Leroy Hanghofer
White Trash
Gomma Records

Mathias Modica and Jonas Imbery of Munk record their vocals in the toilet of their own Gomma studio and have incorporated this same technique with the help of some friends on their side project, Leroy Hanghofer. Fortunately, Modica and Imbery accomplish this without creating the cringe factor of other bathroom recordings, for example, that time your boss dictated a ten-page letter while sitting on the can. Instead, White Trash has the feel of a slumber party for adults. What else are you going to do at 4:00 a.m. when you are too old to play Bloody Mary, right?
Most of these cuts, which date back to 1999 and 2000, were recorded in the dead of night after Munk's gigs. On the opening track, "Bathroomboogie," Agethe laments, "I'm getting drunk alone in the bathroom. It's not good," in an unidentifiable European accent that later transforms "beach" to "bitch." On "Klon (Your Body)," Jennifer shrieks, "Stinky motherfuckers! They smell like a thousand tons of shit!" The Frauliens coo on "Trausmerei," "there she sits without a thought in her head." Listening to the lyrics, I am left to wonder, is somebody eavesdropping on my post-club conversations or are late-night drunken ramblings universal?
Leroy Hanghofer and friends' apres-party script is set to a funk-intense score culled from a Sequential Circuits drum machine, two old synthesizers and samples from "obscure East European 70s rock records." Seek this out and it might just be the album you rock while sitting in line at the Del Taco drive-through on Saturday nights this summer.