On Repeat Bright As Night Records Compilation

When Jason Hartman moved from Madison to Portland, Ore., he took his band Vanishing Kids and self-run record label Bright As Night Records with him. As self-run labels will, BAN operates on a when-it’s-possible existence and depends greatly on one person’s work. Its first release was Vanishing Kids’ 2007 album, Skies In Your Eyes, and its second is the compilation Hartman’s been trying to pull together for a few years now. Divided into “Bright” and “Night” sides, the vinyl release gathers tracks from both the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest, and Hartman played on four of the 13 tracks.

"Heathen Heart" by Vanishing Kids

The Bright side kicks off with a newer Vanishing Kids track, “Heathen Heart,” which sets the tone for this unpredictable, if inconsistent variety platter. In the band’s signaure chaotic style, the song piles on scraps of post-punk and industrial, as layered and searching as it is lo-fi and noisy. From there on, it grows more random. Portland’s Hot Victory contributes the playfully menacing drum-duel “Beach… That’s Too Bad,” and Street Pyramids chip in from San Francisco with “World’s Apart,” whose gentle rhythm and airy male-female harmonies might appeal to fans of Headlights or Wye Oak. Then back to Madison with “Sounding The Meaness,” on which DB Pedersen summons all manner of warbles, grumbles, ribbits, and squeaky highs from his peculiar self-trained throat.

Freeport, Illinois’ Smithsick (a solo project of Mike Smith, whose band Skinsick joins Pedersen and Merrick Sunday at the High Noon to celebrate the comp) opens the Night side with “My Last Stand,” a short instrumental that layers on droning doom-metal noise, but sounds like just a fragment of something that could use more dense and oppressive mass. The Night side hits its darkest point with the sound of a dental drill churning a horrified patient’s flesh, introducing “Prostatic Tissue” from Freeport’s black metal- and snuff film-inspired Gangulated Pus (now there’s a band name). But it’s two defunct Madison bands that make the side’s nods to metal and dissonance rewarding. A little syncopation makes Omega Weapon’s “Dance Song” the tightest of this record’s attempts to thrash and chug. X-Ray Mirror’s “Coyote” finishes the side with a trippy mix of Sabbath sludge and harsh, needling noise-rock guitar leads, returning the comp to its adventurous starting point.

"Coyote" by X-Ray Mirror