LEAD SISTER "II" c30 (oms-b)
This really captured my attention at first, sounding like a world war musical clash, slightly loop oriented but with a pretty interesting palette of sounds, awkward percussion sources sounded like oil barrels tapped with rubber mallets, clicking sounds being pulled from one end of the measure to the other, maybe an accordion, flutes that sound like their from the master musicians of jajouka or maybe it's a muted trumpet? sometimes it sounds like there's a whole damn wall of them! contorted mbira lines act as a cadence for the rest of the instruments, while shrill stringed instruments act as walls of swaying dissonance.
All this stuff going for it, interesting rhythmic arrangements, instrumentation, production but most of the compositions, with the exception of one on the second side featuring a nice double bass mostly felt like 10 second loops on repeat and it's a real shame because it doesn't take a lot of modulation to make something interesting; hell, that greh holger tape on hanson is nothing but sloooow modulation, same thing with a great synth tape from pulse emitter!
It's unfortunate, because it's not uncommon to come across something you're not compelled to re-listen to but this tape has all the elements of something i'd be really excited by it's just that listening to one song feels like you've just listened to the tape 5 times. I'd really love to hear something else by these folks that takes a little longer to develop or reveals a little more the longer you listen other than something that feels like a loop. Still, worth pointing out again that the instrumentation, composition and structures are all pretty interesting and a bit out of the ordinary and depending on how yr predisposed could be yr thing.
comes in a nice looking blockprinted and watercolor sleeve, white tape.
printed in an edition of 60
still available from the label www.oms-b.org