Downloadable Meltdown

Meltdown’s The Map, a seminal, second-wave no-wave masterpiece originally released on Portland, Oregon’s Archigramophone Records in 1997, is available for download online. The D.C. quartet’s unusual instrumentation (three guitars, one drummer), its members’ age and sex (teenage girls), and its penchant for male guest vocalists resulted in relentlessly chromatic music that transcends mere demography. Listen for the splintery guitar stylings of Raquel Vogl (later a member of the Cranium and Legends) and Fiona Griffin (later of Et At It and Horses), as well as spiel from Chuck Bettis (All Scars, Measles Mumps Rubella).