I picked this up earlier in the year at a record swap of all places, along with a sick ass Occasional Detroit 7inch. My only experience with Lazy Magnet was 7 years ago when I was 15 and it was one dude with a guitar playing 40 second songs to a big old proto-drum machine/rhythm generator (the only song I remember started with "Fornicating on my neighbor's front law-awn"). Anyhow, their side on this tape sounds completely different from that. The single half hour track, which is dedicated to Work/Death, "Yet From the Highest Crown, No Blossom Fell" sounds a lot like what the cover looks like. Two people are credited with synth playing and that's what it sounds like dammit. It's a pretty sweet little suite though. Sometimes totally in a new agey, pure moods vein, other times it's more disruptive but mostly it sounds like a bunch of great early 80s synth scores that never were (the fact that this was recorded in "The Futuristic District" of Providence is spurring my imagination too.) I'm guessing this is improvised as it just drifts from part to part but it sounds pretty seamless with no lulls so they get an A+ in the not-wasting-(my)-time department. Good side.
So everyone knows how badass Social Junk is right? They don't care apparently, as they keep pumping out the jams like they got something to prove. The SJ side is split into 4 tracks "Fallout," "Terminal," "Lockdown," and "Days That Follow" so you know they got zombies or something on the brain. Swaggering forth with the John Carpenter of the new millennium vibe of the short first track, "Fallout" edges further towards the apocalypse. It's an excellent jam, simple, tense with a fantastic synth/vocal melody. I love cinematic music and this is completely satisfying my need right now. It's incredibly evocative and would work beautifully scoring any sort of slow-motion tragedy you could think of. Things are burning, people are fleeing and there's little hope in sight. That's my take on it anyhow. "Lockdown" is much more raw with a marching drum kit, echoing vocals and blasts of distortion. What happened during lockdown? Apparently, the two survivors, Noah Anthony and Heather Young, started band. Who knew this was an origin story? "Days That Follow" is steeped in static and synthetic crickets, a lone guitar slices up the barren landscape and Social Junk realizes it was actually a lot less depressing in lockdown. Killer music as usual from these guys.
An edition of 125 is sold-out, but this release seems inexplicably available at record swaps around the country, try there I guess? Good bang for the buck.
Lazy Magnet
Social Junk
Arbor
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