MYRTU “Ritual Terra Continuii” (Tipped Bowler)

Amp squeals, scraping violin strings, sampled voice babble, low-end rumblings: Myrtu have all the rough-hewn tools of the “baffle squad method” firmly in their toolbelt. The A side clatters and rambles in a shop-full-of-shit sorta style before a freak rolls in and starts riffing a drug-punk 2-note bassline which sounds out of place at first, but then it starts ruling, and then everyone else in the band starts to realize how much it’s ruling, so they stop what they’re doing and just start screaming, like “GO!! YEAH!!! WHOA!!!” like it’s a soccer game (or a drinking game). One guy keeps rattling some dirty dishes percussion but basically everyone’s done jamming, they’re just watching the bass player go apeshit and headbanging to their own song. Cool! They keep trucking on the B track, constant bass-sludge death-crawl riffing…like if the DNA of Independent Worm Saloon gestated into New Zealand fake-Satan black-acid occultists (instead of Austin butthole suicide wastoids). Fucked up. Gross. Awesome.

THE REGGAEE “Balthar” (Tipped Bowler Tapes)

Don’t know how yr supposed to pronounce this band name, but I just say it like Bob Marley style, “The Reggae.” (What’s up with that extra ‘E’?). Anyway, this spraypaint-streaked C20 is pleasant enough. The A side is soft fog levitation...with wooden tapping, shell chimes, overweight specters mumbling from within a dream. Stumbles around for a little and closes the door. The B side is basically the same, with a stuttering loop and lots of muffled “clumsy wraith” percussion murk. It drifts like that for the better part of 10 minutes and then devolves into rodent scratching. The J-card’s far more baffling than the music: blurry, computer-printed art of a Senor Frog’s-style trio of goofy lizards playing with balloons. WTF?! Also, as seems to be a mandatory thing with the TBT label, each tape comes with a printed page of a random Sherlock Holmes story. Let’s do it non-acronym-style this time: What The Fuck.