Greg Ginn’s SST label worked as hard as any other independent imprint of the early ‘80s to push the boundaries of what should rightly be considered punk and hardcore. Of course, other imprints like Touch and Go functioned in the same way. But those other labels weren’t earlier so specifically tied to the hardcore idiom – and yes, I know who put out the Necro’s records. SST, though, gave the world Black Flag’s discography.

Beyond SST’s biggest act were groups like the Minutemen that were able to – moment to moment – shift stylistic gears. Taking a listen to the acoustic “Cohesion” after anything else on the band’s Double Nickels on the Dime is going to make that point well enough.

Lesser known and unquestionably not as influential was Saccharine Trust. The group, which revolved around Jack Brewer and Joe Baiza, was just another Southern Californian band. Beginning as something of a screwy punk outfit there were still early signs of what was to come. Eventually, the band would embrace a mode of aggressive playing that retained its ties to the punk scene but included enough nods to free improvisation as to make the act an oddity amongst its peers. And while the band isn’t generally mentioned in the same breath as a number of the other SST bands, Kurt Cobain still figured the band as a seminal piece of punk’s history.

First issuing Paganicons in 1981, Saccharine Trust arrived at the tail end of the first wave of punk. In its music, though, is the same sort of snotty abandon that could be found in earlier groups. Along side that – and on top of the relatively derivative nature of the band’s first release - was a surprising wit and ability to follow each other through seemingly difficult passages of music.

“I Have…” might just be an odd amalgam of musics. The track sports innumerable tempo shifts and Brewer’s vocals go so far as to ape a few different accents along the way. A bit further into the disc, the thirty six second “Mad at the Co.” finds the band making use of a jittery rhythm with the vocals landing just his side of Jello Biafra. And that’s really the only criticism that needs to befall this early effort – it’s still tied to a somewhat ‘traditional’ sense of what punk was.

That being said, in previously mentioning the musical acrobatics that the Minutemen were capable of, Saccharine Trust’s “Success and Failure” might be every bit as obtuse. There’s an odd shuffle that persists throughout the entire song with only the slightest breakdown serving to demarcate it as what something that could be considered punk.

Future releases found the band becoming more assured of its talents. And while that occasionally resulted in some blustery nonsense, the fact that Saccharine Trust believed in its abilities came to be as important as actually being adept musicians. Even with a string of strong discs and an odds and sods round-up, Saccharine Trust today, ostensibly, remains a footnote in punk history.