I received four sleek enticing tapes in the mail recently from a new label called Constellation Tatsu out of San Luis Obispo, CA. CT's site lays out their musical philosophy as, "adventurous with spiritual artistic sensibilities." There's also a quote from Faulkner, a variety of mad mixes, and collage art pics, but I'm not writing a review of their damn web design am I? With this post I'll be discussing two of the tapes and in a few days I'll finish off the batch.
The evening of my listening session came after a lengthy spell of depressing political junk television. Talking heads babbling about jobs in one segment to international bloodbaths in the next. It was all horrible. I couldn't take another wretched moment so I jacked in my audio freak headphones (big fat mothers) to my stereo and let the A side rip. Guitar music at walking speed like that of Earth except not comatose, it begins with simple picked lines/arpeggios multi-tracked before blending into louder amp driven fuzz patterns. Heavy bottom and soaring highs hitting my spot, shit I want the guitars to keep a candle burning at the orgy! This piece is much too short. I could've listened to another ten minutes. Alas, the tape stopped. Time for the B. Obsidian Towers is classic taper drone in my opinion, with long tones of distant scree and tinder hiss moving in and out of focus. Not bad, just typical of the genre. Overall the split is a strong inaugural release. CT's debut is housed in fine red pro-everything (graphics and lettering really grabbed me on this one-QUICK NOTE: CT's visual aesthetic is professional and at the high end of the cassette product world), I know right away the label wants to make a good first impression, which they do.
Listen and Buy HERE.
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