Imagine for a second if Sub Pop records decided to bundle Green River’s
Dry as a Bone EP with Soundgarden’s Screaming Life in one handy physical
release, a “celebration,” if you will, of those heady early days before all the
coke and hookers. That would be a pretty savvy album, two grunge classics in
one package. Maybe on cassette – sure, this is Cassette Gods, let’s put it on
cassette. Or consider those excellent grocery-store-DVD-bin double features – Bad Boys and Bad Boys II on one disc! – were those even legal? Anyway, the point
is, Blue Tapes pulls off one of these double dips, and it barely reeks of any
sort of cash grab or marketing ploy. Why, you ask, can a label from Surbiton,
south of London but within the cozy confines of the M25, get away with such
brazen tactics? A few reasons: 1) Blue
Three and Blue Two, the original
releases, ain’t so easy to come by; 2) Blue
Three and Blue Two, the combined new catalog entry, exists only in an edition
of 100 – I’m pretty sure the fatcats on Madison Avenue aren’t exactly rubbing
their paws together with glee at the prospect of investing in a product that
will likely see its royalties paid out in small change; 3) Cherry and Leedian
aren’t household names (at least outside of their native Japan), so of course it makes sense to push them
back out to the public if you really believe in them. And Blue Tapes clearly does, still, even
though three years passed between the label’s launch and this collection’s
re-release in the summer of 2015. And you music listeners out there, you lovers
of experimental electronics, should get in on the (admittedly reset) ground
floor on this one. These two digital (well, Cherry plays some guitar I guess)
improvisers have recorded onto tape some incredibly exciting work here, Cherry
with his long-form post-ambient/darkwave mood music and Leedian with a more
glitched-out, chaotic set comprised of much shorter pieces. (Cherry opens the
tape with the twenty-six-minute “1969,” while Leedian’s longest track clocks in
at 3:30.) Blue Three and Blue Two is
a marriage of likeminded weirdos who make total sense together, even though
their output is decidedly different. It’s totally, 100 percent like if
Nirvana’s Bleach and Beat Happening’s
Dreamy got released together on the
same catalog item, side A’s Bleach to
B’s Dreamy. Or nothing like that at
all.
--Ryan Masteller
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