No Age | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Los Angeles experimental lo-fi drum-and-guitar duo No Age are Dean Spunt and Randy Randall, ex-members of hardcore band Wives. Through assorted indie labels, No Age released limited runs of vinyl-only EPs before collecting many of those tracks for the singles collection Weirdo Rippers, issued by U.K. label FatCat in summer 2007. The records cover pays respect to the Smell, a venue/art space they felt was partially responsible for the livelihood of both No Age and Wives. The duo is also known for its videos, performance art, and visual art, as well as curating an exhibition that included works by Devendra Banhart and others. The band moved to Sub Pop in 2008 and released its full-fledged debut album, Nouns. Partly recorded at Southern Studios in London, Nouns saw the band add a pop flavor to its hardcore punk assault and was widely critically acclaimed, charting highly on many best-of-year lists. The groups sophomore effort, Everything in Between, followed in 2010, and in between albums and tours they remained busy with other art projects, including a performance alongside video artist Doug Aitken and actress Chloë Sevigny of the multimedia installation piece Black Mirror on the Greek island of Hydra in June 2011. In 2013 they recorded their third album, An Object, a conceptual work as much about the process and texture of music-making as about the music itself, with every single aspect of production and design handled by the bandmembers themselves. The band went on tour, issuing a cassette (the four-song An Object Tour Cassette), then contributed covers of the Gun Clubs "Sex Beat" and Black Flags "Six Pack" to the Thirty Three and a Third and a Third - 333: The Half Mark of the Beast box set in 2014. That same year they had two songs released with issue 24 of the elaborately packaged periodical The Thing Quarterly. Though No Age continued to play shows, they didnt issue any additional music until 2016s self-released 7" single "Separation"/"Serf to Serf." A full slate of shows followed in 2017, as did more recording. With the support of a new label Drag City, No Age released their fourth album, Snares Like a Haircut, in early 2018. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 9 Title: Sick People Are Safe Released: 2007-02-05 Tracks: 4 Duration: 09:50 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Boy Void (01:45) 2 Sick People Are Safe (02:32) 3 Vacation Pay (01:46) 4 Semi‐Sorted (03:46) |
 | Album: 2 of 9 Title: Dead Plane Released: 2007-03 Tracks: 4 Duration: 12:29 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Dead Plane (05:10) 2 Goat Hurt (01:42) 3 Never Not Beaten (02:37) 4 You Is My Hot Rabbit (03:00) |
 | Album: 3 of 9 Title: Get Hurt Released: 2007-03 Tracks: 6 Duration: 13:24 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Everybody’s Down (02:20) 2 Switches (02:06) 3 Get Hurt (01:45) 4 Neck Escapah (02:08) 5 Great Faces (02:05) 6 I Wanna Sleep (02:59) |
 | Album: 4 of 9 Title: Weirdo Rippers Released: 2007-06-11 Tracks: 11 Duration: 31:56 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Every Artist Needs a Tragedy (03:38) 2 Boy Void (01:45) 3 I Wanna Sleep (02:59) 4 My Life’s Alright Without You (01:59) 5 Everybody’s Down (02:20) 6 Sun Spots (01:22) 7 Loosen This Job (03:40) 8 Neck Escapah (02:08) 9 Dead Plane (04:12) 10 Semi‐Sorted (03:46) 11 Escarpment (04:01) |
| Weirdo Rippers : Allmusic album Review : No Ages Weirdo Rippers opens with "Every Artist Needs a Tragedy," a perfect example of the bands very Californian kind of avant noise pop: it coasts in on static that sounds like crashing surf and guitars that drift in with the tide, then kicks into gear with a harshly pretty melody so bright that it glares like midday sun on the sidewalk. Later on, "Neck Escaper" sounds a little like a lost track from Pet Sounds, weathered from being left out on the beach for 40 years. The L.A. gallery punks early singles find them working within a palette of different kinds of noise, whether its the blade-like shards of it that slice through "Escarpment," the stuttering, splattering blasts that push "Loosen This Job" forward, or the aptly named "Sun Spots" waves of distortion, which undulate like heat shimmer. There are a lot of layers to No Ages music on Weirdo Rippers, both literally -- especially on "I Wanna Sleep," where piles of hazy feedback coalesce into drums and chanted vocals that are equally dreamy and wild -- and figuratively: Dean Spunt and Randy Randall list Squeeze, Hüsker Dü, and contemporary painters among their influences, and even when their music is bold, its rarely simple. No Age are just as likely to thrash out on "Boy Void" as they are to engulf listeners in an abstract wash of sound like the oddly poignant "Semi-Sorted." However, its when the band splits the difference, as on "My Lifes Alright Without You," which intersperses a breezy melody with passages of raw noise, that No Age are most compelling. Their collision of noise, punk, and pop could be contradictory -- and on songs like "Dead Plane," which begins as a roiling cloud of guitar textures, then unfolds into what sounds like a Ramones cover band playing underwater, its certainly fragmented. Though they focused this mischievous, mysterious allure on Nouns, Weirdo Rippers represents No Ages creativity at its most freewheeling. | ||
