MED.HAMMER "Shedding Life" (Existential Cloth) C60 Ed. of 20

Death drone. That's what this is. Simple, dark, heavy. I got my copy of this tape from Existential CEO Matt, himself on a recent trip up to Portland, ME. I listened to this driving done I-95 in the rain. I'm surprised I didn't drive myself through the guard rails into oblivion.

Shedding Life is just two thirty-ish minute live sets from their 2007 tour. Matt kept talking about what a blast that trip was. I would think these guys were dosing out on codeine the whole time, not partying. Goes to show you what I know. Maybe that is their kind of party. I wasn't there. I only know the end result, and its soul crushing.

So, to be clear, this ain't no Line-6 loop station mic and a singing bowl form of hippy drone. Shedding Life is one hell of a dark Thanatonic meditation aid. Next time I smoke salvia, I hope I remember to put this on. Hell or high water, it'll be a journey to remember.

Existential Cloth on Myspace.
Med Hammer on Myspace.

KID WIZARD "To The Stars By Hard Ways" (Hidden Fortress Tapes) C30, Ed. of 30

Space music for the lo-fi set. If there are two things in the world that I love, its DIY synths and tapes hiss on analog synth music. Both those are here in spades. Another tape that had a nice career in my car over the summer. Good for you, I haven't waited too long and copies are still available (at time of writing). But enough sales-hype, let me tell you about To The Stars By Hard Ways.

As notes warble on a home made mellotron (for real?), a filmless score is made, then bumped out of the way almost immediately by some juicy electro groove. That's the flow of this tape. Kid Wizard is a master of the medium. Only in the Bay Area would someone posses both the skill at electronics to build his own entire Synthsizer studio, and also have the musical genius to groove house parties like Kubric would have in the '70's.

If I were doing A&R for either Rephlex or Satamile, I'd be tossing this guy a cash advance. Some one, some one PLEASE put this on wax. It deserves it more than anything else I've heard this year.

Hidden Fortress Tapes.
Kid Wizard on Myspace.

THE MENTHOLS "Stereoisomer" C58 (Amateur Depression) Ed. of 100.

Who gave these kids the cough syrup? Garage punk that rides the line between total banality and total brilliance. Nine songs here that throb, swagger and pummel my brain and nether regions. Sympathy For The Record Industry dons it's Lufthansa cap, dusts off it's dog collar and bull whip and road-trips out to PA for an extended erotic, psychedlics-fulled one-on-one party with Siltbreeze. Extended interludes that are actually funny. I might be over-hyping this tape (could anything ever be that good), but even so this is some tight rock 'n roll. And, Jesus, just look at that cover art! Punk as fuck!

This tape sat way too long in my car stereo this summer to finally get a review, so I gotta tell you things fast and furious. Anyone reading this: jump on this band ASAP. If these dudes were from Brooklyn, they'd be internet famous already. Once an LP hits, I reckon The Menthols will be deemed CLASSIC.

Menthols on Myspace.
Amateur Depression on Tumblr.
Amateur Depression on Myspace.
Cut to the chase and mailorder.

TINY MUSIC: s/t c37 (Nihilist Records) & “F.W.S.S.” c76 (self-released)

This clanking collective of Chicagoans really know how to make an interesting din out of household objects. Using explicitly acoustic instruments, they can really clock out a cassette and give dudes with tables full of effects pedals a serious run for their money. Any electricity they do use is only to power their homemade gadgets, spinning chimes and slatted metal to scrape against. The actual list of items they use (included in the liner notes) is staggering, everything from drinking straws to window weights.

The music is always instrumental and generally dissonant, but the contraptions aren’t the whole of the music, there’s also a heavy use of various flutes and bowed instruments that, when the music does come together and become rhythmic, invoke an elven maypole dance, the family minstrel band doing some real medieval truckin’. I was a little disappointed that “F.W.S.S.” (which stands for "Fall, Winter, Sping, Summer”) didn’t really apply it’s seasonal motif more comprehensively; it seemed like each song, though possessing individual idiosyncracies, sounded largely the same structurally, with no difference in mood. Still, I think the potential of this group, both auditorily and in formation, is limitless, and look forward to future releases.

