If you’ve ever wanted a single artifact that captures the gloriously unhinged, deeply committed weirdness of mid-90s underground rock, SKiN GRAFT Records just dropped it back into your lap — and they’re letting you decide what it’s worth.

Camp SKiN GRAFT, the label’s totemic 1997 “Now Wave” compilation, is back on Bandcamp as “Name Your Price” for a limited time. That means U.S. Maple, Melt-Banana, Ruins, Dazzling Killmen, Zeni Geva, Quintron, Brise-Glace and a roster of fellow travelers from the windy city’s most beautifully damaged era are all sitting there, waiting for you to drop whatever you’ve got into the tip jar. It’s a no-brainer, and SKiN GRAFT founder Mark Fischer is the first to admit this won’t last forever.

A QUICK HISTORY LESSON FROM THE FRINGE

Camp SKiN GRAFT was SKiN GRAFT’s 50th release — a milestone built on six years of leaning into the absurd. Compiled and sequenced by Fischer himself, the album was assembled with Jim O’Rourke, who created the closing Brise-Glace track on the spot using a recording of Darin Gray’s bass as a starting point. That’s the level of in-the-moment lunacy we’re talking about.

The record was the capstone of the “Now Wave” campaign, SKiN GRAFT’s tongue-in-cheek answer to the major-label feeding frenzy that followed Nirvana’s Nevermind. While corporate America was busy strip-mining the underground, Fischer and crew were cranking out fake letterheads, obtuse press releases, and inventing employees out of thin air (Sonny Erly, Billy Sides, the legendary “publicity agent” Charlie Nite — all bits, all gloriously committed to). Interns got college credit and fake “Indian names.” MTV’s The Real World had SKiN GRAFT shirts on screen. NME wrote “What Was Happening in Chicago?” Germany’s Spex flew a journalist in. SNL did sketches that looked suspiciously Melt-Banana-shaped. It was, as Fischer puts it, “Mad Magazine” with a record label attached.

Add in the OOPS! iNDOORS shows at Lounge Ax — featuring Dazzling Killmen, Space Streakings, U.S. Maple, Brise-Glace, Lake of Dracula, Shellac, Melt-Banana, Bobby Conn, Shakuhachi Surprise, Colossamite, You Fantastic!, and The Flying Luttenbachers, all under one roof with audience plants, surprise guests, and a Touch and Go accountant performing as Danzig — and you start to understand why Camp SKiN GRAFT still hits the way it does.

WHY IT STILL RINGS TRUE

Twenty-nine years later, the comp holds up suspiciously well. The “Post-Now landscape,” as Fischer calls it, has only made these recordings feel sharper. The bullshit they were pushing back against in 1997 has metastasized; the music they put up against it sounds, if anything, more vital.

LISTEN AND GRAB A COPY

Settle in for the long haul — there are plenty of thrills to be had. Head to the SKiN GRAFT Bandcamp page and pay what you want before this offer disappears: https://skingraft.bandcamp.com

You can also dig deeper into the rest of SKiN GRAFT’s busy 2026 — including the Zeni Geva & Steve Albini “Superunit: Maximum Implosion” 2xLP, Hyper Gal’s “Our Hyper,” the Point Line Plane debut LP reissue arriving May 29th, and the rebooted Dazzling Killmen tour with Point Line Plane culminating at Caterwaul Festival in Minneapolis.

But first: go pay what you want for Camp SKiN GRAFT. It’s the most fun you’ll have funding a record label this week.