Brilliant DIY bands can appear and disappear in a flash without much fanfare outside their local scenes, so it’s up to blogs like Terminal Escape and Remote Outposts and locally focused labels like the Bay Area’s Warthog Speak and their sub-imprint Vague Absolutes, a home for cool bands who don’t quite fit into the aesthetic boundaries of hardcore, to bring attention to these ephemeral creative endeavors. Late last year, Vague Absolutes released a super-limited vinyl run of the 2012 cassette demo from Index, a splashy, bratty, noisy punk band featuring members of Brilliant Colors, Flesh World, Vial, Nosedive, and Jump Off A Building, who existed for almost no time and only played a handful of shows. The vinyl is gone, but you can still stream and purchase a digital version of the demo via Bandcamp, which is an entirely worthwhile endeavor. The world is a little less grey and a little more a home for us strange, wonderful aliens who are drawn to the harsher side of life with bands like Index getting our attention; the subtle loss we’d feel without these groups in our lives isn’t easily trackable or categorizable but is incredibly real nonetheless. (Side note: is the cover a visualization of Tom Scharpling’s “Invisible Hipster“? I want to believe.)
You can stream Index’s Demo EP below:
