THE GREAT PAIN OF SPACE "s/t" c29TURQUOISE FEELING "January Sisters in Drag" c20OBVIOUSLIES "Brokedance" C62(Snow Clone)

Columbus Ohio's Snow Clone is one of my favorite little labels at the moment. I totally flipped over the Day Creep tape this Summer and this other batch of earlier tapes somehow found their way to my door up here in Belfast, ME. Besides being original and quirky, all of the releases are dubbed really well and sound fantastic.

Get tapes here: http://tapesprogressadministration.blogspot.com/

The Great Pain of Space is a single-sided collection of really outstanding synth and oscillator tracks. Some are rhythmically driving, some are more spacey. I would go so far as to assume that nary a computer was touched in the making of this album, but I might be wrong. It's stuff like this that gives me hope for the current wave of keyboard madness. You can make a synth album that actually resonates with the warmth of the human spirit. FYI, the band is named after a quote from the outstanding Sci-Fi writer Cordwainer Smith's short story "Scanners Live In Vain." Dude wrote the handbook on psychological warfare. Man I love it when people geek out on this shit like I do. No clue who the artist behind this tape is...

Turquoise Feeling is a rocking rock band that rocks quite rockingly. There seems to be a definite aesthetic for bands in Columbus and these guys do that aesthetic quite well. Kinda low-fi, kinda country, kinda punk, kinda awesome! These are the kind of songs that I would love to drink a Budweiser to in a shitty bar with two other people there. If you're a fan of the Replacements or their ilk I would highly recommend picking up this and the Day Creep tape. Hell, just buy everything on this label. These guys do this shit so good and don't appear to be making a big deal about how awesome they are.
http://turquoisefeeling.bandcamp.com/
http://14inchesoflove.blogspot.com/

The one-sided Obviouslies "Brokedance" EP starts of as a bit of sing-songy male/female vocal whimsy, but soon transitions into a really spaced out/slowed down heavy jam for drums, guitar and keyboard. While the vocals are perhaps my least favorite part of the sound, sort of like a cross between They Might Be Giants and Yo La Tengo, they are still quite strong and they mostly stay out of the picture. I almost didn't want to review it based on the opening minutes, but I changed my mind and stuck with it. This tape is really awesome. Gets to a hypnotic downer-rock place that is not reached on the other two tapes. What a label!

www.obviousli.es