Sorry State Records, the nationally regarded Carrboro punk label continues to make a wonderful ruckus. Indeed, the label has two exemplary N.C. punk bands on its release docket for early 2012. Raleigh’s backbreaking Stripmines unveil their first LP, Crimes of Dispassion, while fast and fiery Charlotte outfit Joint Damage will release Strike Gently, its own debut long player. Neither album has an official release date as of yet, but both have been promised sometime near March.

Stripmines are, as their name might indicate, among the most relentless and punishing punk bands in the Carolinas. On record, their tenacious rhythms are topped off by crushing distortion and burly barks of singer Matt LaVallee. And on “Years of Dread,” the first cut from the record, his self-effacing bile is ranted without mercy.

Years of Dread by sorrystaterecords

Joint Damage is lead by guitarist Nick Goode, who also has his hand in Brain F≠ and Logic Problem, two of N.C.’s premiere punk bands. Joint Damage, which also features members of avant-jazz act Great Architect and the omnivorous pop band Yardwork, explores the fast and fierce approach of Brain F≠ while shirking that band’s hook happy approach. Riffs grind with endless momentum as the rhythm section keeps breathless time beneath. “I’m Haunted,” the second of Joint Damage’s two offerings from the LP, finds a middle ground between these two sounds. The distortion is fierce, but Brain F≠ singer Elise Anderson guests during the chorus, shoring up the hook against the surrounding din.

- Jordan Lawrence

POISON-I by JOINT DAMAGE

(I’M) HAUNTED by JOINT DAMAGE

For our inaugural The Insider, reedsman Brent Bagwell gives us the inside dope on the studio alchemy of his Charlotte free-noise sextet Great Architect…

We recorded this record in one day. One afternoon, really. Fresh from a tour — the first after expanding to a sextet — we set up in the familiar confines of “the lab” and our main man Bo White (Kinnikinnik Records) captured the proceedings in his inimitable way. I recall we convinced him to wear a beautiful floral sash for part of the session.

The recipe goes like this: Play every song twice. Not twice in a row, but once down the list like a set. Take a break. Play every song one more time. Wait a few weeks. Listen to the mixes and choose the preferred takes. Order them. Press to vinyl. Serves 300.

Sometimes, people mistake this approach for slapdash. Slipshod. It’s not. We just prefer ripping off a string of three-pointers every night to carefully constructing a video sequence of us shooting three-pointers. It’s easier. It’s harder. Let the camera roll, we’re ballin’ tonight, anyway…

This approach has lots of appeal. Drawn from the jazz perspective, the players endeavor to embody the music on every outing. So, yes, the recording is a snapshot of how it sounded that day, but it’s also a culmination of what we thought about these tunes over the months that lead up to that day. It’s a good representation of how Great Architect would sound if we set up in your living room. Or the lobby of the skyscraper in which you work.

We operate with a fairly high degree of freedom. The curious thing about this, however, is that we improvise much less than most folks might imagine. The freedom is in what we might suggest in the early stages of compositions. Or do when we start playing new material. What we intend. We’re scoring our own storyboard. It’s musical and it’s representational and it’s never arbitrary. Every song is about something.

Each member has contributed songs and every other member has altered each one for the better. Every tune has a back-story, movement, a plan. I was astonished to find that the two takes of each song for this record were always — always! — within a few seconds of one another in duration. It seems we have a collective notion about when we’ve almost overplayed our welcome. An unspoken understanding, measured more accurately by the flow of time and shared experience than by tempo and bar line.

So, this record…

The Trickster took the bait and the trap is unsprung. One way to balance the equation of Cultural Games is to think of it like this: an invitation, a faux-fanfare, a long climb; an unexplored organic compound; a first ride home; a wall of roiling calm; an action scene, rich in suspense; an impossible challenge; a deus ex machina for the bullpen; a heartfelt, awkward dance; a lost world; the rattle of the Electra 10-E, the unanswered radio calls, the flat sea.

But why fence in the listener? He or she is the crucial Seventh Party in all this. The one who needs to listen and think in order for it to work out for us all. Make it something new.