I don’t know why some bands push past the experimental home recording stage and some don’t. No, that’s not true, I do – it’s virtually impossible to keep a band together for any length of time, unless of course you’re Pearl Jam or Depeche Mode, and only then it works because people pay you actual cash money – not bitcoin! – to perform. Death Tricheco could only keep it together for so long, -ploding – whether im- or ex- is hard to determine without asking someone – just like the rest of their post-punk ilk. Except for Interpol. Is Interpol post-punk? They probably like to think they are.
Fortunately, the upstart Venice-based trio (ah, Venice!) decamped at some point in 1988 and 1989 to Canaletto Studios and let their imaginations run wild. And yes, “Death Tricheco” translates to “Death Walrus,” because if you’ve ever encountered a walrus in the wild, you’ll know what I mean when I say the experience is no less than terrifying. And by “imaginations running wild” and “post-punk,” I barely mean the latter and almost certainly am hanging on by dear life to the former. I don’t know if Death Tricheco was trying to lay a cohesive set of tunes to tape when they hit record (they almost certainly weren’t), but the resulting compilation of recordings from these sessions is nothing short of mesmerizing.
So this “studio” was actually a “house filled with wine, cigarettes, and a spattering of cheap keyboards, bongos and 4-track recorders.” This was a place where the Walruses could feel comfortable, able to sit back and test the ideas (or pieces of them) that were percolating in their fertile minds. These investigations led down some twisty paths where ideas bloomed quickly and sputtered to their natural endpoints. The collection of these disparate results forms a weird whole, one that captures a snapshot of three curious artists with an ear for texture and tape hiss, unafraid of the results of simply letting their minds wander. They’d almost certainly be heralded within a multitude of homegrown tape communities these days, and sure enough, they’ve reforming – just like Smashing Pumpkins! – playing together for the first time in thirty years.
Sanzimat International
--Ryan
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