Both tapes come with xerox inserts, but “F.W.S.S.” has varied pieces of flora glued to the front and watercolored labels.

http://www.myspace.com/tinymusicband

FLEABAG: s/t EP (ok records)

I LOVE THIS BAND. And that’s what I told them when I saw them live...after every song. I was in rare form, fully psyched before they even started, at one point even yelling, “fuck everyone I knew in high school for not being here!” That’s right, I was that guy that night, and I am NEVER that guy.

I hate to say it, but I can’t lie, I think a lot of why I like this Oakland trio (besides their just being really good), former members of Punkin Pie, is due to nostalgia. Hearing their melodic, pop-punk riffs and vocals that barely edge over normal talking volume floods me with the same excitement I had of bringing home a new Epitaph comp. CD once upon a time. Truly, this is the kind of music Epitaph would be putting out nowadays if they didn’t have their heads so far up their asses. Seriously, that shit is embarrassing.

Singer and lyricist, Marilyn, has an adorable voice and simple, concise words that stick to the roof of your mouth, my favorite being a line from the song “Coals”: “you know how that goes, we can laugh, but we’re never happy”. Songs about youth, relationships, and social awkwardness without an ounce of unpleasant sappiness. I really wish I had this available to me a long time ago...

This is a 5-song EP, same program both sides, on pro-dubbed tapes with xerox insert. No website (I think), but you can write to them!

1935 Linden St.
Oakland, CA
94607

NATE GRACE: “Sevn Daze” c30 (Sonora Records)

There’s a lot to be said about genre fads, both good and bad, considering the negative connotation that the word “fad” comes with. Without turning this into some sort of college thesis about it, I want to state the fact that we all know that Ducktails has basically instilled a new craze for lo-fi beach-pop. It’s true, and if you need more proof, check out the Underwater Peoples Summertime Showcase comp., it’s all there. The good news is that, so far, it’s all been pretty darn good.

Enter Nate Grace and his Austinian cohorts, Jesse Jenkins and Austin Youngblood. Together, they play the golden trio of instruments (guitar, bass, drums) across five songs of tremolo bliss (it’s actually only 15 min., same program on both sides). Never mind the proficient quality of the original songs, their cover of “Pressure Drop” is worth the purchase alone. With clear writing structure, more CCR than they are Yo La Tengo, this really was a pleasant surprise and, on the second listen, these tunes already felt like old favorites. The quality is a little rougher than it probably could be, a little extra recording static, but that’s pretty much my only complaint. It’s a great EP and, sure, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who digs this sound (which is most of us), but I want to make it clear that the work is well-informed and that this dude’s not just another hayseed jumping on the bandwagon.

Comes with two handmade inserts in a stitched pouch wrapped in brown paper.

http://www.myspace.com/gracenate

SAM MARTIN: “Death?” c60 (Im Drinkin This Tapes)

A whole hell of a lot of songs (nearly thirty of them) by a seemingly earnest dude from a confusing record label. Martin, also of the band Capgun Coup, makes a simple recording playing acoustic guitar and singing in an “anti-folk” style reminiscent of Kimya Dawson and Jeffrey Lewis with lyrics that are sometimes painfully immature, with “cat sat on the mat” rhyme schemes about love, sex, booze, and yes, even the aforementioned cats. However, it’s surprisingly what makes this hour of poptunes somewhat endearing. The individual song styles are varietous and the guitar playing is tight. The tape hiss adds the perfect amount of flavor and, despite the content, Martin’s voice is that of a grown-ass man, both aurally and spirtually, ain’t no prepubescent uncertainty around this guy (thus my claim of his earnesty). This isn’t going to be for everyone, but I’m assuming he’s fitting right in with the singer-songwriter community of Omaha.

http://www.main.imdrinkinthis.railsplayground.net/artists/10

ULTRA BONBON: “Paradise” vols. 1 & 3 (Bonbon Bruises)