 | Album: 5 of 9 Title: Nouns Released: 2008-05-06 Tracks: 16 Duration: 39:35 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Miner (01:50) 2 Eraser (02:40) 3 Teen Creeps (03:25) 4 Things I Did When I Was Dead (02:27) 5 Cappo (02:42) 6 Keechie (03:27) 7 Sleeper Hold (02:26) 8 Errand Boy (02:41) 9 Here Should Be My Home (02:03) 10 Impossible Bouquet (02:09) 11 Ripped Knees (02:53) 12 Brain Burner (01:51) 13 Dont Stand Still (02:15) 14 Male Masturbation (01:30) 15 When You Find Out (02:07) 16 Intimate Descriptions (03:01) |
| Nouns : Allmusic album Review : Divorced from all the talk about the return of the lo-fi sound, the scene revolving around the bands home base in L.A. (the Smell), and the groups rep as no-nonsense noise punks, you have the music of No Age. All that stuff is just background -- what matters is the sound coming down the wires as Nouns clatters and hisses on through to your ears. The duo of Dean Spunt (drums and vocals) and Randy Randall (guitar) are proudly noisy, drawing influence from early-90s lo-fi acts like Erics Trip as well as the New Zealand sound of that decade. They make no attempt to clean up their sound (though it does seem slightly more professionally recorded than the singles that made up their first release, Weirdo Rippers) as amps hum, drums clatter like garbage cans, and voices shout and holler. Its an arresting amount of noise and it may put you off initially. If you stick with it past the first wave of fuzz, though, youll be captured by the songs, because No Age arent about noise alone. Below that less than pristine (to be kind) sound there are songs. There are rollicking freak-outs ("Here Should Be My Home"), folk songs tossed about by waves of fuzz ("Eraser"), and careening rockers with hooky choruses ("Cappo"). Take them out and scrub them up a bit, and they would be as shiny and clean as things you might actually hear on the radio. After a polish its not hard to imagine "Teen Creeps," for example, playing in the background of a teen movie. "Sleeper Hold," too, could be the theme song for any manner of triumphant scene; the chorus has the kind of hook youll be singing all day. Choosing to bathe the songs in noise adds an extra layer of sound, sure, but also creates an epic battle between melody and noise, between beauty and grunge, that gives the album a real sense of drama. Also adding to the sense that something is at stake on Nouns are the lyrics. There are no simple love songs here -- mostly twisted fragments of isolation and ruin with the (very) occasional bit of tender hope thrown in to keep you from throwing in the towel. In the final count, melody and beauty, fractured as they may be, win the day. Like fellow noise poppers Times New Viking did on their awesome album Rip It Off, No Age turn noise into gold on Nouns. | ||
 | Album: 6 of 9 Title: Losing Feeling Released: 2009-09 Tracks: 4 Duration: 14:01 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Losing Feeling (03:55) 2 Genie (03:25) 3 Aim at the Airport (03:17) 4 You’re a Target (03:22) |
 | Album: 7 of 9 Title: Everything in Between Released: 2010-09-15 Tracks: 13 Duration: 38:25 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Life Prowler (02:35) 2 Glitter (03:46) 3 Fever Dreaming (03:47) 4 Depletion (03:15) 5 Common Heat (02:25) 6 Skinned (02:33) 7 Katerpillar (01:28) 8 Valley Hump Crash (03:50) 9 Sorts (02:56) 10 Dusted (02:41) 11 Positive Amputation (02:50) 12 Shed and Transcend (03:18) 13 Chem Trails (02:54) |
| Everything in Between : Allmusic album Review : On its third album, Everything in Between, the L.A. noise pop duo No Age doesnt do anything it hasnt done before. As in the past, it balances noise and melody, distance and feeling, lo-fi and high art like vaudeville plate spinners, keeping each plate oscillating wildly but completely in control. As before, Dean Spunt and Randy Randall create a small world of sound out of just drums and guitar that Spunt’s heartfelt vocals ride like a particularly nimble skate kid. The only thing that’s changed is that they have a firmer grip on dynamics and a slightly cleaner sound. Not enough so that it matters, but enough to make the truly scathing moments stand out even more. A song like the surging "Fever Dreaming" almost sounds radio-friendly until the screeching guitars come swooping in. "Chem Trails" is the group’s poppiest moment ever and is enhanced by the swirling guitar duels that fill up the mix. The guitars at times sound huger than ever; Randall’s tone is monstrous on "Depletion." It’s really not that different than the formula used on Nouns, just a little more refined. The same desperate and serious lyrical tone carries over, too, and Spunt sounds like every song is being torn from his diary, that every word he sings matters deeply. It’s an approach that sets them apart from the often ironic or blasé noise poppers of the past they emulate (Eric’s Trip, the Flying Nun roster, Sonic Youth) and it helps make the record more than just loud, impressively noisy background music. The quiet, almost relaxed ballad "Common Heat" and the long piano/feedback soundscape "Positive Amputation" help with this, too, giving the record the kind of dimension and depth too many noisy bands don’t bother with. No Ages brief moment of near-mainstream notoriety may have passed by the time Everything in Between was released, but their growth as recording artists was progressing nicely and the album stands alongside Nouns as two of the finest noise rock/pop albums of the new millennium. | ||
