NO BASEMENT IS DEEP ENOUGH Label of the Year

This is not the first time we've covered Serbio-Belgian cassette-as-art-object label No Basement is Deep Enough, and for good reason. They've already released work by some great cats and kittens, but now they've gone and done tapes for two of my favorite goo things: Egg, Eggs and Garm as well as some bands I'm just getting into.  All of the following are cassettes in special packaging.  Check out the music player at the end of the post.

BR GARM "Garmsquirm2012" - Another winner from Strange Maine proprietor Brendan Evans.  Keep 'em coming Brendan.  This is the strangest Garm yet and the third within one calendar year.  This man has never been so prolific!  This tape is free ranging, totally madcap and playful, probably the best tape I've heard in a while.  Only 50 copies!!!

EGG, EGGS "Zygotic Crack" - The most current Western Mass jam session going on is Egg, Eggs.  It's got all the members of all the other jam sessions, but most especially it's got the bird man himself, David Russell. Hare Krishna indeed, with hawk skulls flying at your face!

ASIAN WOMAN ON THE TELEPHONE - Russian band with US release on Anonymous Dog and another coming on Feeding Tube.  All sorts of No Wave with dramatic flair.  Intriguing to the maximum, hear more! Lots of sounds on their bandcamp.  Thiw NBIDE release is a split tape with KREAMY 'LECTRIC SANTA, who presents a tasteful sample buffet.

HARRY MERRY  "The Life Lived" - Recorded between 1989 and 1994. Really great Dutch home recorded lo-fi songs.  Some of it sounds like Rudimentary Peni with casio and tape hiss and other parts feel more like acid damaged pop.  One of the most "conventional" releases on the label.  A really great find.

F.L.U.T. "untitled" - Contemporary Belgian warped hippie kraut throwback with worse drugs.  That's a compliment.

MAGMA TRAKT "s/t" - Super psychedelic contemporary Serbian noise sermons.  The sound of this dudes voice is hypnotic and frightening as he talks to you over electronics performing menacing washes and patterns.  Great minimal percussion parts on this.  They're not making them quite like this in the USA yet...

FAST DEADBOY - Two tape box set in an edition of 33 copies presenting some late 80s Serbian noise.  A lot of this music is charmingly primitive feeling, but it's an interesting artifact.  The tapes are house in one of the best packages from NBIDE so far.

Folks in the US can buy NBIDE releases at Weirdo Records, Time-Lag, Lighten Up Sounds & on Discogs.  All tapes are in editions of 50, so act fast.  The label can be contacted at ignacedb@hotmail.com.

Listen to Harry Merry, Garm, Egg, Eggs and others on the player:

No Basement is Deep Enough is curated by Ignace de Bruyn, with artwork and design by Milja Radovanovic.
Check out Male Bonding, a sublabel of NBIDE. I'll do a post on them some time later.

COUCHIE POOCHIE (Feeding Tube Records) C10

The opening of this live acoustic set taped on a couch in Easthampton, MA is one of my favorite recordings in recent memory. That's not surprising seeing as Couchie Pouchie (a band with an ever-shifting moniker -- see Creepy Pee Pee, Crappie Pappie, Drippy Hippy) is comprised of D.B. Russell (The Frothy Shakes) and Tim Sheldon (Fat Worm of Error, Rack Rash - see review of the excellent "National Felt" in these pages) and the song is the Phil Phillips penned "Sea of Love". This much covered song is delivered completely straight and it's a soulful and heartfelt version, if maybe a tad creepy.

The rest of the tape veers into diffuse improv with Russell's high pitched and mongoloid singing/intoning accompanied by Sheldon's acoustic guitar and the singer's abstruse Casio sounds. The third piece is also a real winner; an ad lib with the lyrics "I wanna live in America, where the sun shines every day. Here in this real hell". A national anthem for these times if there ever was one.

Overall, a very deranged, yet surprisingly melodic tape of retarded half-songs. A reel winner! First edition of thirty or so still kicking, and I believe this will be reprinted by the label too.

the tape is available from feedingtuberecords.com

This is the band that later developed into Western Mass. super group Egg, Eggs - Ed.