Reviews

Anonymous Carpetting Anonymous Carpetting cassette

The latest missive from Arielle McCuaig, Calgary’s leading art-punk agitator in PUPPET WIPES, VACUUM REBUILDERS, JANITOR SCUM, and probably at least two or three new projects just in the time since this ANONYMOUS CARPETTING cassette appeared last month. This one’s a solo home-recorded effort, all rinky-dink Casio presets layered with gnarled, freeform guitar and surreal spoken/chanted lyrics, scratching and collapsing like the most genuinely oddball Messthetics oddities. The appropriately anxious electronic twitch of “Nervous Habits” pays tribute to the PETTICOATS (connect the conceptual dots straight to “Paranoia”), the nagging, CHROME-plated rhythm of “Scab Thief” devolves into something far more mutated than mutant disco, and “Bell Bottom Strutter” is like a roughed-up, needle-pinned version of PRESSLER-MORGAN’s poetic, minimalist punk—all signposts from the past dotting the well-trodden path of wonky DIY, but ANONYMOUS CARPETTING takes plenty of detours along the way.