Located in Alberta, Canada, Ultra Bonbon (Danny M.) is near-harsh noise handsomely packaged in mini manila envelopes with a theme that I have yet to put together. Is there a theme? Maybe not, just because it’s in volumes doesn’t mean there has to be one. It’s strictly electronic work, and not particularly dynamic, each side of these tapes is an island unto itself, one idea played without change. However, the tapes are short and the sounds are interesting, so it’s really not that big of a concern. Vol.1 starts out with spare beep-burps, synth gas bumping around in your stereo’s colon, then flipping to a somewhat similar sound layered with piano stabs, hitting the keys with oven mitts on. I’m not sure what the time span was between these two, but vol. 3 sounds much more developed, side one with some intense synth squeal and boxing bass, alternating from the heavy to the speed bag, and side two with space sweeps and what sounds like distorted kazoo.

Like I said, this is more about the sounds at hand, they’re almost like singles in this way, and he has many other split releases available from his label as well, all as beautifully designed but in very limited editions. I know you’re asking “where is vol. 2?”, and my answer is “I don’t know!”, but apparently it’s a larger collection that may be released on Golden Lab Records sometime in the future. We’ll just have to wait and see, but either way, with his vast self-released work and a cassette on Husk Records, it’s obvious that this dude is working hard, and that’s priority one in my book.

http://www.myspace.com/ultrabonbon
http://www.myspace.com/bonbonbruises

NATIONAL FELT: s/t (self-released)

Fat Worm of Error guitarist Tim Sheldon gives himself a new guise as National Felt, remixing who knows what into what, who knows? What? Previously going under names like Oxbow Meads and Rack Rash, I’m pretty certain this is his first formal release explicitly sampling other formal recordings (first I’ve come into contact with at least), big time operator’s songs abused and rendered with Sheldon’s own sounds squawking and grinding around too. I envision a Hollywood studio tour passing a jukebox array of 90s top-ten artists struggling to film their music videos as workers loudly strike the sets behind them, as if to hurry the whole operation and get home already. It’s a pretty short tape too, probably longer than I think, but it’s such fast-paced, exciting work, this train blows right past you.

One of the things I love most about this tape is the packaging. It comes in a cardstock sleeve that not only is sealed by velcro on the front, but you see that smokestack? That’s velcroed up too. So you can either open it in this amazing way, or you can just slide it out the top, a really good example of creativity meeting functionality. If that’s not enough, the band name is etched onto the tape by hand. I don’t know how many copies of this Tim made, but still, holy crap!

No idea where to find it, try dropping the guy a line...

http://www.myspace.com/259246838

GASTRIC LAVAGE "Bloody Knuckles" c31 (Yod Tapes)

Chris Dooley! There are legends in western mass about him. Hell, there are legends all over the world about him, for real, whenever I go on tour and tell people I'm from Western Mass they're like "oh yeah, you know chris dooley?"! It's rumored there are multiples, people will see him skateboarding while he's on the radio and working at a flywheel benefit two cities away. He has an absolutely insatiable appetite for making things happen. That manic energy is maybe a little muddy in the tape but you can definitely tell that he's really having a go at it, totally shredding up guitars (and curbs!), screaming with a winter hat pulled over his face into an amp for 45 second before ripping one of the most unusual / intense drum solos ever (though the drums on this tape i believe are played by Andy Kivela).

The title of Bloody Knuckles for this tape is totally apt, there's even a sound clip of Chris saying "oh shit, are you alright, do you need a towel or something." Everything is shredded to pieces and flying, confetti style, in the air as Dooley lets his legendary energy loose on this c31.

Yod Tapes site doesn't seem to be up yet, but check back:
www.yod.com

MARK LORD "Pussy St. Tape" c27 (Nazot)

An absolute tarantula festival. Seeing Mark Lord perform a few times over the last year he has played easily some of my favorite and most captivating sets, one night completely unhinged another almost spartan, actually sitting (sideways!) on a stool adjusting his synth and barely talking into a mic. While live it was captivating, you were focused on the individual performing, whereas on this tape, like the best music, there is almost nobody present, you feel absolutely within the realm of the music and it is a convincing listening environment.

