Andy Ortmann runs Nihilist Records, but the fantastically titled CAVE WAVE is a Tabs Out joint. Andy likes to manipulate sound – seemingly inconspicuous samples and synth patterns resolve into weird psychedelic fragments that burrow into your brain and alter your vision, as if you were ingesting mushrooms through your ears. My ears have ingested, and I am a victim of the subterranean bonesick mesmerism. I am the Toxic Avenger, or maybe another Troma property, but I’m certainly worse off in my molecules than I was a half hour or so ago. It’s like the electrons in my body have all started to decay, slowly loosening their connectivity to various protons. And my mind – it feels like it’s being controlled subliminally. You may ask, how do you know if your mind is being controlled if it’s subliminal? I think that my mind has always been controlled, and it’s taken CAVE WAVE to draw attention to it. This neon green nightmare fantasy straight outta Haord (I am wearing my “Straight Outta Haord” t-shirt after all) is not straight outta Haord but is functioning in a similar form. I am off balance. I am unclear. I am disoriented. I am thrilled. Andy Ortmann is the exact dose of bewilderment in these times when everybody’s right and I’m wrong. I should take a step back and wallow in being wrong, in being submerged beneath the surface of this planet, surrounded by reverberating catacomb walls, and ride the wave of the cave till my brain breaks from the effort. It won’t be long now – I’ve become sure of very little, and I’m awash in oversensation.
In the end, the one thing that I’m actually sure of is that Andy Ortmann is probably a crab person.
Andy Ortmann