 | Album: 8 of 9 Title: An Object Released: 2013-08-20 Tracks: 11 Duration: 29:40 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 No Ground (02:31) 2 I Won’t Be Your Generator (03:18) 3 C’mon, Stimmung (03:14) 4 Defector/Ed (03:04) 5 An Impression (02:30) 6 Lock Box (02:05) 7 Running From A-Go-Go (03:04) 8 My Hands, Birch and Steel (00:56) 9 Circling With Dizzy (02:20) 10 A Ceiling Dreams of a Floor (02:35) 11 Commerce, Comment, Commence (04:03) |
| An Object : Allmusic album Review : Los Angeles art punks No Age have always strained uneasy ambience out of the energy of hardcore and vice versa. In their earliest recordings, the duo landed somewhere between the sloppy youthful explosions of Void, My Bloody Valentines fuzz-buried pop, and the churning ambient darkness of Gas. As they developed over increasingly well-produced albums like 2008s Nouns up until 2010s Everything in Between, No Age sought to either smooth out the edges or play up the contrasting elements of their sound, moving through phases of riff-heavy punk and unexpectedly open and sophisticated songwriting alike as they went on. Siphoning equal influence from the disparate scenes of dead-broke D.I.Y. culture and the art world, all of the impossible angles in the No Age equation find their culmination in third proper album An Object. A marked return to the experimental clouds of formless ambient sound is one of the first things fans will notice about the album, but where early EPs and subsequent singles compilation Weirdo Rippers moved between defined songs and humming dream-sequence fuzz, tracks like "Running from A-Go-Go" and "An Impression" successfully incorporate noise and waves of distortion as instruments in their lonely arrangements. Tracks like these represent one character that An Object takes on, finding No Age at their most introspective and subdued. The incredible "I Wont Be Your Generator" falls into this side of the album as well, finding the same propulsive balance between emotional vulnerability and caustic noisiness that made Sonic Youths Daydream Nation a perfect album. Amid these roaming lucid dreams are Ramones-meets-Ride blasts of punk like "Cmon, Stimmung" and the one-chord Krautcore of album opener "No Ground." Marrying the airy heaven-sent guitars of the Durutti Column with both the abrasive immediacy of hardcore and the patient unfolding of classic shoegaze acts like Medicine and Loop only works because No Age have been coming to this point with their dream punk sound since the beginning. The series of dichotomies that makes their music as appropriate for all-ages shows at skate parks and stark white-walled gallery backdrops reaches its apex here, and even the relatively short running time of less than a half hour makes sense for the overall statement. Unlike earlier releases, no sound or idea lingers too long or whips by too quickly and nervously. The clashes in sound become the very skeletons for the songs, and the songwriting is more fearless and honest than ever before, marking a distinct maturity for No Age and resulting in their best work to date. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 9 Title: Snares Like a Haircut Released: 2018-01-26 Tracks: 12 Duration: 39:12 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Cruise Control (03:31) 2 Stuck in the Changer (03:14) 3 Drippy (02:38) 4 Send Me (03:55) 5 Snares Like a Haircut (03:44) 6 Tidal (03:30) 7 Soft Collar Fad (02:26) 8 Popper (02:42) 9 Secret Swamp (02:47) 10 Third Grade Rave (02:48) 11 Squashed (04:19) 12 Primitive Plus (03:38) |
| Snares Like a Haircut : Allmusic album Review : After making an album, An Object, that felt like the perfect culmination of their freaked-out noise, gummy pop inclinations, and ambient fuzz experiments, No Age came to a fork in the road. No longer making records for Sub Pop, they took a few years to play live shows and only released one single. It might stand to reason that the duo would come back with a new sound, or at the very least some kind of update, but 2018s Snares Like a Haircut on new label Drag City is proof that the band doesnt need to do anything different to make a brilliant album. The album isnt exactly An Object II, but it does capture the elements of sound that made An Object so great. The thrilling shoegaze pop songs ("Cruise Control," the mighty "Stuck in the Changer") bump up against full-speed-ahead Daydream Nation rockers ("Drippy," "Tidal"); the ambient songs seemingly made from spare parts ripped out of guitars and keyboards (the title track, "Squashed") meet songs that strip back the noise but fill the arrangements with soft-focus fuzz ("Send Me"); and even the songs that just sound like the usual No Age fare blast out of the speakers with an undeniable passion and fire. Theres even a track with some fun subaquatic saxophone warbling ("Third Grade Rave") and an oceanic jam that would make A.R. Kane proud ("Primitive Plus"). Its clear that despite the long layoff from record-store shelves, Dean Spunt and Randy Randall have lost none of the genius they tapped into for An Object; this record is on par with that and right up there with the best noisy guitar music of the past however many years. The duo have fully harnessed something wonderful and they continue to make the absolute best kind of experimental pop -- the kind that manages to challenge the mind and fill the heart with joy at the same time. Not to mention inspire lots of air drumming, simulated fret bashing, and bouncing around the room like a maniac. Its art with a beat, noise with hooks, and more proof that No Age are one of the great slept-on bands of their generation. | ||