Zegema Beach Records has long been influencer, nurturer and patron in the screamo, emoviolence and post hardcore movement. The Canadian label run by Dave Norman has released a plethora of iconic and exploratory albums and compliations from dozens of acts from all around the world, and his newest addition to the extensive catalogue was “ZAMPLER #12 – Oh God, We’re Gonna Die” compilation, a huge 34-track sampler by acts like Lytic (feat. Jamie from Saetia and Off Minor), Nuvolascura, Senza, Shizune, IEatHeartAttacks, Sleeper Wave, People’s Temple Project, Respire, Coarse, Blind Girls, Sans Visage, Komuso, Crowning, Binary, and more!
To celebrate another thriving year from the label and the unique unity between so many engaged artists from all around the globe, we have teamed up with 25 bands involved and asked them to take a deeper look at the state of various local screamo scenes, tell us about their relationship with Zegema Beach Records and share some bands and other labels recommendations in the process. The result is a staggering and insightful collection of opinions and testimonials that should get you busy for quite a while. Bon appétit and go here to find more of our mega features and multi interviews.
APOSTLES OF ERIS
Screamo, post-hardcore, whatever you want to call it, it’s what I think I have always been trying to make musically, whether I was aware or not. I got into it through my friend Ryan giving me a copy of his band Cease Upon the Capital‘s 2nd ep, and through my love of Revolution Summer hardcore and tracing the bands that it inspired. I’ve always played in multiple bands at once since I was 18, but somehow I keep writing stuff that doesn’t necessarily fit into my bands, so I use this project to get it out.
In my hometown of Nashville, TN there weren’t many bands like this, so I’m happy to be in the presence of some great bands here in Richmond, VA, it’s a small group of people who are extremely talented and have so many musical ideas to get out. Some of my current favorite active bands of this style locally are Ostraca, 60659-C, Eiza Battle, and .gif from god.
I’m so happy to have David Norman doing vocals with me now, as it makes me take this a bit more seriously, and he is just a great person who is excited to be a part of this kind of stuff, and it’s been amazing to me watching his label grow and eventually release bands we nerded out on in some of our earliest conversations.
Other labels to check out are Akashita Corp, Middle-Man, IFB, Larry Records, Kakusan/Listen to Aylin, React With Protest, Meatcube, and Adorno Records.
BLUE YOUTH
Hey! We’re Blue Youth from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and I believe we’re one of the only non-screamo band on the Zampler! Regina’s screamo scene isn’t as big as it once was, but the hardcore side of things are still alive and well. Our hometown label, Grind Central Records, has put out some great local talent from bands such as Anemone (skramz), Failed States (hardcore), Dead Bent (hardcore), Bermuda Love (post-hardcore/screamo) and Blue Lotus (skramz). Also you should check out our pals in Stepping Stone, if you like hardcore. They are super hard working and rip a very hot live show.
BLIND GIRLS
I was steered toward screamo by listening to different sub genres of hardcore that tailored to my tastes… and also good friends/band mates at the time showing me modern (at the time around 2011) screamo bands. Basically after discovering Beau Navire and La Quiete I was hooked and I dug further from there until eventually starting up a screamo influenced band, which is what got me fully involved.
Screamo and post hardcore in our area is basically 100% dead. It thrived for a while maybe ten/eleven years ago. The closest we have a to having a scene is in our neighbouring city Brisbane, which has somewhat of a scene, it’s small but it’s cool.
Zegema Beach records is so cool. I remember buying an old Loma ‘fly by night’ tee, graf orlock ‘doombox ep’ and assorted posters and stickers when I first was collecting screamo related stuff. At the time stores didn’t really stock anything as cool or as obscure as he did. A year or more ago we (3/5’s of blindgirls) we’re lucky enough to hang out with Dave from Zegema after he had moved from New Zealand and holiday’d on the Gold Coast Australia for a few days on his way home with his family. We took him to a few local special spots to hang for the afternoon. It was cool.
Other DIY labels to check out would be some Australian ones including:
-Team Glasses from Brisbane. Adam works super hard at making sure shows continually happen around the Brisbane area.
-No Patience from Adelaide
-Televised Suicide from Perth
-Lacklustre from Canberra (Jordan has helped us endlessly)
–Life. Lair. Regret. Records from Melbourne who helped us in Australia with getting our LP into some stores down the southern end of Australia.A lot of these bands that I’ll suggest are Australian, good friends or rather unknown that should be.
