RUSSIAN TSARLAG "untitled" (Eager Mother Tapes)

Holy shit, this is the motherload. Of the half-a-dozen or so solo Carlos Gonzalez tapes we own, the A side of this C20 is easily the greatest and best recorded collection of his psycho soul songs I’ve ever heard. From the hypno-pop of “Keeper’s Back Glove” through to the languid madness of “Uncovering Many Diseases,” these are crucial Tsarlag gems from the inmost vaults of Carlos’ warped song reservoir. Strangled, ailing guitar notes, robotussin drumming, fucked child rhymes – the combination all hits home like never before. Warrants endless listens. The B side was actually recorded by me, though I had no idea this was even being released. Documenting one of the bleakest, emptiest Smell shows I’ve ever attended, Carlos painted a slime cross on his forehead, wore a cape but no shirt, and set up a cheap strobe light under his chair for the duration of his 8-minute performance. He busted out some classics (“Bleach Party,” “Beach Banquet”) but it was all recorded on a found tape of home-recorded family conversations so there’s this constant vocal babble masking the nuances and deadening the overall audio impact. Too bad. J-card is killer though, tons of Carlos’ beautiful scrawl-figures copied on thick tennis ball-colored neon green cardstock.

RATTLE “Drip Drip” (Eager Mother Tapes)

Spend ten minutes with Carlos Gonzalez and it’s no surprise that the dude’s an immediate archetypal perma-tour vagabond cultural underground hero, but it is a little stunning to imagine anyone attempting to mimic his invincibly inscrutable Russian Tsarlag musical persona/approach. Which is why Ryan from Dreamhouse’s Rattle project is kinda surprising, cause it’s pure Gonzalez in form, instrumentation, and mood (though maybe slightly more hyper). Nonsense lyrics rambled over minimalist anti-music – kindergarten drums, 2-dollar guitar, random tape-manipulation jokes/concepts. R Tsarlag regularly elicits a “what’s wrong with this guy?” audience reaction, and Ryan clearly wants the same thing. And he gets it. Pretty positive the A side was recorded at Echo
Curio last December and it sounds just as purposefully meaningless on tape as it did live. J-card looks good though, scrawled art on purple cardstock.