Straight Panic — Flagging: First Four Albums
Flagging: First Four Albums is a CD, which as its title suggest collects together the first four cassette releases from US PE project Straight Panic. The project themes it’s work around heterophobia, with a sound that shifts between creatively searing and more densely moody- with the whole CD flowing as a fairly varied, yet wholly consistent example of PE craft that is largely original/ distinctive in its attack.
The release appears on Illinois based noise label Oxidation- with the CD coming in a six-panel matt gatefold. This features on its front a blurred coloured picture of two men talking over a shop counter, and on the back, we get a reproduction of the original cover artwork-inside we find a write up about the project by Isaac Tyler of the Closer Bone project. So all in all a nicely presented item- it had a pressing of 200 copies, and as of writing the label still has copies.
Straight Panic started in 2014- with it so far putting out around eighty releases to date- behind the project is Thomas Boettner, and over the years he moved around the states- going from Minneapolis, MN (2014-17) New Orleans (2017-20) and Providence, R( 2020- present). The first three releases here are C15’s, and each was released on May 1st 2014 on Fuck Mtn. Label Records with an edition of twenty-five copies- these are in order Jouissance, Sling and Stalker. And lastly, we have Mapplethorpe a C30 from July 17th 2014- which also appeared on Fuck Mtn. Label Records in an edition of twenty fives copies. For the rest of the review, I'll count the whole disc as one release- as the whole thing has a fairly connected vibe and feeling, meaning it flows well as a fifty nine-minute release.
The CD moves from swarming ‘n’ seesawing electro-harmonics meets bigoted ranted female spoken word of “Propaganda”, which slowly but surely gets wonkier and noised-up as it moves through its six-minute runtime. We have the “Trick” which opens with a glum spoken word sample of a woman talking about life on earth- then we slip into a woozy mesh of sweeping 'n' hissing mid-range noise tones, and grating-to-siren wave highs- with the whole track creating a most effective feeling of seared unease for its six and a quarter minute flow. Then there are the just under three minutes of "Vice Squad"- which opens with a male redneck ranting about homosexuals, and that he much rather have a drunk look after his children than a gay person- then it drops into a mixture of reeling 'n' scalding high end, slicing 'n' grating mids, and jumping/ glitching buried vocals. We have the nearing nine minutes of “Balance” which starts with muffled morphed news reporting layers, before switching to this extreme noised-up/ warped techno/ trance vibe. The release plays out with the longest track here the just shy of “Cruise(Return)”- which finds low-end buzz ‘n’ brood, met by layers of slurred-to-hacking feedback, and later bayed/ extremely hazed vocals - that is both damn atmospheric, and nasty.
It's great to see well put together/ nicely presented noise reissues like this- and let us hope there are more reissues of Straight Panic back-catalogue planned, as there’s no doubt it’s one of the more creative and consistent PE projects around.