From our area, the screamo, screamo related and posthardcore bands are: Jean Buridan, Hraun, Liars, Idylls, Vestiges, Lumens, Requin and Leavings.
Beyond our area: The World at a Glance, Diploid, Sans Visage, 5000, Komusō, Cofun, QUI QUI, Poetry of Torch, The Path, Hakea, Days Eye, Cape Light, Gil Cerone, Stockades, Becalm, and Raccoon City Police Department.
COARSE
I’ve definitely always been more involved in the punk and hardcore scenes, but I’m definitely very influenced by screamo. I got into it because a friend of mine in high school told me his art teacher was in the band Welcome To The Plague Year. I checked them out because I was diving more and more into niche sub genres of “heavy” music, screamo being one of them. From there I got into pg.99, Majority Rule, and Jerome’s Dream. Coarse definitely has a lot of hints of influence from these bands. SeeYouSpaceCowboy is definitely my favorite Zegema Beach affiliated band. They incorporate all of the sassy white belt metalcore I loved growing up.
CROWNING
I think everybody in Crowning got to this corner of screamo from a few different directions. Some crust, metalcore, mathy stuff, twinkly bands, all that.
There aren’t a ton of screamo bands in Chicago currently, but what is there is pretty solid. And there’s more than enough screamo-adjacent music being played to fill out any bill. Check out Meth., Frail Body, and Indisposed for some current local stuff.
I’m a little biased on this one because I help run the ZBR USA store, but I was definitely a fan before that. Dave Norman has always been sort of a lightning rod for music I love. He recently got me obsessed with this Girl Arm record that came out in 2012 that I’d somehow never heard before ZBR rereleased it. With every zampler I walk away with at least a couple new bands, almost all with names I need to copy/paste into bandcamp.
EUCLID C FINDER
I first got into screamo around 2005 just by scouring the internet for good interesting music. I don’t remember how I ended up getting out to shows and meeting people. I think me and one or two friends would just find flyers online and show up to whatever looked good. Eventually I made some friends and started playing in bands geared more towards that spectrum of hardcore, at least in spirit.
Over the past few years in Baltimore some good DIY venues were either shut down or stopped operating which isn’t great, but there is at least one new venue that’s recently begun operation that I am aware of. I don’t think there are a ton of new bands popping up right now that play screamo and post hardcore, but there are some newer bands in adjacent genres that are playing shows and releasing interesting sounds. Unfortunately, I don’t make it out to shows like I used to, so there could be great things happening under my nose and I’d never even know. I’ll have to change that. :)
ZBR put out some real bangers this year (Euth, Blind Girls, Coarse, many more) and I anticipate this trend continuing ;). Dave’s a great guy who obviously has a ton of passion for this type of music, and does us all a great service by releasing and promoting quality material regularly. As for other DIY labels, I think Pattern Recognition Records has put out some beautiful cassette releases this past year from some newer bands in a similar niche as myself, and is definitely worth checking out.
From Baltimore, Eyelet is still around, and is definitely worth listening to if you haven’t. There’s also a band called BustDown who put out a really good mathy kind of screamo EP this past November that’s worth checking out. Less on the screamo/post hardcore spectrum, but there’s also a new grindish mathcore band called The Wind In The Trees with a former member of The Heads Are Zeros that I caught live this past Fall. They recently finished recording, and I am very excited to hear what they’ve made.
GO HERE to see the full track by track feature on EUCLID C FINDER’s self-titled LP.
GIRL ARM
3/4 of GIRL ARM previously played in Hey Predator!, a five to six piece in the vein of North of America, Saetia, Q and Not U and DD/MM/YYYY.
In Montreal, we are lucky to have great heavy acts like Big Brave, Duchess Says and Lung Butter.
Many of the frenetic, artier bands which were a staple here in the late oughts have since parted ways (AIDS Wolf, Les Georges Leningrad), but the loud scene shows no signs of waning.It has also (like in many other cities) gotten harder to sustain a loud scene, as venues and rehearsal spaces are increasingly faced with fines over noise complaints, or are otherwise getting priced out.
IEATHEARTATTACKS
We’re ieatheartattacks, a screamo/noisecore band from Oslo, Norway. We started out as a duo back in 2012, when Jompi and Noppers decided in a drunken stupor to start a band. The morning after we made our first song (Pianos), the same year we flew to and recorded our first single in Liverpool at Erik’s (Mr. Bass) apartment, asked him to be a part of the band when we started playing live, and here we are! It was a great fit, with all three of us having always known each other seeing as we’re from a tiny ass place in rural Norway, and with Jompi growing up with punk (NOFX, Rancid, etc), Erik with pop-punk (Anti-Flag, Rise Against, Blink-182) and Noppers with whatever the fuck (Norma Jean, The Mars Volta and Gojira), we all fell in love with Norwegian hardcore, and the Norwegian underground scene.
