Vinyl Colour: black
Release: 2020
Label: EBULLITION RECORDS
Thirty years ago, Ebullition came into existence when they released the Downcast 7" with No Answers Fanzine #10. When Downcast broke up, they left unrecorded songs on the table. "Tell Me I'm Alive" picks those unrecorded songs up, and also moves forward with a whole set of brand new Downcast tracks,10 tracks in total.
There was a moment in the evolution of California punk and hardcore when the music took a hard turn toward politics and DIY ethics. In the middle of this moment, the California band Downcast put out a few records, played almost 200 shows over four years with legendary bands like Born Against and Rorschach, and then was gone. Live, when everything connected, they left audiences standing quietly, sometimes crying. Legendary hardcore label Ebullition Records, closely connected to Downcast’s sound and a heavy influence on their ethical stance, went on over the following twenty years to produce a catalog that still defines this strain of the hardcore music scene. After Downcast broke up, the various members went on to form Not For The Lack of Trying, Jara, and Born & Raised. Now, the band, comprised of Kevin Doss, Greg Doss, Brent Stephens, and Sean Sellers is picking up where they left off. This time around, Ebullition Records teams up with the pioneering noise label Three One G. There’s a good reason for this pairing; these are all the same people who came of age in the resistant, political, determined hardcore music of the nineties.