Whereas people are often looking to grab your listening attention with swiftness, unpredictable shifts and unrecognizable manipulations, this tape has an economy and intent too often missing from 'noise tapes' these days. Remarkable for not only its fidelity but (even more so) for its absolutely even arrangements and mixing, slight reverb on the tonal background is not lost amidst the staggering, stammering pulsing in the foreground.

The first side features some vocals that, in their lack of emphasis, find an almost authoritative tone that matches the dark but commanding presence of the synth work.

I can't say enough good about this tape. I really hope it sees a vinyl re-issue.
Highly, highly recommended and of course there's no site listed and nothing I can find on the internet. Good hunting, if you can track it down, it's worth it.

CONTAINER "Container" c30 (I Just Live Here)

At INC this year I bumped into a favorite dude/band/label guy of mine Ren from God Willing / I Just Live Here and asked him how his trip had been so far to which he simply responded "just long drives jammin minimal techno." Then we talked a good bit about the virtues of the genre, I probably made a dick of myself and he probably finished his slice of pizza.

Well, lo and behold, a few months later I set up a show for him in western mass and he hands me a tape by Container and whispers 'it's my new minimal techno project.' Well, if he ain't a man of his word!

The tape starts with what sounds like a creeping synth but very quickly it's apparent the dude was not lying, rhythmic to the core, mostly low end stuttering with the necessary 303 tweaking flourishes and bubbling, burping and percolating weird worlds on top, building and deconstructing the whole way. Slight reverb on the hi hat, heavy envelope effects end up eating the thing alive. Side two is a lot more thumping and has a more thudding 4 on the floor feel with a bit more background "noise" you might expect of a beat tape coming from a noise dude, but i'll be shit on if Ren didn't just deliver two sides of minimal techno for you all!

Always recommended!
I Just Live Here site is giving me some internet grief, but maybe not for you:
http://www.ijustlivehere.net/
and ren's god willing myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/innercarpet

ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE: "Buffalo Hump, Moon Face, Thin Skin" C20 (Grimeology)

Crisp, clear harsh noise on a label that does great mastering to cassette. This is loud and bereft of so much hiss that would ruin the experience.

Aside from such cliched nonsense as "flesh peeled from bone by molten rusted metal" I can say this is well executed and dynamic. Israeli Intelligence wastes none of your time. The a-side is a deftly assembled collage of snippets of everything gross: overblown vomit growling, reverbed out tape scratching, feedback loops and metal abuse. Its all there. In spades. Love it. Everything last long enough to be savored, and cuts to the next serving before there's one iota of boredom sitting in. I wish my recordings came out this good. For real.

The b-side starts out similarily, but rolls along with a slower pace, more psychedelic a molten floe, not violent erruption .

I'm happily sitting in my kitchen flipping this cassette over and over whilst writing. After deluging myself with some downloads of the Japanese harsh masters this week, I'm still finding Buffalo Hump, Moon Face, Thin Skin exciting and inspiring.

Edition of 50
Grimeology.com

QUEEN VICTORIA: "Apocalyptic Field Recordings Vol. 1" C20 (They Live We Sleep)

Wes Anderson should ditch his hipster-defining retro fitted mix tape style soundtracks for this. Breezy, lite summertime music. Eerily nostalgic. 16mm film footage of a girl in a sundress dancing in a field. Like someone's first student film circa 1989. Naively arty, bereft of pretention.

The first side is more song-oriented, a blues riff quickly cut off is replaced by a toy melody Baroquely meandering around someone's reverbed out singing. That soon morphs into a pulsing rythmic electronic groove, which again, cuts deftly into a soft rock crooner by for the neo-hippy set.

The second side rules. Toy keyboards plink away in the foreground, while the other elements, drum machine and singing, are simmered down to a fine atmosphere through reverb, delay and the loss of tape-to-tape generations. Cherubic is a good word to use for Apocalyptic Field Recordings Vol. 1, but the image I used before, of a grainy film documenting lithe youthful innocence may yield a broader understanding of the total vibe presented here.

