New sounds from the solo home-recorded incarnation of Portland's CDG (aka Conditioner Disco Group), as performed by J. Nickle (also of Collate & the Bedrooms). Doomtown goes downtown, the Pacific Northwest takes on vintage UK DIY, Mark E. Smith in lockdown?Our take: If you just hit “add to cart” on the Spread Joy record, you might as well add this one too, because it appeals to a lot of the same sensibilities. The Venn diagram of people who would like both bands is in Mastercard logo territory, if not more… if I were more business-minded I would offer a bundle price for grabbing them both. If you can opine on the relative merits of Slates versus Hex Enduction Hour (I definitely can), CDG makes music for you. Not that CDG sounds exactly like the Fall (but sometimes they sound a lot like the Fall). For one, CDG often uses funky grooves (like the Zamrock-ish “Degraded Dialect”), something the Fall didn’t tend to do, but that was a big part of that UK DIY / post-punk / messthetic (although CDG resides in Portland, this is very Anglophonic). If you have any fucking clue about what I’m going on about right now, you need this. It’s exactly how on the nose you want it to be, right down to the distinctive sleeve design and the sneaky pop hit that closes the record. I also love that, while a lot of bands of this ilk release singles, this is modeled on longer 7” EPs like the Television Personalities’ Where’s Bill Grundy Now or the O-Level record, and like those EPs, this feels weightier and wider in scope than a two-songer.
