TOWERING BREAKERS w/ BEN MORRIS "Like Light" (Rayon Records)

I recently got this jam in a batch of tapes from Pascal who runs Rayon records. All the tapes have a similar packaging style, this weird fold over oragami style case with a photo attached to the side making it twice as wide as normal (and impossible to put with the rest of your tapes, though really, it's necessary to have like two other shelves for storing releases like this, plus they look good.) Tape is yellow, spray painted, edition of 50, along with the photo and insert the sleeve is slathered with green goo. for the record, goo is always a nice touch in my book.

The tape itself lives up to the pacakaging offering the listener lots and twine to wrap around your head, tape to stick on your face and cotton balls to stuff in your mouth. Each side has two pieces each offering different imbalances and distractions matched with concentration and integrated forms. Not sure of any of the other releases by Towering Breaker since this is the first i've heard but the fact that they're joined by Ben Morris ("mad dog ben morris" according to the insert) really effected the way i was listening, trying to hear the way a guest was sitting in; sort of trying to find the piece that has been added to the equation.

These guys deliver a great mix of semi-distinct layers interacting, trying to weave together some distant cries caught on tape, with a slightly overblown signal making a mic bounce off the wall, while trying to meet and mate sounds there is also a comfort in the fact that they are their own; what sounds like water sounds and maybe drums (or a person shaking a chainlink fence) shift in and about creating a really unsteady (in a good way) drone that feels like it could fall apart or totally congeal at any point.

The next section starts a bit more spastic and jumpy, allowing for definition between the pieces, to develop their own identity before carrying off into a wall of co-mingling where totally non-verbal voices reach out and grab at everything, pulling segments into a full on wall paper peeling seance of sound. Grey clouds of gloom follow ushered in by shooting rhythmics sounds of totally unidentifiable nature, driving into the sunset there is true comfort and ease in the handling of the resolution. Gong/bell types of sounds hush and brush against walls of tape hiss and wind, something like the concert of a late night harbor for a ship just in from sea.

http://www.myspace.com/rayonrecs