TABOO "Death To False Magick" C90 (Karamazov Tapes)

Taboo is a really vile band. This recording is so thick and it goes so deep that it makes me want to shit. They have little to no internet presence and I've never seen 'em live (though they do tour), so this tape is all I have to go on. What I do know is that they are three semi-humans and they are from Troy Maine, but even that might be incorrect/more than I'm supposed to know. This a fucking long tape! One side is a murky and relentless "studio" session and the other is cleanly recorded (but not performed) live set that gives you a little more insight on the instrumentation/sound of the group. Hallmarks of that sound are: throbbing percussion, relentless feedback psych guitaring(?) a la Les Rallizes Denudes, wretched screaming vocals with a heafty ammount of effects. This band ain't pretty and should appeal to fans of Wolf Eyes/Hair Police. I would prefer it if the vocals came through a little better because they are totally sick, but it's hard to find fault with a band this committed to making you feel so totally unpleasant. At 90 minutes you really can't go wrong with this baby and it is the strongest and most unique of the six things we got from the label.

get it here: karamazovrecordings.blogspot.com/
live video a: youtube.com/watch?v=bs73-NhfhYg&feature=related
live video b: youtube.com/watch?v=Kljihp1H1MY&feature=related

BIRD COSTUMES "Freedom and Weep" (Karamazov Recordings) c15

A weird, weird tape.

Arpeggio loops that are maybe guitars pitched up or keyboards? Sounds like its going to be a typical loop pedal party of 'loop a' over 'loop b' so and so on until it's 'intense' and maybe feels 'new age' or something, but instead these remain some sort of song, with the first track sounding like some sort of new romantic / college rock thing complete with misanthropic / apocalyptic lyrics all accompanied by tight drumming.

I imagine this being performed with 'lighting' and maybe even smoke and the singer / guitarist looking at the crowd a lot and never changing their facial expression while they play these dark and brooding guitar lines / loops. In a perfect world the loops would be taken care of by two keyboardists with pale skin, maybe one of them is androgynous.

The second side takes a little bit of a turn (unfortunate for me because i was having so much fun imagining their 1983 stage show). The structural use of the looping is traded in for minimal piano and reverbed out vocals that chase the melody played on the keyboard and, along with the melancholy, has traces of some consonance. The next track fulfills my dreams of darkness, dropping a textural metallic steam bath that morphs into a loose poetry like sing songy bit that feels like it was recorded three inches off the ground making everything wobbly and a little out of focus.

I would really like to see what this is like live!
Makes me feel WEIRD.
Still available from the site:
Karamazov Recordings