri. Sep. 04 - Brighton, UK - Brighton Psych Fest Festival
Sun. Sep. 06 - Salisbury, UK - End of the Road Festival
Thu. Nov 05 - Reykjavik, IS - Iceland Airwaves
PISS combines music, poetry, sound collage, performance art, and various mediums of visual art to address complex themes that blur the line between personal and political. Powered by a combination of thoughtful musicianship, energetic live performances, and a crystal-clear vision of a safer underground community, PISS writes punk music that aims to transcend the limitations of a well-established genre by pulling inspiration from a wide range of unexpected influences: literary giants, philosophers, filmmakers, painters, psychoanalysts, activists, children, members of a German anarcho-feminist militant group, and audience members from their shows, to name a few. These voices represent varying ideological beliefs about gender-based violence and enable PISS to create art that depicts challenging and controversial issues such as sexual violence and enculturated gender norms without reduction, romanticization, polemics, or dogmatism.
PISS comprises poet and teacher Taylor Zantingh on vocals, filmmaker Tyler Paterson on guitar, Gavin Moya on bass, and Garreth Roberts on drums.
Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead
