AMALGAMATED / ODD PERSON"Anthropometric ixil"(Bicephalic Records)

This split tape (limited edition of 50) offers Amalgamated on one side and Odd Person on the flip. Pressing play welcomed me to "bending the last blind leg", which consumes the entire Amalgamated side. My initial impression of Yoko Ono fronting The Beatles hodgepodge track "Revolution No. 9" held firm throughout with a barrage of whimpers and sound effects done in a more interesting way than perhaps I've suggested by comparison.

As it turns out, Amalgamated is a collective (4-5 members) of experimental artists who record live performance and then edit and "post-process" to create what we have here. An interesting and imaginative electronic based effort that I found stimulating enough to warrant listens to future works.

The reverse is titled "nebaj.cotzal.chajul" by the mysterious Odd Person of which I came up empty handed in my attempts to further identify the artist(s). The performance consists of rhythmic patterns akin to taping on a live microphone (sound check?) that graduate to increasing repetitions and then transform into buzzing noises, all while maintaining some sense of pattern. Like the Amalgamated side, it is done in an intriguing manner. Unlike side A, however, I don't need to ever hear this again.

The tape is release number nineteen on this experimental music label and purports to be the first of eight releases featuring these two artists. I would recommend it solely for the Amalgamated side to those inclined toward this type of art/music.

www.bicephalic.net

-Bob Zilli

FREE MUSIC “Kool Toad – Great Music” C52 (Night People)

Per Night People’s summary of this tape, that the majority of these songs are ‘from improvisational methods’; don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s nothing but a guy jerking off his army of synthesizers into the cosmos. Though a handful of the twenty-something vignettes here are certainly demo-like, even-more-rough-around-the-already-notably-rough-edges, that just makes the tight (yet spacey) hooks of the more concertedly crafted ditties all the better. This mix of bedroom intimacy and 3am dance-floor warrior-sweat is both booty-shakeworthy AND inspiring to all fall victim to putting recorded music on a pedestal. Definitely looking forward to hearing what FM puts out next!

http://statlerwt.bandcamp.com/

and/or

www.night-people.org

- - Jacob An Kittenplan

SISTER GROTTO & BRAEYDEN JAE “Born to Lose/Born to Leave” (Antiquated Future)

This collaboration between Sister Grotto, aka Madeline Johnston, who conceived it, and Braeyden Jae, who provided “additional instrumentation,” could only have gestated in the dark places where despair lurks. That’s right, this is not an uplifting journey, kids, across landscapes where on the other side you’ll find redemption. This is the unfortunate, sad path blazed by those who have loved too much and met with only tragedy for their efforts. This is long-form experimental catharsis, where loss is channeled into texture and stretched until the continuous cycle of human misery resembles a fuzzy blanket made out of guitar tones.  Are you a glutton for emotional punishment? And if you’re not, why on earth would you listen to music in the first place?

Make no mistake, this is masterful work. “Born to Lose” is minimal and melancholy guitar cloaked in static, representing confusion and turmoil in the face of having to constantly move forward to survive. The mere suggestion of the title that we’re on our own and there’s no way out of the endless wretched cycle of our lives reflects the pensive nature of the track, and the periodic chord resolutions only underscore the heartwrenching drudgery of our travels. There’s no way to win. And there’s no way we can stay here.

Which is where “Born to Leave” steps in, and builds a cathedral of sound to escape. By its midpoint, it’s clear that the point is to get out, to get lost, to give up and burn and rise in a final arc of spiritual glory. It’s time to leave Earth, leave people, leave everyone we’ve ever loved and disappointed. We’ve died, that’s it. Or at least listening to it feels like passing over to the other side, something so truly final that there’s never any going back. Or maybe that’s being a little too dramatic (which is almost impossible given the nature of this tape). Maybe it’s just meant as a paean to leaving in general, moving on, changing, adapting. Even though it’s catastrophic to experience, at least there’s closure. There’s always fucking closure.

The point is, why wallow in misery? This tape, while sad, is also a reminder to live life, and “Born to Leave” blooms majestically over its last seven minutes or so to underscore just that sentiment. It’s a reminder to grab every moment and embrace every second you’re with people you love. Don’t worry that it’ll likely all end in tragedy – such is the nature of life and death, I suppose – you gotta make like Dead Poet’s Society and carpe diem, baby, even though that reference makes me sound like a boring undergrad. Whatever. You shouldn’t buy this tape because you enjoy lengthy guitar drone workouts; instead, buy it because you want to feel again, and then turn it around and make something better of your life.

Antiquated Future

Born to Lose/Born to Leave Bandcamp page

--Ryan Masteller

COMMANDER KEEN “Low Budget Dreams” (Trash Dog)

 

I’m going to admit it, because this tape kicks off with a track called “Die Hard II,” I was pretty intrigued. Commander Keen, four scamps from Cookeville, Tennessee, make rock-and-roll music like they used to in Boston, or they still do if the “they” in this sentence is signed to Exploding in Sound Records (a nice label to release your music, truly). Like a cross between Loewenstein-fronted Sebadoh and early Foo Fighters, Commander Keen blaze like guitar-shaped rockets and burst over packed arenas in a volatile blaze. There’s a Gas Station Dogs joke to throw in here somewhere – something along the lines of, when do Low Budget Dreams become “Rock and Roll Dreams [That] Come True”? Or something. I tried.

“Die Hard II” makes with the rock, and I’m happy with it, as I am with the also-awesomely-titled “Shark Week.” I’m totally down with “Brain Waves” and “Knoxville,” too. I could take or leave the long songs (“The Camel,” “Nashville”) but that’s mainly personal preference. I’m not at the stage in my life where I want straightforward rock songs that bloom with lengthy solos and then into denouements. But if I know what you kids are listening to these days – and I really fucking don’t, so take that for what it’s worth – you’re going to love it.

Trash Dog Records

Commander Keen

--Ryan Masteller

JEFF ZAGERS “Live on WNYU” (Ramp Local!)

Calling all stations. Pencil me in, Tink. Don’t ask when; when is when; but if you must -- ‘til the bending sax bows out. That’s your cue. OK? It’s written there in plain english, Charlie. On your QSL card. Now get to it before these machines power themselves down -- they’re still going -- and take it easy, because we’re going to be stuck in the thick of it for a spell. Not too easy, not too much kava and no vodka.

“Standing at the machine every day for all my life…”

At the Center of the Earth, the pole position, you stand, pivot, busy with the pan pots, busy with twist-and-flick fingers, and furrow; a table of stuff and batteries, guarded by mics turning snug into the snake patch into the control room -- the control room and the studio room mirror one another as much as cousins mirror one another: there seems to be some sort of family resemblance, of what sort, I couldn’t tell, exactly. This coming from someone who’s been in both rooms...and down the hall, past the plate glass blockades (some of them). And one snake leads past the wax and the hall and stops shy of the staircase. The whole edifice goes on indefinitely (a guess -- I haven’t seen much of it yet), with mirror rooms, long lines of plate glass, other ends of other staircases, blank lyrics... my guess, since I’m guessing good tonight, there’s a chapel at the end of one of those halls, the last hall we come across. I bet.  

…...

Jeff Zagers: http://anothersundayinsavannah.blogspot.com

Ramp Local!: https://ramplocal.bandcamp.com

-- Rick Weaver

THREE FOURTHS TIGERS"Indoor Voice” (Field Hymns)

 The way Cassette Gods works is that labels and artists from all over inundate a central office with their tape mailings, in the hopes of showcasing their music through the magic of journalistic acrobatics. Once the lovingly packaged music is ripped open by the mailroom ogre, the tapes are heaved onto an ever-growing mountain, and a handful are selected here and there by unfathomable bipeds and periodically sent to the intrepid writers.* Your tape might be reviewed by the excellent Jacob An Kittenplan, or maybe the renowned Roy Blumenfeld, or possibly the magical Adam Padavano. If you’re really lucky, your tape will be sent to me.

Three Fourths Tigers, this is your lucky day.

Weird thing, though, is that I also run a little old blog called THE CRITICAL MASSES (all caps today for some reason), so there’s a small chance that I’ll have already received and reviewed your release for that site. In this instance, Three Fourths Tigers, this is not your lucky day, because I already reviewed this tape for the ol’ CM. Or wait – maybe it is your lucky day because we all get to relive that excellent initial review! Yeah, I’ll go with that one. So without further ado, and again in all caps because this is my thing, I bring you:

THREE FOURTHS TIGERS: INDOOR VOICE – REVIEWED ON THE CRITICAL MASSES!

You guys are really gonna love it if you haven’t seen it before. Here are some snippets:

“Indoor Voice is jam packed with burbly clusters and taffy-stretched tone, synthesizers roiling through landscapes like magic mist and causing new and interesting flora and fauna to spring forth from the earth in a neon glaze of demonstrative glory.”

“In truth, Indoor Voice plays like the soundtrack to Earth of the future, the post-first-contact, post-terraforming, post-ESP-evolution Earth where human beings no longer look human (to our eyes), so we drop the ‘human’ and simply refer to them as ‘beings.’”

“[F]ortunately, the confines of Earth no longer bind us, and we’re able to treat visitors from other planets, like those arriving in ‘Other Landings,’ with the dignity and respect they deserve, not with a tense military show of force. You’ve seen Mars Attacks! right? Yeah, not like that.”

Consider your whistles wetted! Get on over there, you scamps.

*This probably isn’t how the Cassette Gods office really works. Probably.

Field Hymns

Three Fourths Tigers

--Ryan Masteller