51. The Hospitals - Hairdryer Peace (2008)

The Hospitals started in 2002 as a overdriven noisy punk band from Oregon, releasing a few records on labels like In the Red. Following a move to San Francisco, drummer/vocalist Adam Stonehouse took the reigns and produced this masterwork of scuzzy, acid drenched surf noise. By pushing the music into a deconstructed mosaic of garage pop, he created a modern day Trout Mask, Twin Infinitives, Dragnet or White Light White Heat. Like those records, the first few listens can be confusing, nauseous and hellish, but eventually the penny drops that it is cool and clever and every sound contained within is designed, hard won, and meant to be there.
Needless to say, your tolerance of this record depends upon an embrace of Lynchian disorientation and a love of blistering noise.

S'funny that with the popularity of noise acts across the mid 00's, a scene that is derided for sounding all the same. i.e. a tuneless wall of noise/drone, you still always kinda knew where these acts were at deep down. For instance MV & EE are country rock, Religious Knives are goth, Wolf Eyes are Detroit rock, Sightings are glam rock. The longer they continue the closer they seem to get to their spiritual homes. Following this  dubious logic then, The Hospitals are west coast psychedelia. And fittingly what may appear to be fragments of song structure distorted within and without with, production murk, cassette hiss, and a bad trip vibe, can leave you feeling exhilarated and sunny. I have heard this record many times, and there are still parts where I have no idea what's going on, but that just makes me wanna go back for more so maybe I can UNDERSTAND.

Hairdryer Peace is like a wild party going out of control, like someones spiked the punch with strong acid, there's someone freaking out, Adam sings ' I feel queer' from behind a locked door. Some people have started to fight, there's seems to be loads of people you've never met, you realize you're among a group acting crazy, but are unable to do anything about it. A riff builds into a wave of noise before a Paint it Black bass line allows us to breathe, only to repeat the same theme again. Getting out of Bed is the flipside of The Beatles - I'm only sleeping, whereas Lennon wants to be left alone to his daydreams, Stonehouse is literally unable to raise his head from the floor, 'I'm stressing out, I can't control, the patterns on the tiled floor, is someone I know?'. An LA pop classic destined never to be heard on radio. Here it is accompanied by some footage of people shopping.



Animals act natural is another great riff and anxiety tune (It's all been so hard for me), until bass feedback rips the shit from the tune and we are led into BPPN, Royal Trux territory, bongos.
One of the last lines you are able to actually make out on this record is, 'I feel dizzy, I feel stoked', kind of sums it up really.