The Musings of Sense Field and Running From Dharma

I don't write about split releases all that often, in part because there aren't a great deal many that I've wanted to revisit. But this one resurfared recently, and upon giving it a few spins, I figured, "what the hell?" and sucked a high-quality, 320kbps rip up into the ol' MEGA portal for your listening pleasure.

I've wirtten a fair amount of Sense Field-related posts over the years, but nothing since 2020, so as one of my favorite bands of a certain era, it makes sense (HA!) to dig back into my recollections and share this latter-day release from 2004. You get a Smiths cover and a live recording of Killed For Less's "Soft". The other two tracks are from Central PA's Running From Dharma. Truth be told, I should be able to remember these guys, but nothing comes to mind, despite an acoustic version of "Drive Not Driving" and their own take on a Marr/Morrissey classic.

It has occurred to me in the writing of this blog that this was the last new Sense Field release before Jon Bunch's death in 2016. What a loss. This is a good way to remember a very good guy.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Encyclopedia of American Traitors - self-titled

I associate this late-90s hardcore-bordering-on-screamo band with Frodus, Reversal of Man, and Pg. 99, all of whom I'm reasonably certain I saw them with. They did a split with Orchid, and one with Kwisatz Haderach. They came from up around Lancaster, PA, a town which (oddly) got a ton more "big" punk shows throughout the 90s than Baltimore. So hearing a band like Encyclopedia of American Traitors come out of a town where I saw Citizen Fish and Rancid...it was jarring at the time. It wouldn't be until years later that I learned they were ex-Spirit Assembly, and at least one member would move to Florida and play in Fiya.

Does every generation of punks, when they have enough distance between them and the moment, think that they had the world by the balls? Or were we part of something truly special, unrepeatable? I tell some story about seeing some random band with ten other kids in a dank basement, repurposed into a showspace, and suddenly, to the listener, it's a Velvet Underground moment. It's not that this world was poorly documented; it's that it's one of the last times the world would be mysterious, up for interpretation, grainy like a VHS tape.

Discogs

Click here to download.