Toxic Slime Records

Toxic Slime Records falls somewhere between a record label and a band. What they are for sure is a group of four Portland musicians sharing a dingy basement studio, trading instruments, concocting musical personas, and capturing it all on tape along the way. This leaves them free to experiment with different styles, genres, and approaches, though each of the resulting songs are unmistakably them.

Their first compilation release, "The Cauldron: A Mixture, vol. 1" was a a curated tribute to vintage horror movies, to the glowing fireplace-heart of autumn and to everything that catches your breath on a dark October night. The haunted house organ and kraut-punk rhythms of “In the Graveyard” by The Shakey Shapes lure the listener into the album, which hops unpredictably between garage-psych, tribal post-punk, ambient soundscapes, monster-kitsch, and swampy rock & roll. Instrumentals like “Cinnamon Seance” and “Qu’est-ce que ‘Goo?’” by The Broomsticks evoke the most nightmarish moments of Joe Meek’s recordings or the sinister dub of Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black- board Jungle, while more cartoonish contributions like “The Creature” by Dr. Gene Splice and “Candy Corn Creep” by The Creatch recall the dusty, novelty 45’s heard on Dr. Demento’s radio show.

2017 will see "The Cauldron" followed up with an energetic full-length album from one of Toxic Slime Records' top pop groups, Fake Lizards, and another compilation anthology of rare, forgotten singles curated by the DIY tape label.