Chandra Transportation 2xLP
I first heard of CHANDRA at the height of the Making Waves zine / tumblr explosion of about ten years ago, when all these cool girl-punk sound detectives started finding all these wild Subnormal Girls-style musics from 1977 onward. The first two CHANDRA EPs were reissued on a 12″ a while ago, but this is a deluxe reissue, remastered with two extra tracks, and anyone who would begrudge a super sick twelveyear-old girl circa 1981 fronting a no wave art punk downtown NYC group a deluxe reissue is a brain-free freak. The gatefold has a bunch of absolutely incredible images of CHANDRA performing and just being a kid, which is almost worth the price of admission. The music is dense paranoid art school wave, the sound of a band who would play the Mudd Club and The Kitchen. The lyrics are mean and cool like twelveyear-old girls and like NYC. Prior to writing about the nausea of riding the subway and girls called Kate, Chandra wrote songs about climbing out of a 60ft window and throwing babies in the trash! The music is truly the sound of downtown NYC, the backing band were previously released by John Cale’s own label. The second EP was recorded by an all-teenage band after a show Chandra performed where the audience was made up of her peer group, and it was clear that was the answer! It has a cooler, more lo-fi feel, punker. The unreleased songs are truly incredible and totally worth the price, paranoid lofi synth-punk for the ages! Beyond perfect. Buy or die. All teenage girls in bands now.