Dog Hallucination / Ichtyor Tides “Vergier Begets” C30 (Bicephalic Records)

You’ll remember my first ever review of Holy Hills’ self-titled album (http://bit.ly/1Up0GJF). I was critical of their supposedly “experimental” tape and how it lacked any “experimental” content whatsoever. I bring up this review because I heard dangerously similar tones in the first track of “vergier begets”: malaise 1-4 by Dog Hallucination.

Dog Hallucination was slightly reminiscent of that traumatic Holy Hills tape in that it lacked the melodious overtones that most of today’s modern pop hits have. That’s not to say it lacked rhythm altogether, however. The tape opens with a dulcet binary-esque tune that drops to a grisly strain, which truly does have a dearth of cadence. This second coming evolves into pealing and equally rhythmless (yet admittedly slightly intriguing) slack. It was this tune’s evolution into the final little ditty that I realized something: the reason I couldn’t find myself so horrendously bored while listening to this track was not only because it possessed euphonious fluctuation (something Holy Hills desperately needs in its tracks) but also because during the entirety of the time I listened to that side, I ideated literal dog hallucinations. This track may truly contain the malaisical sounds that a dog suffering from cataplexy may hear. And for this reason my rating immediately went from a 4/10 to a 7/10. Good naming reaps good ratings. Words to live by.

The second side/track was labeled Deimonstritus by Ichtyor Tides. I looked into the meaning or origins of the word “Deimonstritus" (hoping to exact this newfound track-naming tip I discovered upon this side), but Google either failed me or the word was invented. Maybe the track name is as experimental as the song it titles. In any case I popped the tape into my boombox and gave it a listen. If you didn’t like the Buggles you won’t like this track, let me tell you know. The synth is heavy with this one. I personally am a big fan of the synth noise, and the silvery sounds organized on this track engendered a surprisingly decent listen, especially for an experimental track. Even so it’s not good as anything except background music, like really any experimental track (let’s be candid here). I rate it a 6/10, points were taken for repetitiveness.

As an aggregate I rate this album a 6.5/10.

https://bicephalicrecords.bandcamp.com/album/vergier-begets
http://doghallucination.bandcamp.com/
http://aubjects.wordpress.com/
http://petriblog.wordpress.com/
http://www.bicephalic.net/
https://www.facebook.com/Bicephalic-Records/

—M. Syed

DOG HALLUCINATION “Mitzi” C60 (Aubjects)

There’s a band – they’re probably huge by now, their record’s out on Jade Tree – called Dogs on Acid, and they’re from Philly and they play, like, punky emo pop or something. It’s not my bag. The question, though, is what do Dogs on Acid (or dogs on acid, in general) experience while on said acid. I’m here to tell you, definitively, that they experience Dog Hallucination – not dog hallucination, in general – but specifically, unquestionably, Dog Hallucination. And probably Mitzi, most likely.

The two dudes in DH, D. Petri and “Doggy P. Lips” (who always somehow appears in quotes, as if he is in some way embarrassed by the fact that his parents named him Doggy P. Lips and the quotation marks serve to throw the questioning listener off the trail of what’s real and what’s not, sort of like this parenthetical) have been plugging away at their masterwork since 2004, when they began recording. They pressed stop in 2007. They pressed record again a couple times between 2007 and 2011. They pressed stop again. Then they edited this stuff together. It’s 2015 now, and this tape is out in a limited edition of 25, and it comes in a modified DVD case with a cool booklet featuring all kinds of crazy art. It looks really important.

Mitzi, presumably named after the dog that graces the front cover, is a study in bedroom psychedelic minimalism. Both members are multi-instrumentalists, and the tone is all over the place, sometimes veering into instrumental Brian Jonestown Massacre jam territory (“Parallel to Sunrise”) to noise experiments (“Mome Throes”) to raga passages (“Synch”) to euphoric ambient (“Oddview Porcelain Evap”). Mostly it just trips me out, man. In a good way. Leading me down passages of unparalleled fantasy, and eschewing caution like it was never there to begin with. I’m probably going to float away if I don’t put some rocks in my pockets.

These artists, this statement –  I don’t know why Dog Hallucination is what it is, and I don’t know why Mitzi is its crowning achievement, taking eleven years to complete. It’s clearly a loving document to something by these guys, and it’s worth paying attention to. It certainly feels like something that could be conjured up during the enlightened hours of a wild trip (maybe that’s what Dogs on Acid really needs, a bit of soul searching down a different path). Maybe it’s still missing its ultimate piece, a feature film, after the creation of which Dog Hallucination will “culma-terminate.” Or just maybe the pup on the cover, pupils dilated and head cocked in curious metaphysical stasis, is a spirit animal, and it made this music with its mind, and we’re all figments of its consciousness, and within that stare we can be unimagined or exalted at its whim. Who am I to say that this isn’t how it all really is?

https://aubjects.wordpress.com/

https://doghallucination.bandcamp.com/

http://www.intangiblecat.com/doghallucination

--Ryan Masteller