Norway has a lot of great hardcore bands, along with tons of great underground metal-acts as well.Seeing as Norway isn’t the biggest country in the world, the underground scene across the country is kind of unified with a lot of enthusiasts in every corner, although I would split it mostly in three parts with the Northerners having their own particular sound, the West Coast having their sound and Southerners/East Coast having their own sound again. Norway’s underground is fucking awesome.
Of bands you need to check out from Norway right now; Of Grace And Hatred, Attan, PROBLEMS, Cult Member, Tirades and The Good The Bad & The Zugly.We discovered Zegema Beach and Open Mind / Saturated Brain not too long ago. David reviewed our album and EPs there. Since this blog was new to us it was really cool to see that David had done reviews on legendary Norwegian hardcore act; Kaospilot, back in 2014. Funny that obscure Norwegian underground just finds it’s way to David.
INFANT ISLAND
Well we each got involved in different ways, when I (Alexander Rudenshiold) was in high school I had a friend who had a “screamo phase” — she got me into some entry level stuff before she fell off the map. I’ve been into it ever since then, but only got deeper in after meeting Daniel. He and Kyle were both exposed to screamo first somewhat due to the internet, but more I think because of Magic Bullet Records, their HQ store used to be located in Fredericksburg (where we’re from), but has since moved to California. In any case, Austin was, along with making nintendocore, in a pretty technical metal band in High School — as well as Smallhands in college (a band Kyle also used to also be in), who we put out a split with — and is generally well versed in experimental music of most varieties, even incorporating screaming into his academically recognized music. He also has liked bands like PG.99, Dillinger Escape Plan, Daughters, The Locust, and Converge for a long time, so I’d imagine any one of those things was his point of entry.
Fredericksburg is a pretty small town, located halfway between Washington D.C. and Richmond. As you’d expect maybe, there’s not much of a screamo scene here aside from us (unless you count Black Matter Device, who’re a sick local mathcore band). There used to be Magic Bullet as I said earlier and there continues to be a very cool shoegaze scene here founded with bands like Skywave, and continued by friends of ours in Raw Feels. However, being just an hour from D.C. and Richmond there are plenty of really sick bands to check out, most of whom we’re friends with. At this point I’d consider us pretty attached to the Great Dismal scene in Richmond, just because we play there so often and work together on stuff.
Much love for Zegema Beach obviously, Dave is such a hard working guy and truly kills it with every release. Also a big fan of Middle Man Records, Shawn’s been a guiding force for us and we’re really grateful for that, we also buy lots of stuff from them. Obviously all about Conditions Records, they helped release our LP as well and have been putting out a ton of cool music despite being relatively new to the game. Another newcomer to the scene that’s been really supportive of us is Left Hand Label, looking forward to what they and Dog Knights keep doing.
So, from our area directly there’s Black Matter Device who’re doing wonders in Mathcore and Austin’s other band Mikau who play cybergrind-y post-hardcore. Regionally there are a ton of really cool active bands from Richmond there’s folks like .giffromgod, Ostraca, 60659-c, Listless, and In Wolves Clothing; and in D.C. there’s the new band from the Majority Rule crew NØ MAN. We’re also good friends with the folks in Massa Nera, Our Wits That Make Us Men, and Miriam from New Jersey; and we’ve gotten to tour with Low Light, Hundreds of AU, and Soul Glo. All of these bands are amazing and worth your time and attention!
JEANNE
Hey, we are Jeanne from Strasbourg, France. This song called “14/2″ was recorded during summer 2018 and is going to be included in a 2×12” split/compilation for Zegema Beach Records. The inspiration came from the protest which took place on the 1st of May 2018 in Paris. It all started with the political classes being outraged by the violence and damages that have been caused during that specific event. It’s about youth stigmatization, the same youth that had used this violence as the only way to be heard. “Violence is a seed” are some of the words of this song.
Jeanne is first Thibault and Lucas’s project, both guitar players, eager to come back to screamo roots. This music is dense as well as aggressive and deals with political issues. It finds its models in bands such as Orchid, Kaospilot, but also in French bands like Daïtro or Farewell, which have truly influenced the scream European scene. It was with this in mind that the band was created, including later on, members from different horizons such as grindcore, powerviolence and crust.
