CAVE BEARS "D.I.Y. Spells DIE" c40 (No Basement Is Deep Enough)Guest Review By S. Howe

hey one of the guest reviewers wrote up my new tape...whatever, I'm posting it. - nkw
 
CAVE BEARS "D.I.Y. Spells DIE" (No Basement Is Deep Enough) C40
Guest Review by S. Howe from Montreal, QC
There is a secondhand household appliance place in easterly Montreal that uses Elvis Presley as a promotional tool. A Last Tango in Paris remake starring Tom Green and a computer-generated Rue Mcclanahan...Enter the Cave Bears, D.I.Y. Spells DIE. A perplexing discourse atop some sickly countrified guitar buckle introduces the A side, yielding shortly thereafter to the carcinogenic wizardry we all know and love somehow. This time around there is a point, though. Our sorcering troglodytes bluntly howl and smear their dissatisfaction for a certain artist amidst sundry slimline recorder clicks and forsaken feedback; a sibilant otherworldly backdrop of esoteric aimless guitar rubbing...brazenly recording themselves in hot spasmodic bursts over the music of Steely Dan (I believe), as the archetypal insult. There is maniacal laughter and something like closely-registered dry-heaving and/or regurgitation, several apoplectic seizures and, altogether, the utterly vile negation of art as a whole. An insincere apology precedes inappropriately conjured wolf cries and saxophone as one is soothingly transported by canoe, apparently, to the B side. The second half of this tape, contrariwise, is a delightful incursion of depravity. Within a few seconds I thought there was a problem with the sonic contraption itself and actually removed it from the deck slot for verification. A moaning lag and slowed high pitch was of course solely the classical trickery of knowledgeable tape manipulation. A minute or two of determined vampirism had me laughing unrestrainedly, and as obscene sounds of gobbling and gurgling joined the exacerbated 'drink some blood' statement, I was barely able to maintain anal composure. Then the issuance of evil whispers and yelped Neanderthal asininity betwixt inconsistent musical interludes and more piercing tape drag. Outlandish grunting and animal screeching to some mock death-metal sequence preludes a most hilarious orgy loop. We hear something rather familiar as the tape trundles onward: Gluey morsels from some other Cave Bears album, civil piano segments and several mongoloid outbursts. As a fringe benefit D.I.Y. Spells DIE also addresses flatulence and bird death. Wobbly reel tripe and impassive sarcastic lecture conclude this audio examination. A bright opaque-yellow cassette seems the simple viscera of an absurdly furred purplish puppet monster "case." I am convinced that this molting mass of mendicant fabric and rough glue-work gave me an eye infection. A must for your disproportionately packaged tape item pile (or should you enjoy laughing violently).

Get the fingernail scissors --
Purchase here: (http://lightenupdistro.bigcartel.com/product/cave-bears-d-i-y-or-die-c44)

S. Howe

no joke

CAVE BEARS "Tragic Ceremony" c52 [Ozonokids]

Yikes, been meaning to get this review up here for awhile but these Cave Bears are so preposterously perplexing I wasn't sure how to generate the feel of this tape into sensical language. Each time I thought I was onto something it was "nope, back to the drawing board."

Silly spoken word snippets start it out but they're taken over by no-fi rock outs--I mean seriously no-fi maybe even anti-fi; agitated vocals, a grinding bass riff, tortured guitar feedback all whipped into an unintelligible mess-one of best portions of the tape. It throbs and oozes, like a pustule-ridden pulsating mutant tongue. There's an odd female voice acoustic ditty in there too. Someone's little brother or sister takes over on the mic during one portion ("This is funny. Oh my God") while the band is just doing some practice jamming. There's some aggro-old timey hillbilly rockin' later on with a feral yelper, someone attacking a twangy guitar and random harmonica interruptions. The first side features a lengthy sample of some guy gushing about his obscure photography magazine collection (or something; he mentions Tonya Harding for some reason at one point) while the Bears add odd snippets of electronic music around the source recording. It's one of my favorite moments on the tape because there's this connection forged between the two oddities, the person in the recording and the people making this recording. This unfortunately lapses into grating dry heaves into the microphone. This is the Cave Bears world, a violent shifting back and forth between something cool and weird and something annoying and weird.

The B-side is full of junk shop dumbassery. Someone sings about a "horror world" and then someone half sings that "murdering is really cool" over a reggae song. This devolves into someone asking "was anyone at the Strange Maine show?" At another point they try singing about a "dragon crystal magic motion" and the "confusion." Aware of the ridiculousness of this whole ordeal one person asks "Where'd the reggae go? Bring back the reggae." The reggae isn't brought back. It just continues to play very quietly. Is this something you want to listen to? That is a question you will have to answer for yourself.

It's hard to categorize this tape because Cave Bears is a band that makes music that loosely resembles songs (except when they're hanging out chatting about whatever enters their minds.) There's almost always guitar, drums and vocals, yet as a creative entity they have no regard for the way you're "supposed" to make songs. Songs are often cut short or interrupted by snagged tape, the singers just say whatever comes to mind, the guitars provide no hooks or melodies, the rhythm section doesn't keep perfect time. It's the kind of thing that some people view as not knowing how you're supposed to play an instrument and others would view as not caring how you're supposed to play an instrument. Some people probably don't see a distinction between the two.

How much I enjoy a Cave Bears release depends on my mood. Sometimes their all-nonsense rock is a lot of bizarre fun. Other times it's an abrasive and generous bestower of headaches. I personally think they could use an editor to put together all the good stuff on a c15 instead of spreading the good stuff over the course of 52 minutes, because this tape did not need to be 52 minutes long. If you do make it through the whole tape though you are rewarded with a nails-on-the-chalkboard cover of "House of the Rising Sun."

Cave Bears... they're one of those bands you either love or you hate, or you think they're okay.

Tragic Ceremony features awesome artwork, kudos to Arnau Sala and his Ozonokids label out in Barcelona.

Ozonokids

Cave Bears

CAVE BEARS: “Horribble and Useless” c31 (Yod Tapes)

The entity that is the Cave Bears has been around for quite a while now, with a constantly rotating cast and a discography just as equal in variety, ranging from slowed down drone to acoustic boogaloo. This is, by far, my favorite release of theirs to date, and probably the closest representation of their “typical” live show. I put that word in quotes because when you go to see them, you never really know what you’re going to get. I hesitate to use the word “destructive”, but I think I’m okay with the word “messy”. I’ve seen them do everything from smash lightbulbs, pour mud across the floor, wear costumes made out of (operating) electric fans and (full) watering cans, and even bang on buckets while suspended upside-down from a tree while another member threw fireworks. So yeah, they’re a little all over the place, but they also have a general set-up of guitars and drums that they use more regularly, so even when it does lean towards being improvisational, you can usually tell it’s them.

There’s actually a surprising amount of differentiating composition on this tape, but it’s entirely cohesive. Cut-ups and samples flow freely and intermingle with original work very suitingly, foreign musicals laced through shrieking howls, guitar warbles, and a variety of squawking brass and harmonica. All of this is even edited at times, chopped & screwed on analog reels, still not upsetting the rhythm. There’s a large section of instrumentation that gets a little too calamitous for a little too long on side two, but that’s barely a beef, like a nuttier No-Neck Blues Band (bear in mind, I’m also notorious for preferring everything ultra-short). A solid starter for anyone looking to get into this band, or to prep them for their upcoming split LP with ID M Theft Able (who we all obviously can’t get enough of around here).

http://cavebears.suchfun.net/