SOUND4SOUND “Making the Right Ear Jealous” (self-released)

I’m not sure what took me off guard more; that sound4sound are a hardcore band, that they have hardcore bands in Miami, or that I found myself kind of liking them. This tape might end up surprising people for all the aforementioned reasons.

I guess no one told these guys that hardcore bands aren’t supposed to use bold green font on their j-card or bright orange cassettes if they wanted to appear ‘punk’. Maybe they want to create a new punk aesthetic based around color schemes which could trigger epileptics.

Looks aside, the music is pretty standard hardcore. “Making the Right Ear Jealous” is a compilation of the band’s “Rat Bastard” EP, 2 demos, and an unreleased track. I felt like I got a good overview from this. Nothing stood out but they weren’t bad either. If you arbitrarily need to pick a hardcore band to listen to and landed on sound4sound as your choice, you wouldn’t be disappointed. Being a middle of the road band is a lot better than being a crappy band. With the relentless vocals delivered by Adel Souto and solid guitar work from Bryan Elliot I’ll keep an eye open if I see any future releases.  Speaking of eyes, make sure to lower the brightness on your screen before clicking the link below to stream or buy.

Stream + Buy: https://sound4sound.bandcamp.com/releases

--Roy Blumenfeld

VOIGHT “Shadow//Excision” C10 (Self-Released)

Ethan Hunt throws himself off of the Burj Khalifa in one epic super-secret-spy-agent move.

I can’t be the only one who watched those films and seethed with jealousy. As a kid, I always wanted to perform those same stunts Tom Cruise and his partners did in the Mission Impossible series. To jump off towers and run on trains and swing and fly around from place to place in strokes of pure, unadulterated, nothing-to-lose badassery.

This tape can’t make that happen, but it’s the next best thing. I’m not a fan of experimental music— never have been, never will be. But I heard something in here today, something I’ve found terribly lacking in most experimental tapes that I’ve listened to: caliber. I certainly recommend this little cassingle to anyone who needs a little spice in their ambience.

Pre-order the album here

-- M. Syed

ZACHARY UTZ “High Speed” (Become Eternal)

Another person from Baltimore doing something interesting with synthesizers. The world might have enough of many things, but the aforementioned type of person isn’t one of them. Baltimore’s art scene is so fertile that “person with a synth” is defiantly a type of person though. In the case of Zachary Utz, he uses it along with a guitar to make very pleasant ambient compositions.

Clocking in just under 40 minutes the tape is solid from start to finish. Utz’s gentle songs feel like a sonic massage. No happy ending though…so don’t make it weird. This thing is completely platonic and totally ethereal. Give it a try for yourself using the link below.

Stream + Buy: https://zacharyutz.bandcamp.com/album/high-speed

-- Roy Blumenfeld

LASER NUN “Laser Nun” C35 (Insula Music)

I’m not even going to pretend the first thing I thought of this morning wasn’t “Laser Cats,” the SNL sketch with the cats that shoot lasers. It’s amazing, and it’s important, and you should probably watch it if you haven’t. I thought of “Laser Cats” because this tape is called Laser Nun, and I can only imagine nuns wandering around and blasting people with their eye lasers. I chuckled imagining it.

Laser Nun the band is a duo from Copenhagen, and the two improvised sidelong pieces here may as well be firing lasers into my ear canals, because this is some violent work. Side A lasts over eighteen minutes, and side B lasts almost seventeen, so there’s not a moment of breathing room to be found. And for all you experimentalists out there who only think bending circuits or frying motherboards or lassoing static is the way to go, the way to annoy your parents, coworkers, siblings, friends, or worst enemies, I’ve got some news for you: traditional rock instruments can be equally useful – and surprisingly tuneful when wrangled with care. See, Lars Bech Pilgaard and Anders Vestergaard, on guitar and drums/feedback respectively, shred your head, face, ears, nose, and solar plexus with tone shards that whip caustically through space-time and obliterate anything in their path. Bloody remarkable, I say! You still wondering how I feel about all this? Me likey!

Like Sly and the Family Drone or whatever side projects Kid Millions involves himself with, Laser Nun wind themselves up into cacophonous frenzies and do not let up. Lars and Anders are twin afterburners blasting searing heat into unsuspecting crowds. This is noise rock masquerading as straight noise – there’s too much groove here to be fully outsider. Well done! … And as an aside, I can’t seem to get Beck’s “Tasergun” out of my head, but instead of “tasergun,” I replace the lyrics with, “Watch out son, I got a Laser Nun.” Seems appropriate today.

Laser Nun’s Soundcloud page

Insula Music

--Ryan Masteller

???? “??1” (Kerchow Records)

The Kerchow label is a small cassette only label out of chino hills. I have had the pleasure of having have them writ for some time now, and sending various expenditures my way. They always catch me eyes, but I have no time to write, and thus like most hard working men I cant divert my exercise routine to typing on computer, as much as I should, and instead  - let you all sit listless.

Though - - - this new one. Lets call it “mystery tape number one” – really grabbed me. It’s a short jaunt, and it eclipses everything I kinda love about music. Its abstract, obscure, semi-poetic, grabbing and strangling, head scratching, and is above all – mysterious. ??????

It’s a sorta collage of pre-recorded dump (I think) All mixed in a haze, but making a conformed statement. I have done my time in sound collage myself, and I always enjoyed doing something in a similar vein. In where it just grasps the hint of melody or structure, while melding all these obtuse parts together. At times its really just about repetition, and simple and maybe not messed with too much.

Its confounding…cause its really good. So yas should go get it. Its probly pocket change anyway.

https://kerchowrecords.bandcamp.com/

--- c. fischer

SOLID WASTE “Long Slow Dream” C25 (Dismal Niche)

 Everything winds down – that’s what I gather from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and that’s what I present here in paraphrase. Everything moves toward disorder, or death, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. I’m reminded of this while listening to Long Slow Dream, the newest cassette release on Dismal Niche, where three scamps named Mario, Josh, and Nate play synthesizers and allow the listener to drift on a path all the way to destruction. Because that’s where we all end up.

Let me backtrack a minute. Those of you who see the name “Solid Waste” and think, “Oh, they’re a poop band” are absolutely wrong. The idea of “Solid Waste” is an indictment of excess and disposability. It’s an indictment that we’re hastening our own demise by paving the way with garbage and ignoring the true issues. It’s an indictment of a world gradually winding down, into chaos.

So “The Journey Is the Pleasure, Pts. 1-3” comprises side A, and that’s a meaningful title, because Long Slow Dream is proof that no matter what the end result will be, we have these celestial tones to guide us. And thankfully, they’re long, slow, and tranquil, the perfect analgesic for outer stimuli. “The Journey” allows eyes to close and dreams to rise. Where it ends, “Being Generous with Yourself, Long Slow Dream” begins, providing the permission to tune it all out when it gets to be too much. Right? It’s like a spa treatment for your ears – you gotta be good to yourself somehow, I say.

So drift above the turmoil in a healthy bath of peaceful synthesizer washes and let it all go. It’s going to all be over soon enough. Don’t even worry about it.

Dismal Niche Bandcamp page

--Ryan Masteller