The actual local scene comes alive in places like concert venues, bars and self managed locations. Strasbourg city is close to a number of different countries such as Germany, Switzerland and eastern countries which is a massive advantage to discover and to be in touch with different music styles (Emo, Screamo, Crust, Atmosphérical Black, Shoegaze,etc…).
We have played and are in contact with bands like Géranïum, Potence, Black code, Paramnesia, Yurodivy, Mental Distress, Contwig, Another 5 Minutes, The Boring, Judith – however these bands wouldn’t exist without labels and distribution which truly participate in everything (Itawak Records, Dingleberry Records, Wooaaargh ), recording studios (Disvlar studios, Kawati studios, Lot48 ), rehearsal places and of course concert venues (Kawati studios, le Diamant d’or, le Molodoi). Not to mention the numerous associations that keep these places alive.
These people and these places have big challenges. In one hand they don’t particularly want to get into an institutional system. The main purpose is to remain free. Freedom of speech and freedom of action are really important. This is not always easy to maintain because of Strasbourg’s political and cultural pressures. Indeed counterculture is not especially valued enough in this city. And on the other hand the urge of being active because otherwise these places would simply disappear due to financial issues.We would like to thank David Norman et Zegema Beach records for offering us this wonderful opportunity to cross borders and show our art that illuminates our souls.
KOMUSO
We had all found screamo/emo music way before we found each other to start this band. We being all quite young means that the internet helped us a lot in discovering and searching for any type of music and just access it immediately. But both Japan and Sweden have for a long time had world-known underground music scenes, so there is still plenty of digging to be done. Back then, there was never really a shortage of local shows and new bands coming up either. We got more involved in our scenes by just starting bands, visiting shows, buying records and just being really into what was happening. Long story short, big shout-outs to LastFM, blogspots and our countries/cities for having a lot to offer.
Japan and Tokyo are kicking out crazy shows every now and then and many of the bigger, older bands are still active all while new bands are popping up constantly and doing insanely good releases. Can’t really say the same about Sweden, even though it’s far from dead. There has been so many great bands, and there still are. It’s been a while since I heard about a good screamo show around Stockholm, but I can’t help but smiling thinking about how many truly great shows I’ve seen here. Some cool bands worth checking out from our areas are Asthenia, Setsuko, Kid Feral and Day’s Eye.
First of all we’d like to thank Zegema Beach Records for all support we’ve had since day one. All from doing our first tape, to doing our 7” and for putting us on this sampler. ZBR is doing amazing work for current screamo, and not just in Canada. Some mixed highlights from the ZBR catalog over the years for us are:
Blind Girls – Residue
Sore Eyelids – For Now
60659-C – The next part is a blur
Via Fondo – Efter, undan utan
Улыбайся Ветру – Illusions
Sans Visage – MomentsOther labels doing cool stuff right now are:
Left Hand Label – Ran by the lovely people from Dog Knights (no introduction needed) doing cool smaller releases, including one of ours, and recently put out a tape version of the last Infant Island release with a bonus track.
Zilpzalp Records – Big love to Rob for being the nicest ever. Releases plenty of amazing records and books great shows, based in Leipzig, Germany.
Through Love Records – Damn, I miss Paul so much. Big shout-outs to TLR for bringing that Swedish pop to Europe – check it out!
Middle-Man Records – If your reading this and somehow don’t know this label, go check their bandcamp after finishing this article. There’s a 100% guarantee you’ll find something you’ll love.
LYTIC
Well, it wasn’t a deliberate action and the genre didn’t exist in the way that I think most people think of it today when I got into hardcore back in the early 90’s. Back then, me and my bandmates in Saetia were just playing music that interested us, music that was dynamic and reflected other things we were into, most notably jazz. Probably the band that attracted me into that style of music most was Fugazi and I’m sure a lot of people from my generation would say the same. But the scene was pretty integrated into the larger punk community back then; there wasn’t a screamo or emo scene so much as bands that consisted of like minded individuals naturally gravitated to each other. We didn’t all play the same style of hardcore necessarily but there was more a sense of community based on our politics and philosophy towards music.