Theylivewesleep.sitesled.com

**vintage review** LADDERWOE: "Mourning The Late Jennifer" C30 (USAGOLDEXCHANGE, 2006)

Delirious, lo-fi, lilting gothic out-folk from some New Jerseans. I picked this up from a smelly guy on tour a while back and it's shifted from car tape drawer to bed room tape drawer to shoe box under a bureau and back. Housecleaning yields peculiar treasures.

New Brunswick bands liked to tour these parts a lot from 2003-2007. This project is/was related to, if not part of USAGOLDEXCHANGE, Door, and maybe even King Darves. In fact, the show I spoke of had three of the four bands just discussed playing and is the show where King Darves went folk. I got a big pile of CDr nonsense that night. I also miss the noise Darves, but I digress.

Mourning... is best at being succinct. More than 30 minutes of this would be too much. But two 15 minute slabs of eerie feedback, acoustic guitars and harrowing howls are just right. This appealed well enough to me when I was entrenched in my Neo-Folk fandom, as it does now as I'm starting to finally develop a taste for what some of my friends and I simply refer to as "hippy-drone-noise." I guess that's what I'd file Ladderwoe under. It's too weird to be anything really close to "folk," but there's still too much song structure (especially on the other Ladderwoe recording I've got) to really let this be straight up noise. In my opinion anyway, and I'm the one writing, so, yeah, this is my god damned opinion!

On here there's enough scuzz and hiss to keep anyone's inner experimentalist happy. This could have been recorded room mic style with a couple guys cuing tape players as they moaned about The Late Jennifer and plucked away on a guitar and hit some things resembling percussion. There's even parts where I hear dinner ware clinking. This reeks of a humid coffee house show in late sumer. It's as cozy as it is unnerving.

TERRORS: “Inequipoise” c30 (Monorail Trespassing)

Don’t let the fact that this is on Jon Borges’ harsh/drone-notorious Monorail Trespassing label fool you, this thing is straight-up pop music. True, there’s a little bit of ambience on the edges of these songs but, for the most part, it’s pretty structured. I don’t actually know who the members of this band are, where they’re from, or anything like that. I can’t even tell with great certainty what instruments were played at specific parts, the production effects make guitars sound like pianos and vice versa, which I believe are the key mainstays (with a couple of additional string appearances). The style is slow and echoic, sparse instrumentation, but a dense sound, with so much reverb that the lyrics blend into one another and the music seems to hold on forever. The liner notes state that it was “recorded in a window” (assumedly the one on the cover), and it’s almost as if you can feel each chord drifting away, out into the night air. Maybe it’s better that the source remains a mystery for the time being, this might even be their first release for all I know. Hell, this could BE Borges’ work for all I know, but take what I don’t know and stuff it in a sack, this tape has a great sound and a lot of replay value, highly recommended.

Ltd. edition of 125

http://www.monorailtrespassing.com/

EARN: “Away” c20 (Ekhein)

Earn is the new(er) identity of Matt Sullivan, also known to many as the hyper-harsh Privy Seals, and it finds him casting a comparatively gentle spell on his six-string to ring loud and ring proud, with a couple of tape samples trailing to boot. After a brief introduction, he delves right into “Wax Man”, which almost reminds me of a crisper Skaters recording as he drums on the guitar, creating a back-beat for his fingers to skip around. This is quickly followed by “Running on Soft Feet”, a super glitter sound that will really lull you into your comfort zone and get your serotonin flowin’, perfect to relax to on a hot summer night. Side B has another quick introduction, then completes with the title track, which (I think) is a general display of his chops, definitely most closely resembles what I saw him do live. The whole thing is a real pleasure to listen to, calming, drifting echoes, but it really hits you differently at the end when it fades into a sort of television static with strange “Poltergeist”-like sounds over it, almost gives what you heard a bit of a twist, leaves a new, eerie disposition in your mouth. Was that a spoiler? My apologies. Anyway, great melodic ambience at a perfect length by a real sweet guy.

