HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE "Oktoberfest" (Deception Island)

Prankster noise, particularly of the kind that references Top-40, is almost by definition not classy. If the movie Amadeus taught us anything though, it is that manners aren't always found at the heights of human accomplishment. In fact, a complete lack of manners and passion for the crude may be at the center of genius. Who has not heard of the asshole-genius before? And don't all American's love Andy Kaufman by this point? But when it comes to noise, anything with a sample of Paris Hilton turning into a harsh wall of fuck-you is typically chocked up to being some amateurish bedroom project by a 15 year old living in the middle of nowhere, a place that culture has obviously not reached. Well, perhaps Hot Air Balloon Ride will happen change this stereotype and bring noise up to the same wider expectations of American cinema. Beginning with a pitch-shifted baseball game announcement, Oktoberfest shows no signs of being more than dicking around for just long enough to be worrisome. It is at that point, when you start wondering if just how long this nonsense will go on, that a rich, high fidelity, curtain of digital sounds is dropped and a your eyes open wide. While the change from dumb sample to intense noise is nothing new, the complete lack of "fuck you" attitude on this tape makes the experience more than brand new. It makes it classy. So by the time that the Stone Temple Pilots samples begin, one doesn't find themselves listening to a dumb joke, but rather just accepting sound as sound. Only the quality of assembly matters, and here the energy remains at perfect pitch throughout its 30 min. This tape is refreshing and groundbreaking. Band and label having associations to the Emeralds/Beemask/newyoungOHIO camp means that something beyond accidentally hip sounds is happening out there. The future of noise and cassettes will largely be defined by these folks.