The current state of screamo and hardcore in NYC is pretty ok, actually. It’s never been a city that really cranked out screamo bands. I’m not sure why. But we have a few right now who I think are pretty exceptional. We also have a lot of great new venues that are accessible to smaller bands (such Gold Sounds, The Kingsland, Bushwick Public House) and some larger venues that are willing to do matinees for smaller gigs (St Vitus, Brooklyn Bazaar).Middle Man is also a great label for the genre right now and Shawn Decker is an incredible person! I have to mention Destructure out in France because Nico is a friend and I love everything he puts out. SRA gets notable mention for putting out the Soul Glo LP AND the Flag of Democracy discography! Pretty much all the new music I’ve gotten in the past 12 months has come out of either Zegema Beach or one of those labels.
Pique are an amazing band from NYC and also awesome folk! People’s Temple Project have been around for a while and they are consistently mindblowing (they just released a split with Sleeper Wave and it’s insane). Aspine are another great band doing a style of sorta vintage emo-hardcore (as I knew it as a younger man) that’s right up my alley. And I will claim Closer (Is A Band) as a NYC band even though they’re sorta from all over the eastern seaboard.
MAREE NOIRE
I (Xavier) was 12 in 2005. My cousins came late to a family dinner because they attended Taste of Chaos. After they showed me every band of the night I had my first introduction to that “scene” sound. Then my first high school friend showed me Converge, and it all started from there. A few years later, through countless hours of youtube sessions, I ended up mindblown by Daitro’s album ‘Y’. That’s when I really started digging deeper into the screamo scene.
Montreal has for the past few years seen a lot of touring screamo acts and it warms my heart. Many house shows or bars/venues became classic spaces where you know you’ll always meet some friends (Forever thankful to Atomic Cafe and Kenney’s basement).
A few local bands emerged around the same time, including Dianacrawls, The Ultimate Screamo Band, and us. But some older ones are still active like The Discord of a Forgotten Sketch, The Expectorated Sequence, Milanku, Le Kraken, Albatros & Caton & Ophélie. We had the chance to meet the most amazing people while playing the past 2 years. We are lucky to have Respire and Terry Green from Ontario often sharing the stage with us. Around a year ago we were also lucky to play a few dates with Crowning and Frail Body, who instantly became friends of ours.In the recent releases ZBR did that I loved the most are definitely the Crowning/Swallows Nest Split, everything Massa Nera and Wristmeetrazor have released. For other labels, Middle Man Records, as well as Skeletal Lightning and I.CORRUPT.RECORDS, just to name a few, are other real examples of dedication to screamo.
MODERN RIFLES
“Hot Stone Meat Party” is one of 3 unreleased tracks that were released by Dave at Zegema Beach Records on a cassette along with our entire full length LP. We recorded these songs with Mario Quintero (from the band, Spotlights) in 2008. This song features jagged, angular, dualing guitars and some ferocious drumming. I’m not sure why these songs weren’t included on the original album, but we’re excited Dave liked them enough to release them into the wild!
NIBOOWIN
All of us became involved in screamo in different capacities at varying times of our lives, especially with our nearly 15 year age gap. Jimmy became involved with screamo with Quietus (the precursor to Old Soul) Nick Joined Old soul for Blue Heron and the final tour in 2016. Dillion became involved after Old Soul disbanded and Niboowin formed. Between all of our eclectic tastes in music and while we are on the heavy/fast spectrum. Screamo has been the foundation we have built off of.
The majority of us are from the small town Mt. Pleasant Michigan, Dani is from Gothenburg Sweden. Dani Joined after the Envy comp was already recorded and sent out. As for the Scene in Mount Pleasant or should be know as flat pleasant, we are the only screamo band. There is a music dive bar called Rubbles and it is also the only realistic place to play “heavy” music. The only truly partially local band that falls into the diy spectrum is Cloud Rat whom you should listen to! Within the concept of Michigan there are copious amounts of bands worth your time. Great Reversals, Hollow Earth, Yakul, Novice, Dakhma, Attrition Cult and Bad Liver Piss. To name a few!
Our track Astral Summit is actually from a live recording at Mal De Testa in Italy. It was the day after our show at Curtarock fest and it was our last day with Storm{o} so we partied pretty hard the night before. Jimmy was locked out of the hotel, amazing times we will never forget… from what we can remember in the first place! We plan on recording the song in February/March and using it for a split, whom it will be with is still to be determined. We hope to have it released sometime this year!
NIONDE PLAGAN
As a band I guess we got involved when we did some changes in the line-up a couple of years ago, bringing in members with different backgrounds. Having members with experience from different screamo-bands, post-rock projects and from playing crust/metal, we kind of figured out a screamo-inspired sound we all appreciated. After that we more or less got hooked due to the great scene and all good people in it, making our screamo influences even more close to heart.
