Three experimental tapes from Baltimore sound fuckers, how about that for an evening of music? Mold Omen, Comfort Link, and Rosemary Krust don't sound similar, but the visual design by label Spleen Coffin connects these releases in my mind (and my box full o' tapes). First thing I want to say about these albums is how good they look. Sure, I eat with my eyes...don't you? Mold Omen's Every Day a Dream, Every Nickel a Nectarine is described by SC as having bits of music that sounds similar to, "...labels like Apraxia and Chocolate Monk, while others blend elements of Sun City Girls, Noggin, and even touches of early Loren Mazzacane style disjointed blues riffing." That works for me. I'm not enamored of this release as of my first listen. Maybe it's a grower...The art makes the best impression on me. It is "constructed from 1920s sheet music and embrittled 1950s dress-making tissue paper templates with hand typed text."
Comfort Link is the most interesting and "difficult" of the three tapes. The label calls this Baltimore artist a reclusive archivist, so I'm taking their word that this is an individual who has A LOT of music and time on their hands. The album, The Gentle Sounds of Comfort Link, reminds me of a work that my label (Teflon Beast) put out earlier this year because Comfort Link's music is made of spliced cassette loops. The loops are disjointed and strange and actually are "gentle" in their own odd way...that is, they create a hypnotic background to some serious soul searching (or, more precisely, some drinking). SC recommends this tape to fans of Bert Kaempfert and Philip Jeck.
The final tape of the batch, Rosemary Krust's compilation of guitar oriented blorg, In Hollenshade Basement/Deskulling Society, which features my fave art design because it looks the best (duh) and it is "...screenprinted in sliver and black paint on kraft paper, screens exposed from used typewriter ribbon impressions on acetate, with the used ribbons also hand-rubbed onto the cassette shells themselves." This is damaged, heavy (not metal at all tho) guitar trash. Industrial in parts, No Wave in others. If ya love guitar playing, but wish it was put through a garbage disposal more often, this tape is for you. SC says one half is improvised four-track recordings and one side is a ragged far out live recording recorded at the defunct Hexagon space in Baltimore. Good J.Christ this is fucked up!
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