suicide squeeze records Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

L.A. Witch “Octubre”

sfilzen — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 17:32:23 +0000

L.A. Witch “Octubre” 2019. Suicide Squeeze Records, limited edition Halloween black and orange vinyl. 5-track EP of psychedelic garage rock from Los Angeles. Spooky, lo-fi and trashy, perfect for the season. According to the blurb on Suicide Squeeze’s page:

There is no better season for these kinds of songs than the autumn when the promises of summer have abated and the nights of reckoning grow longer. L.A. Witch seized the moment by revisiting some of their early tracks and reshaping them into Octubre, a five-song EP that delves deeper into their darker side. “Because these are old songs—we don’t play them live anymore but still wanted them to be heard—this was the perfect opportunity to get experimental with sounds and textures,” Sanchez says of the EP. Despite this new studio adventurism, the songs on Octubre stay true to L.A. Witch’s vintage starkness.

Singer Sade Sanchez has a bluesy and sultry voice which is juxtaposed by her stark guitar work, but enhanced by the deep rhythms of drummer Ellie English and bassist/organist Irina Pai. My top track is “Sleep,” which has sort of a sinister rockabilly flavor and an excellent beat. “Heart of Darkness” has a bit of a bendy and creepy funhouse vibe while somehow still feeling sad and sweet and the final track, “Outro” is a brief sleepy hollow closer.

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Death Valley Girls “Islands in the Sky”

sfilzen — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 17:06:25 +0000

Death Valley Girls “Islands in the Sky” 2023. Suicide Squeeze Records on limited edition “Venus in Gemini” colored vinyl. Witchy garage psych drenched in spacey California stoner sunshine. Islands in the Sky is DVG’s fifth (I think) studio LP. We’ve been fans of the band since catching them at a hyper-intimate show back in August 2019 at Romanus Fest in Indianapolis (held inside a tiny record store, Square Cat Vinyl). Guitar and organ-forward with thick melodies and singer/frontwoman Bonnie Bloomgarden’s soaring vocals define all of DVG’s releases and Islands in the Sky is no exception, though this record feels a bit more anthemic and less garage-pop influenced – like the opener “California Mountain Shake,” “Sunday” and the jangly “All That is Not of Me.” That vibe is explained by Bloomgarden’s writing inspiration for the album while bedridden with illness for several months: “When I was sick, I started to wonder if it would be possible to write a record with messages of love to my future self. This was really the first time that I consciously thought about my own suffering and what future me might need to hear to heal. I struggled so much in my life with mental health, abuse, PTSD, and feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere. And I don’t want anyone—including my future self—to suffer ever again. I realized that if we are all part of one cosmic consciousness, as we [Death Valley Girls] believe, then Islands in the Sky could serve not only as a message of love and acceptance to myself, but also from every self to every self, because we are all one!”

There are exceptions to the down-to-midtempo vibes on Islands with some real banging ass-shakers like “Magic Powers” and “What are the Odds,” two of my favorite songs on the record. Also great: “Journey to Dog Star” is an exotic trance-dance and the previously released “When I’m Free” (a split single with Le Butcherettes), as I wrote in 2023 when the single was released, highlights all the best DVG have to offer: swagger, swirling keyboards and killer rhythm.

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The Coathangers “Nosebleed Weekend”

sfilzen — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 22:35:14 +0000

The Coathangers “Nosebleed Weekend” 2016. Suicide Squeeze Records. Limited edition “First Aid” variant, teal and dark red swirl colored vinyl. Ours is the second pressing; the first orders came with a first kit including an autographed surgical mask, tampon, condom, button, scratch and sniff sticker, lollipop and custom bandaid dispenser. Their 5th LP, today I’m spinning The Coathangers’ girl-garage punk/alt-rock record for obvious and rage-filled reasons. My top tracks include the angry “Excuse Me?,” the beat-driven “Make It Right,” the delightfully silly “Squeeki Tiki,” the super-catchy title track “Nosebleed Weekend,” the snotty ass-shaker “Watch Your Back” and the crashingly groovy, sultry “Down Down.”

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Death Valley Girls “Street Venom”

sfilzen — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 18:47:27 +0000

Death Valley Girls “Street Venom” 2014/2021. Limited edition (200 copies) “Eye of the Beholder” colored vinyl. DVG’s debut album, originally released on cassette (Burger Records). Fuzzy garage punk with grungy riot grrrl and psycho-surf energy (Hole’s drummer Patty Schemel was in the band and performs on the record), Street Venom is as fantastic as DVG’s subsequent releases. “Sanitarium Blues,” one of my favorite tracks, is about singer/keyboardist Bonnie Bloomgarden’s stint in an actual sanitarium. From her Instagram: “When I was a kid, I ended up in a mental institution! I eventually found out that I am bipolar and extremely empathetic. Life just got too intense/scary to know how to deal with alone! I didn’t know how to get help or that help would work.” Other top tracks include the buzzy garage ass-shakers “Shadow” and “Girlfriend.” This reissue/deluxe version includes two songs not on the original 2014 cassette release but were a limited edition 7″ single in 2015: “Electric High” and “Gettin’ Hard” and both are an excellent addition to the LP.

