Puppet Wipes - Live Inside

The first part of a double Siltbreeze salvo this week arrives in the form of the second album by Canadian outfit, Puppet Wipes. Their debut from a few years ago, also on Silbreeze, was an especially scrappy, art-damaged display of messthetics principles and no-wave obstinance. Live Inside doesn't abandon those initial fundamentals, but they've certainly not spent the past four years (where tf does that time go!) sitting on their hands either. In the first instance, the original duo - Arielle McCuaig and Kayla MacNeil - is now a trio, joined on drums by Janitor Scum's (Lumpy Records) Jay Wong. The expansion hasn't made them any less weird or defiant, but they're perhaps a little more realised. If there's any obvious difference, it's melodically. Lo-fi and piecemeal they may still be, but they're also pop-inclined in the same way that, say, The Raincoats, The Homosexuals or Kleenex were, the kind of real deal no-chops rocking and shocking that's all-in on the charm offensive. Autodidactic, but mostly I prefer to think of this as do-what-you-want-core. Can't be beat.  
 
FFO: The Raincoats, Kleenex, The Homosexuals, Pink Section, Bona Dish