This is a tricky question since we don’t live in the same city. In Jönköping where we all come from it’s pretty silent unfortunately. In Uppsala where I (Jonathan) live, the local promoter ‘Uppsala Straight Edge’ have put up a lot of great shows the few last years with bands such as Shirokuma, Domarringen, Vi som älskade varandra så mycket, Joliette and Setsuko to name a few. So here the scene is alive and well, at least from the perspective that there’s good shows to go to. Uppsala is also close to Stockholm where the promoter ‘Stockholm Straight Edge’ generally puts up a lot of great screamo/post-hardcore shows.
We’ve had the pleasure to work with both ZBR and many other great DIY labels such as German Through Love Rec, Dingleberry Records and Moment of Collapse Records, Austrian Laserlife Records, Spanish Pundonor Records and Italian Longrail Records to name a few. David (ZBR) is a one of a kind amazing guy, but in common for all labels mentioned is that we always find a huge inspiration from their dedication and joy.
We dig a lot of swedish bands of course. If I remember correctly both Shirokuma and Vi som älskade varandra så mycket have been working on new material, so we really looking forward to hearing that. Looking beyond, we really can’t wait to hear the next release from Mexican Joliette. We heard them play their new songs live this last summer and they totally blew us away.
NUVOLASCURA
Erica: I started going to hardcore shows in 2005, mostly in the Bay Area and Sacramento. I loved seeing Killing the Dream, Set it Straight, Final Fight, Allegiance, Punch, Comadre and Gather. The bassist of my hardcore band in college made me a mix CD with bands like Raein, La Quiete and Celeste. I gravitated toward the emotional, melodic side of hardcore, which led to screamo.
Taylor: Dom introduced me to bands like Touché Amoré and Calculator when I was a freshman in high school. Shortly after, we started Vril and began playing shows at Bridgetown, dA Center for the Arts, Ché, etc.
Dom: The first few DIY shows I went to early on in high school really changed my life. Bands like Calculator, Moldar and Color Chromatic really opened up a whole new world for me musically.
Dan: I had an older brother that got me into the basic punk and hardcore stuff when I was young and when I was 14 a friend took me to a DIY show up the street. I discovered that there was an actual community built around it that was accessible to me, not just like seeing some punk at the mall wearing a Misfits shirt or something. The local bands Moldar & Calculator really solidified my interest in the more screamo side of it all I suppose and through them I discovered many more bands in our area and started going to any shows I could, eventually volunteering and putting on my own shows at Bridgetown DIY in La Puente, California, which is how I met and became friends with everyone in Nuvo a few years back.
Erica: There aren’t many screamo bands in SoCal. Our friend Manny (who volunteers with Dan and I at an all ages space called Bridgetown DIY) does a really good job supporting/hosting screamo and experimental shows in LA. Our friend Timmy also books a bunch of screamo shows at a skate shop in Fullerton. It’s a ton of work and I’m very appreciative of people who put so much energy into the scene.
Taylor: There seem to be less screamo bands in SoCal recently but as far as California goes I gotta shout out Hawak (bay area) because they are literally the best screamo band in Cali right now.Dom: I feel like the current state of screamo is growing a bit stale. Nowadays It’s seems like the more traditional sound of screamo is preferred over those that are more experimental and daring and it kinda bums me out.
Dan: There’s definitely a lot of great people doing amazing stuff right now but i think that a lot of people who are into screamo (and even the punk/DIY community at large) are so nostalgic for the “glory days” that it prevents them from bringing in any new ideas or even just participating in any way that is substantial. Like can we stop talking about Jerome’s Dream already and start talking about Soul Glo maybe?
Taylor: Blue Swan and Twelve Gauge helped a lot with my other band Ghost Spirit’s LPs, also I of course love and endlessly appreciate ZBR and Sombras del Progreso.Dom: I like the mix of music Skeletal Lightning puts out.
Dan: I loved the Zegema Beach Zampler that we were very lucky to be included on. I’m very excited about the Lytic/Shizune split Zegma is releasing as well. I have kept my eye out for what seems to be an endless stream of new stuff Zegema has been putting out over the past couple of years. I’ve also been a fan of Skeletal Lightning and Condition Records for some time! And of course endless shout outs and thank yous to Zegema Beach, Sombras del Progresso & No Funeral for helping release our LP!
Erica: I agree with all of the above!
