SASHASH ULZ "the shadow of my cap-and-feather days" (Feathered Coyote Records)

Grim ambient textures that remind me a little of the New Age music my friend Mike used to set the mood when we played D & D in middle school. It's also sorta reminiscent of those sketchy-sounding Burzum albums Varg recorded while he was in jail, in that it's like malevolent instrumentals with some somber Dark Ages plague-havingness. A distant drum pounds an ominous tattoo. At the top of side B there's a sound like upside-down bats slurping in a cave. You might want to listen to this in a blood-splattered laboratory, under a black light, after the surgeon has gone.

featheredcoyoterecords.bandcamp.com

--Francis Carr Jr.

JAKE BLANCHARD "Archaic Practices"(Feathered Coyote Records)

High pitched peace pipes slowly collide with a looping train reaching it's station. Drawn out drone and hiss is this tape's beginning. I keep waiting for an axe to fall somewhere on this noise cassette but instead it fades in and out of tranquility. Slowly through the mix of feedback a faint few chords on synthesizer are revealed. Chime Melodies drenched with echo and reverberation appear, disappear and drift. Behind sweeping broad statements of noise is clean guitar chords sliding up and down inversions.

Other songs are less soothing. "Archaic Practices" can set a more ominous mood akin to Lars Van Trier movie soundtracks. Fife whistle even reminds me of the creepy drug hallucination scenes from Akira. These moments of style on the cassette play is less innovative than his subtly more melodic songs, but they are still effective and complex; tranquil yet unsettling. Vangelis at his most atmospheric also comes to mind.

I had to sit down with this cassette to fully appreciate it. It's not instant gratification rock/roll music. Instead of emulating mechanical, mathematical movement changes, the melodic and thematic electronic noise transitions ooze like evolving, primordial slime. Distant drums and snake slithering are mysteriously lurking through these songs.

Yet at other times, If I had a flying car and I wanted to show my girlfriend that flying car, I would play something like "Archaic Practices" in that flying car.

On a side note, the cassette album artwork is minimal yet well crafted, colored and designed. An illustration of a light purple silhouetted human figure eaten by oversized tape worms is a fitting image for how this music "decomposes" and recreates itself.

Read trippy literature to this cassette. It's not great for action-painting because it is more relaxing and meditative than seizure inducing metal, but due to its slow evolution between major and minor chords, gongs, static and ghost moans, it begins to become mind expanding. Great tape, just be patient with it.

http://www.discogs.com/Jake-Blanchard-Archaic-Practice/release/4314255

--Jack Turnbull

DESMADRADOS SOLDADOS DE VENTURA"Untitled" (Feathered Coyote Records)

These two side length psych-drone jams from Manchester New Hampshire’s Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura hit the spot but don’t do too much more. The sound is an absolute trainwreck: three guitars, bass, drums, and vocals, but it’s completely suitable for some fun practice room jams like these. The lead guitarist pulls these snake-charmer licks that are totally hypnotic and the vocals sound like they’re being transmitted to the 4 track from the bottom of a pond. I can’t really tell what the other two guitars are doing in this recording, besides making reverbed phaser sounds in the background, and I honestly probably wouldn’t have known they were there if I hadn’t read the J card. Desmadrados don’t pull many fancy tricks, but they definitely have a way of getting your head nodding. The A side, Leese Geese, is definitely the better of the two tracks. Mesmerizing guitar leads and a pounding bass riff build up to a sweet raw power finale. I like the mostly clean guitar licks, there’s some tasteful phaser but he doesn’t seem to employ too many alien-abduction effects. Serves to relax the thought-lobe while the pounding rhythm section crushes the consciousness. The formula is pretty consist on the B side, “Beneath the Eck Plane,” a ton of reverb, pounding low end, and persistence. Instead of building up to a rush they start out in the thick of it and keep it going for the whole length of the side. After ten minutes it gets a little old, and if you stick it out the song just cuts off right to silence at the end of the tape which is kind of a drag after so much build up. I can’t lie to you and tell you this is the best psychedelic tape of the century, or that this type of thing hasn’t been done before, but it’s certainly adequate listening, and I expect to put it in my tape deck someday when I want to tune out and enter another zone.

http://featheredcoyoterecords.bandcamp.com/album/untitled


--Timothy Johnson