Carton/Alpha Cop-Alpha Cop/Carton

Negative Fun Records
2013

Even if they've only been in existence since 2012, when it were founded by by Chris DeFusco and Jon Whitney, Negative Fun Records has already started to become one of my favorite labels-regardless of whether we're talking those of the independent kind or majors. I'm sure I've probably said that before, but seeing as this label goes out of their way to cater to such a niche market (people that like limited-run singles* of  the underground and unheralded kind) it sure does come off feeling like these releases are a labor of love! This latest 7" from Negative Fun Records has been pressed on white vinyl and man, does it ever look as good as it sounds! Or is that it sounds as good as it looks? Eh, either way you've got two cool artists here in Carbon and Alpha Cop with Carbon, and their garage rock take on all things post-hardcore, just inching out Alpha Cop as my favorite. On "Fingertips", the Carton track, we find Ryan Hebert (Heavy Winged, Giant Travel Avant Garde, What Doth Life, The Jobz, etc.) and company (Bruce Black, Brendan Dangelo and Davis McGraw) playing this loud and potentially hypnotic little gem of noise-pop. With Carton their music is just like the album art above. Carton is like a raging fire, beautiful to look at and oh so inviting thanks to it's warm glow. But get too close and you know what will happen right? It will burn you. So beware. And what of Alpha Cop? Well, Alpha Cop is like low-fi pop and then again it isn't. It's oddly disorienting as it switches gears often, moving between the cold emptiness of drone and this bold attempt at merging indie rock into thrash rock and while standing knee deep in basement aesthetics. It's an interesting notion that Alpha Cop has. They set about taking in rogue rock, left cold and hungry from wandering the streets at night, before carefully performing surgery on it's cords. All of that is so that they can disassemble and then reassemble the oddity that sits before them into something that more closely looks the part of a rock band. Or at least that's how their number "The Low Flags" presented itself to me. You can find this charming 7" at the link below as well as other nifty releases from this Raleigh, North Carolina and Enfield, New Hampshire-based record label. And as always support your local scene ladies and gentlemen.


http://www.negativefun.com/catalog/nf003/

 *Negative Fun Records does offer this 7" in digital form as well.