Erica: La Bella (LA), Hawak, Elle, Torso, Coherence and Windbreaker from northern CA, Hundreds of AU (NJ), Closer (NY), Ostraca (VA), Sentient Divide (WA), Implore (Germany), Infant Island (VA), Gilded Age (PDX).
Taylor: Some of my favorites from the greater LA area are La Bella, Left Astray, Moxiebeat; some favorites of mine outside of our area include Frail Hands, New Ruins, Hawak, Loma Prieta, Lord Snow, Soul Glo, 60659-c and .Gif From God.
Dom: Lord Snow will always be my favorite. Hawak is newer and one of the best screamo bands I’ve heard in a while. I’m also very excited to hear the new Senza LP.
Dan: It’s been a real privilege being able to watch the bands La Bella and Left Astray play and grow as musicians from the very start and I’m doubly lucky that they also happen to be some of my closest friends. Moxiebeat from Riverside, CA are another band I love to see though they unfortunately don’t have a lot of material online. And, while they aren’t exactly local to us, the bands Hawak and Elle are both extremely talented and made up of some very kind humans.
PEOPLE’S TEMPLE PROJECT
Akashita Corporation Horizon Initiative Presents: People’s Temple Project – Conducting Audio/Visual research in the greater NY region for 6 years.
300 copies of the testing materials can be procured from IFB, Zegema Beach, Dingleberry or directly from the offices of Akashita Corporation. Participation is encouraged but not mandatory.
RESPIRE
We’ve all individually come to find/love screamo as a result being curious kids on the internet – Last.fm digging / blogspots / emo mixes / forums / youtube ….
Rohan first messaged Egin on myspace (the two + Darren later played a show with their first screamo bands and met in real life). Ben posted a craigslist ad about wanting to play screamo (which Egin responded to). Travis and Darren met because of a Suis La Lune shirt on public transit. All of us started going to more and more local DIY shows. At the time, Em (RIP Foxmoulder) ran DIY shows at a number of now-defunct art-spaces, lofts, houses and bars. We were all still babies when Em sought us out on myspace/facebook and invited our amateur bands to perform with some of our heroes. We were enamored right away by the spirit and camaraderie of DIY as culture and community. It’s what’s kept all of us together in each other’s lives for the past 10 years.
The State of Screamo Is Alive and Well. In the last 2 years Rohan and Egin have been running New Friends DIY with likeminded local DIY stalwarts (from hardcore band Digest), curating shows and a yearly festival – trying to nourish and grow a strong and welcoming community – free of fascism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression. We’ve been dealt venue closure after closure, but still we fight on. With our second festival, New Friends Fest 2 (August 2-4), we hope to continue bridging the vibrant, diverse, burgeoning NE/Midwest US screamo scene with Canada & continue to grow, celebrate and promote the DIY spirit at home.
ZBR RELEASES
Young Mountain – Lost Tree
Blind Girls – Residue
Nuvolascura –ST
Crowning/Marée Noire – Split
Massa Nera – Los Pensamientos De Una Cara PalidaOTHER LABELS
Shout out to Left Hand Label & Dog Knights famOTHER BANDS
Tengil, Svalbard, Joliette, Terry Green, Cassus, Gillian Carter, Ostraca, Elle ❤
SENZA
Jamie and I started a band in 2011. Found the music through various blogs and some forums. Tim was shown screamo when he was 12 by Anthony of Antiphony.
The scene in Eugene isn’t crazy active, mostly us, other bands that Jamie in in (Tolls), and Kylo Ren which Jamie and Tim used to be in.
ZBR and David are awesome, we always appreciate everything he does for us. Glossolalia has a black metal tape label that is worth checking out, Tim is friends with them!We’re big fans of Nuvoluscura and are planning a little tour with them in the end of May, we’re also fans of Clavel! We’re on tour with them right now.
SHIZUNE
Ciao! We are shizune from Italy! Our contribution to the Zegema Beach Records Zampler #12 is a track from our split with Lytic, occhiaie metafisiche / metaphysical eye bags: “being carried away by the first ray of wind and falling asleep at the last breeze of twilight, wouldn’t it be nice?”
I first got in touch with Dave over his blog openmind/saturatedbrain a few years ago, till he proposed that we join the Envy tribute LP.