I only more recently heard about Sullivan’s Ekhein label, but he’s putting out some really killer stuff by himself and others and, although he doesn’t have a website, his wares are readily available online if you look around.

http://www.discogs.com/label/Ekhein

YEAST CURD: “Barefoot in the Dark” c47 (Excite Bike)

There’s a really surprising subtlety to this tape, a strange and almost hushed production quality that really sneaks up on the listener. Like the feeling you get after shaking hands with someone who has a cold, you walk around thinking “am I sick? I just sneezed, am I sick? Is my throat scratchy? I think my throat feels scratchy...”, and then you go to the movies with friends and halfway through you KNOW you’re sick. Maybe that’s too personal of an interpretation, but that’s the feeling that crept up on me...

Yeast Curd is another one of the endless number of music projects of Eric Frye, proprietor of Scumbag Relations. This one finds him squeaking, squealing, and sputtering sounds generated by what I can’t even imagine. The first side is more beat-based, loops that you can nod along to, while side two is more of the stuttering stereo sound, the radio station you just can’t seem to get to come in, slowly sliding into outer space echoes. A real solid formula from one of the lab’s weirdest (and hardest-working) scientists.

Edition of 70, sold out from the label, still available from all the regular distros.

http://www.scumbagrelations.net/yeastcurd.htm

CM "Erotocomatose Lucidity" c30 (Closet Sorcery)

Usually don't like to google people / bands before I review them, it can give people and unfair (dis)advantage depending on what the ol' net serves up and then sometimes it is actually helpful (thereafter i'd go back and adjust my review) this is a great example of both of those cases. I was into this tape and had a fair amount to write about it: it would have been something about mechanical pets- what pets / domesticated animals represent to people and how mechanical reproductions of those externalized needs have an extra eerie air to them because they represent a totally perverted projection of those desires; also something about machine animals purring and maybe hunting instincts...

All that feels a little funny now knowing this is the work of Todd Brooks from the Pendu organization, a group dedicated to all sorts of buccaneering projects including one of my faves, Artists with Cats: http://www.pendugallery.com/artistsandcats/. Reading his page I was also informed his source material are homemade/modified oscillators, synths etc. You see where this is all going? The man has a wholeness of purpose. His manifest interest in occultism, cats, automatons, etc has come to pass on this tape. The first note (yes, i take notes!) I took while listening to this tape was "Animal electronics, calm" and I mention it not to point out my perceptiveness but instead Todd's evocative abilities with his electronics, atmosphere and arrangements. The tape is a great merging of canopied high end swirling and low earthy grumblings changing speed and desity slightly.

One other point worth mentioning, I suppose, is the cover. True to his interest in eroticism CM explores a motif in noise tapes I'm not entirely convinced of- a naked woman emblazoned on the front of the tape. Though she has her face collaged with some form of esoterica to remove it from the 'extreme' nude images that usually grace the cover of harsh noise / power electronics tapes, it feels like a forced version of 'erotic' whereas the suggestive elements of the music had more of an effect of me than anything that brazen. A minor point, but it speaks to the power of the music over the somewhat crass imagery.

Not sure of the label or the edition as my internet fishing turned up an empty hook. Definitely recommend spending some time at the pendu organization website:
http://www.pendu.org
and check CM's (Chaos Majik) blog for more info on the music and to possibly get yr hands on this tape:
http://www.chaosmajik.blogspot.com/
Pick it up if you can.

CAVE BEARS: “Horribble and Useless” c31 (Yod Tapes)

The entity that is the Cave Bears has been around for quite a while now, with a constantly rotating cast and a discography just as equal in variety, ranging from slowed down drone to acoustic boogaloo. This is, by far, my favorite release of theirs to date, and probably the closest representation of their “typical” live show. I put that word in quotes because when you go to see them, you never really know what you’re going to get. I hesitate to use the word “destructive”, but I think I’m okay with the word “messy”. I’ve seen them do everything from smash lightbulbs, pour mud across the floor, wear costumes made out of (operating) electric fans and (full) watering cans, and even bang on buckets while suspended upside-down from a tree while another member threw fireworks. So yeah, they’re a little all over the place, but they also have a general set-up of guitars and drums that they use more regularly, so even when it does lean towards being improvisational, you can usually tell it’s them.