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Ty Segall “Sentimental Goblin”

sfilzen — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 19:35:44 +0000

Ty Segall “Sentimental Goblin” 2017. Suicide Squeeze Records. 2 song “EP” (total misnomer: it’s a 7″ single with two A-sides since neither is technically a “single”), purple/pink limited edition variant. Side A has “Pan,” a fuzzed-out psychedelic heavy garage rocker, very Ty. Side B’s “Black Magick” is considerably more laid-back: still fuzzy but more sweetly melodic and psychedelic in the tripped-out Sgt. Peppers 60′s style. Both songs are great but this little bite of vinyl definitely has me wanting more (I mean, Segall is ridiculously and notoriously prolific so it’s not like I really need more releases, just more from this train of thought).

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Death Valley Girls “Under the Spell of Joy”

sfilzen — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 18:34:21 +0000

Death Valley Girls “Under the Spell of Joy” released today, October 2nd 2020, on Suicide Squeeze Records, limited edition (300 copies) on silver vinyl. If you aren’t listening to Death Valley Girls – why the hell not?!!? Their new release is the best record I’ve heard this year (granted, I’m not getting out that much, but still, it’s AMAZING). Self-described as “space-gospel,” the Death Valley Girls are dark Bansheesque post-punk mixed with heavy psychedelic garage rock (complete with 60′s style organ), mixed with a Wall of Sound 60′s girl group flavor (see “Bliss Out”) whose songs are at times hypnotic and ethereal while also seriously ass-shaking. Basically everything I love in a band!!! I just got this in the mail two days ago (I pre-ordered it so scored it early) and it pretty much hasn’t left the turntable since. I could listen to several of the tracks on their new LP over and over and over: My top tracks: “Hold My Hand” (super-catchy!), the title track “Under the Spell of Joy” (stomping garage rock meets saxophone solo!), “It All Washes Away” (Jagger-level maracas, organ AND saxophone! a heavy heavy stomper), “10 Day Miracle Challenge” (hard driving garage punk) and the final track “Dream Cleaver” (super-psychedelic and highly danceable; it flows into an endless runout groove unintelligible chant which forces you out of your trance to get up and pick up the needle, only to set it right back down again at the start of the record): check out its witchy video here:

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Death Valley Girls “Breakthrough”

sfilzen — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 19:49:21 +0000

Death Valley Girls “Breakthrough” b/w “Rock ‘N’ Roll/EGA” 2020. Suicide Squeeze Records, limited edition black and purple split vinyl. The latest release from the “California doom boogie” garage rock band who blew us away last summer when we saw them at Romanus Fest in Indianapolis. Death Valley Girls are a group of hard-rocking women (and one dude) with punk/grudge cred (founder/drummer Patty Schemel was in Hole; the dude is her brother Larry on guitar) that play with 60′s pop, proto-punk, metal and gothy horror vibes to make some killer music (their 2018 LP Darkness Rains was one of my favorite albums of the year). “Breakthrough” is a funky track with a 70′s hard rock vibe; it is a cover of Atomic Rooster (1971), though the band discovered the track through a rendition by Nigerian outfit The Funkees (info via Suicide Squeeze). “Rock ‘N’ Roll/EGA” is another cover (by Daniel Johnston, 1994, who Death Valley Girls briefly backed) that brings the grungy loud-quiet-loud structure to a whole other level: 60′s harmony stark n’ sweet punctuated by crashing guitar and drum metal density.

Here’s a photo from the show we saw at Square Cat Vinyl in August ‘19: vocalist/organist Bonnie Bloomgarden, bassist Rachel Orosco and drummer Patty Schemel.

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The Coathangers “The Devil You Know”

sfilzen — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 16:13:14 +0000

The Coathangers “The Devil You Know” 2019. Suicide Squeeze Records. Limited edition colored vinyl “Bittersweet” variant. Punchy, modern feminist garage-punk, The Devil You Know is The Coathangers’ sixth full-length LP and it’s soooo good. My favorite track is the menacing “Crimson Telephone” but I also really like the more upbeat, almost bubbly tracks like “Bimbo,” “Hey Buddy” and “Memories.” I should note that they are upbeat and bubbly musically; the messages of The Coathangers’ lyrics decry misogyny, gay/queer bashing and gun nuts (“Fuck the NRA” is fantastic!) – The Coathangers’ world is definitely not OK.

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Death Valley Girls “Darkness Rains”

sfilzen — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 19:18:45 +0000

Death Valley Girls “Darkness Rains” 2018. Limited edition yellow with red splatter, Suicide Squeeze Records. We picked up what I believe is DVG’s third LP this past weekend at Romanus Records Fest in Indianapolis where they headlined the jam-packed (15 bands!) evening lineup. Hard driving, punkish garage rock with nods to the darkness of goth and touches of neo-psychedelia via organ and lead guitarist Larry Schemel (who on stage was kinda relegated to the background, allowing the Girls to shine up front, mostly with huge smiles on their faces during the entire set).

We were able to grab the set-list, excellently illustrated:

DVG played several tracks from Darkness Rains, many of them my favorite on the album. They led off with “Abre Camino,” an intensely dark and throbbing scorcher that is the first track on Side B. From Darkness Rains also is the high octane rocker “Street Justice,” the hypnotic “More Dead,” “Disaster (Is What We’re After)” which features Iggy Pop eating a hamburger while jamming out to the song’s beat in its video (spoiler: he clearly loves ketchup), and my top track, “Wear Black” upon which lead singer, guitarist and keyboardist Bonnie Bloomgarden pulls out some amazing psychedelic organ.

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