BRIAN OSBORNE / DAN PECK split (Tubapede / Heat Retention)

Brian Osborne is a drummer and Dan Peck is a tubist.  You may know their names from the weird underbelly of NYC music scene in the aughts.  Theses freaks have played in The Gate/Dan Peck Trio, George Steeltoe Ensemble, Blastocyst etc.  Both play their instruments in WAY unorthodox ways.

The Osborne side sounds like 'very zen' bells combined with Osborne kicking shit over in a fit.  Maybe a jab at this era of McMindfulness.  I also like that the sounds from the beginning, reprise at the end.  Free music with a hook.

Peck's tuba abuse side starts out sounding like he is snaking a toilet...but gets to the depths of hell pretty quick.  Then there are swarms of bees flying out of a gaping maw.

May the spirit of Brooklyn's free music underground skree on and on.

-- T Penn

BRIAN OSBORNE / DAN PECK split C40 (Tubapede Records / Heat Retention Records)

You experimentalist whackjobs make me feel so gross sometimes. And I mean that as a compliment, an honest-to-goodness pleasurable reaction to the strange and unusual. I don’t know what I’m getting myself into on half these out-there tapes, and I don’t know what they mean or where they come from, but I like it. You there, in the virtual audience, reading this right now – I hope you’ve got some sexy intestinal fortitude, because you’re gonna need it.

Brian Osborne and Dan Peck make a ruckus, and that’s sort of bizarre considering they’re doing their own thing with a limited instrumental palette. Osborne likes banging and scraping metal objects and processing the result. His side consists of five pieces, the middle three of which are the soundtrack to “an imaginary movie,” presumably one about insects shown only in extreme close-up, where their every move is given a tonal makeover and amplified by Osborne’s compositions. I’d watch that movie – huge spiny beetle-y things mating and killing and stuff. Maybe they’re alien insects. Maybe they’re the size of school buses! Osborne brings this kind of vile wonder to life as his music makes you feel both uncomfortable and, dare I say, happy at the same time. I’m an uncomfortable happy mess!

Dan Peck is the tuba man. That guy is so in love with his precious tuba that his entire side of the split is just him and his instrument and a four-track recorder, with some ambience mixed in for good measure. OK, it’s pretty much just Peck making out with his tuba for a while, but whatever. It’s an experimentalist music fan’s dream to hear the tuba front and center in all its lo-fi glory. A friend of mine from college was a tuba player before he was a drummer before he was an indie rock guitarist before he was an experimental songwriter, so, circle of life? I have no idea. Peck’s track is called “Wendigo Calls,” and this is all I can picture, rutting and grunting and breathing and stuff. Is it weird that this whole tape reminds me of things mating with other things? Yeah, it’s weird.

Tubapede Records

Heat Retention Records

--Ryan Masteller

HATCHERS “Hatchers” (Send Help Records / Heat Retention Records)

Hatchers are a highly experimental electronic pair by the names of Michael Barker and Brian Osborne They use a variety of instruments; including cool sounding homemade ones as well as a modified drum set. They are able to get all sorts of interesting sounds out of their instruments and deploy an assortment of electronic effects to boot in order to carry out their noise making. There are also moaning sounds turn to fully distorted vocals, although they are not very prevalent. When you put all that stuff together the final product is type of raw noise that a listener cannot feel comfortable with. I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. However I don’t think they care for compliments if they are even a fraction as abrasive as their music is. It is harsh, it is chaotic, and it rarely lets up for the duration of side a. The rumbling distortions die down only briefly enough for quick breathers before returning with increased ferocity. Side b starts slightly slower but eventually progresses to reach the same intensity as side a.

Get a copy of their tape here. http://heatretentionrecords.com/index.php?/web-store/

--Roy Blumenfeld