Apparently, the well of quality vintage post-punk hasn’t gone dry just yet. While the onslaught of post-punk nostalgia over the past decade often makes the latest reissue of a previously hard-to-find “gem” a dubious prospect, Brooklyn’s SoftSpot label has seemingly discovered the genre’s last great untapped field—Belgium. Last year the label kicked off with the reissue of a 7″ from early-’80s Belgian outfit AA, and just this month has followed it up with the release of We Live in a System, a 12″ LP featuring the work of fellow Belgians Kebab. “Life It’s a Joke” originally appeared on a 1982 7″, and finds the quartet’s angular guitars and bouncing basslines sounding a lot like those of contemporaries Delta 5 and Bush Tetras. The original “Life It’s a Joke” 7″ was long a staple on record collector want lists, but now it’s been reissued on vinyl and compiled with all of the band’s known studio recordings and key selections from its original 1981 demo tape. The We Live in a System 12″ is available for sale here.

01 Life It’s a Joke