Tsunami – Loud Is As

The shift in Numero’s musical archaeology has been pretty amazing over the last few years. Where the label once sifted through the dusty 45s of soul, wiping the sweat of community dance nights and local radio DJs off of the sleeves, the label has moved their gaze to a different set of basements. The focus now falls to more recent regiments packed with Midwest punks, shoegaze enclaves, and the tattered remains of East Coast of hardcore houses. The shift to the ‘80’s and ’90s has seen the label rifle through the catalogs of Karate, 90 Day Men, Codeine, and The Hated, inspired a re-evaluation of Duster’s place in the shoegaze food chain, and highlighted some curios like Ozean and Boys Life. Now the label set sights on Tsunami, the DC powerhouses that helped form the backbone of the Simple Machines roster (not to mention contained the label’s founders).

Aside from the the charm of the band’s DC feminist indie punk pounce, the new box set also gives a welcome spotlight on those founders, Jenny Toomey and Kristin Thomson, who’ve both spent years in music advocacy with Future of Music Coalition and Media Democracy Fund respectively. Before all that, though, the pair were members of Virginia-based activist locale Positive Force House, embedding their messages inside insistent hooks with Tsunami. The 5-disc set gives a necessary overview of the band, including reissues of their three out of print albums, b-sides, and compilation tracks.

The band’s first two albums found them rough-edged but still balancing pop with bite, garnering them reputations among the rapidly swelling D.C. scene. Their sometimes less regarded third LP gets it’s due here, shining as a more sterling pop display among the box set now that it’s free from the punk prejudices of the time. The band would find themselves sparring with higher profile names like Superchunk, Velocity Girl, and Rodan over the course of several singles, but until now the band hasn’t always found themselves discussed with enough reverence among the indie archivists. While I still find it odd to have Numero mining years that I can recall, the label’s digging in all the right places, and it’s great to have someone boxing these bands up for new audiences.

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