Independence is the thing that unites us: we are all music enthusiasts with a strong idea of what we like and what we want, and this passion is essential for the whole environment because beyond releasing music, independent labels contribute in helping touring bands, booking shows, organizing festivals and connecting people, that it’s all that matters to us.We are lucky enough to have had the chance to play in Japan, US and a couple of shows in Canada other than Europe, this gave us the possibility to share the stage with tons of amazing bands like LYTIC, INFRO, BLUE FRIEND, FORGET ME NOT, HUNDREDS OF AU, COMA REGALIA, KAIN, LOOK AT MOMENT, CLOSER, NOTTOBELIKESOMEONE, ASTHENIA, KMKMS, VACANT, NARR, QUIQUI, FRAIL BODY, AS IF TO IMPLY, CYBERNE, FLESCO, SICK SHIT, PIQUE, REVERIES, LYPURA’ and many more as well as our fellow companions SELVA.
We’re currently working on a new full length record, a longer one maybe. And just one last thing…”TANTO AMORE”.
SWALLOWS NEST
Hi, we are Swallows Nest from Dunedin at the bottom end of the land of the long white cloud (Aotearoa, the te reo Maori name for New Zealand). While each of us has their own story of how they got involved in screamo, it generally proceeds from an interest in and following of the local alternative/punk scene as well as playing in bands.
Aotearoa New Zealand has a small but vibrant alternative music scene with little sub-genre segmentation. Screamo bands here regularly play with, for instance, punk and metal bands
David being a long-distance member of Swallows Nest we, of course, have a lot of time for Zegema Beach Records. There are also a couple of awesome DIY labels in Aotearoa that are definitely worth checking out:
– Razored Raw are a Wellington label primarily focused in Crust and PV
– Now defunct Press Gang Records did a bunch of great alternative releases of bands from Aotearoa
– Also, Black Wire Records from Sydney are great
Obviously, all of us have a thoroughly globalised listening habit persistently checking out bands from all sorts of places. Here are some cool bands from Aotearoa we really like and are inspired by:
– Long Distance Runner (Auckland)
– Parents (Auckland)
– Hedge Fund Trader (Hamilton)
– Human Resource (Auckland)
– TVX (Wellington)
– Nervous Jerk (Christchurch)
– Carradine Choke (Christchurch)
– Ayamvoid (Dunedin)
– Contenders (Hamilton)
TRÖPICAL ICE LAND
In three word: thoughts, meditation and euphoria. This is screamo for us.
We discovered screamo, when we were teenagers (15 years old more or less) in a local radio program called “queelcom més que fressa” (something more than noise). One of the first bands we heard was Funeral Dinner and Kaospilot and immediately fell in love! But the band that inspires us most is Mihai Edrisch.
Here in Osona there are not many screamo bands, it has never been a popular movement. There has always been more punk rock, hardcore and metal movements. The best band for us that has emerged here is Based On A Lie.
Dingleberry Records, Krims Kramz Records together with Zegema Beach Records will help us with the new LP.
In a national way we listen to Based on a Lie, Heads and Heads, Ekkaia, Drei Affen, Corea, Reaction Reaction, Viva Belgrado, Gone with the Pain, Sls3 and Interlude. These are some of the national bands that we use to listen but there are much more. In the global scene we love 90s screamo such as Orchid or Tristan Tzara.
ULTIMATE SCREAMO BAND
I like to listen to a lot of different musical genres, but screamo holds that special place in my heart. I will ALWAYS come back to emo-violence, every couple of months—it is basically my “spirit animal” music. Zegema Beach records deeply contributed to the resurgence of North American screamo in the past few years. The 2010s really showed us that screamo is alive; and I am very excited for the 2020s. Listen to the Zampler!
YOUNG MOUNTAIN
We all got involved at a younger age, playing in different bands and attending the local underground community of different shows in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Sadly the scandinavian screamo scene seams to have stagnated a bit, but we have a few new bands that are keeping the fire alive.
Pundonor Records, Hardcore For The Losers, Miss The Stars, Dasein Records, Zilpzalp records, Bloated Veins, Holy Roar, Luxxury Records, Cactus Tapes, Blade Records, No Funeral Records and Zegema Beach Records are great labels.Bands we listen to in our area: Kid Feral, Shirokuma, Tengil, The Hope And The Failure, No Omega, Suffocate For Fuck Sake, Newman, Suis La Lune, Trembling Hands, Setsuko, Trachimbrod, Mountain Mover.
Beyond: Respire, Portrayal Of Guilt, Love/Lust, Boneflower, Cassus, Flood Of Red, Shizune, I Hate Sex
GO HERE to see our latest feature on YOUNG MOUNTAIN and their stunning record “Lost Tree”.
