REVERSE MOUTH "Wizard of porks / Garbage Empress" c24 (Deep Fried Tapes)

Remember in thriller when Vincent Price says "Darkness rolls across the land" and the music has been mixed down a bit and tightened up with the bass line carrying the song? He goes on and on about the bugs and dying and everything and it's awesome because it's Vincent Price and Thriller is like the most popular record ever and Michael Jackson is spooning a fuggin TIGER on the cover. Well, what would have ruled more is if Vincent Price said all that stuff and then the music faded away and this tape came on, full focus, right up the noise nose into the listener's mind space and maybe Reverse Mouth could have just illustrated what vincent was saying, people decaying, worms crawling in my eyeballs and all the while this totally tense and not-necessarily jarring, but really really uneasy music just carried the listener back to the zombie dance. That shit woulda been extra scary, and it woulda been dope to be in Reverse Mouth because you could be like "i made the music to the breakdown in thriller, yeah, you know, the really intense and scary part." Also, it'd be dope to be in Reverse Mouth because you'd be in a good band.

Printed in an edition of 50, still available from the label,
which it's worth noting, has a TON of great stuff out.
http://www.deepfriedtapes.org/

SHEPIS "We'll Never Be Done" (Deep Fried Tapes)

Shepis keeps a low profile, turning up much less information (zero) than the horror movie actress who might be the group's namesake. Mystery band or not, Shepis fits perfectly with the rest of the DFT roster on this outing which captures a little less than 20 minutes of a live set. Attempting to describe what's being played is difficult and kind of pointless, since the best part- halfway through the first side and into the next- is when the elements slide into total murk, perfectly balanced between rumbling bass sludge, grunts and aimless high-pitched squelches. It's intuitive, slow and foreboding. Unfortunately the second half fades out before the finale, breaking the spell of the live recording and leaving behind the question of how it ended. Altogether not bad, though. This could be the grossest looking DFT yet that I've been afraid to put in the deck (still works). What is that, algae?

ANGEL DUST "Uppers / Downers" (Deep Fried Tapes)

Nate, Ron and Jake must have found some secret frequency that inhibits brain activity, because while playing this I felt totally stupid. Angel Dust forego any coherence, form or style and trip over a cord straight into drug-addled oblivion. "Uppers / Downers" is broken up into eleven tracks of string choking, crude synth and feedback tones which sporadically include singsong yowling (sometimes with words) and odd repeated chants. Clocking in at a more than generous 40 minutes, anyone who isn't dosing on whatever the band was might call this an endurance test. However, there are moments when the snickering dumbness is totally endearing, and the songs are actually paced well and end when they should. Mostly. If Deep Fried Tapes keep up this aesthetic they might just have a legacy on their nauseatingly grimy hands.

ANTLER PISS "Spit Plain" (Deep Fried Tapes)

Deep Fried Tapes: it tastes like it sounds. You'll have to boost some decibels to hear this stuff, so the tape hiss is really a member of the band. DFT's Philadelphia address is a surprise since one would have a rough blindfold test picking this Antler Piss joint from that of any number of scum practitioners from the MI-OH-KY arc. But if you know what you like, go ahead and have another scoop. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, even if it's the bleakest, "everything's broken" lounging in a haunted mine shaft circuit fuckery. This is done well. Titillating.
www.deepfriedtapes.org