There’s actually a surprising amount of differentiating composition on this tape, but it’s entirely cohesive. Cut-ups and samples flow freely and intermingle with original work very suitingly, foreign musicals laced through shrieking howls, guitar warbles, and a variety of squawking brass and harmonica. All of this is even edited at times, chopped & screwed on analog reels, still not upsetting the rhythm. There’s a large section of instrumentation that gets a little too calamitous for a little too long on side two, but that’s barely a beef, like a nuttier No-Neck Blues Band (bear in mind, I’m also notorious for preferring everything ultra-short). A solid starter for anyone looking to get into this band, or to prep them for their upcoming split LP with ID M Theft Able (who we all obviously can’t get enough of around here).

http://cavebears.suchfun.net/

ID M THEFTABLE "id m + jay z" (mangdisc)

I was told when given this that a friend of id m's was sicklyillin and wanted there to be an id m theft able & jay-z concert. It unfortunately could not be arranged so mr. id m provided the next best thing - set up some studio time with jay and made a tape.

best rapper alive, what's up, I told you. turn the music up. woo.
I'm in my zone.

a good 45 minutes (plus) straight of
tiny cuts of jay-z acapella spliced together into quick sputtering rhythms, layered with shout-outs chopped short. everything stuttering and skipping in avalanche form, a few pebbles start it off and then it quickly gathers more, collecting all of jay's syllables and turning them into a crushing rumbling. unrelenting. like Steve Reich's Come Out, after a bit, the words that are recognizable lose their meaning and become pure sound - parts of the rhythm. and/but also, like David Mahler's Hearing Voices , the tiny chopped speech lets us hear every part of a single sound, minuscule moments, isolated, and dissected to their basic parts.
It is also impossible for me to not mention Wobbly's Wild Why , which this tape is most akin to. (This is not a bad thing! I listened to that album with reckless abandon for a good month... mind blowing, if you haven't heard it - please, find a copy right away!) though while Wobbly is throwing fire crackers at your feet from his BMX, id m is in the woods, melting mirrors with a flamethrower.
entrancing and completely consuming.

http://kraag.org/
http://kraag.org/mangdisc/

(and now that I am done writing this very first review of mine, upon putting in the links above, it seems like maybe this isn't an available release! well, keep an eye out all the same...)

TRAVELS "Dripping Down The Walls" c20 (905 Tapes)

For a period of time in my life I was uncharacteristically drawn towards the mythology of warfare and the military. I know for some people the 'dark' side of humanity 'rules' and the order and discipline of enlisted life meshes perfectly with their choices but for me it always had an air of the unreal, something not of this world that didn't mesh with any of my logical choices and as a result I couldn't get enough.
Many of the most famous war movies are also my favorites, Deer Hunter shares the upward realms along with Apocalypse Now, Thin Red Line and Full Metal Jacket among a host of others not necessary to list in order to understand this tape. Of those movies Apocalypse & Thin Red Line each share a certain quiet element to them that is in complete contrast to that which is actually being experienced; how in the world can chaos be so placid? How do you distinguish between detachment and focus?

The scene comes to mind wherein Martin Sheen arrives at the bridge under bombardment, with fireworks and gunfire meshing perfectly the question he keeps asking is "who is your C.O?...Who is in charge? Who is the commanding officer?" To which he gets an "I thought you were" for an answer. This loss of / gaining of control lends itself perfectly to the aforementioned disassociation. At what point are we listening for a lead and do we expect, from the chaos, there to be a distinct (in the case of this tape sonorous) intent. 'Dripping down the walls' imposes one side of aftershock inducing chaos and a second side that relents just enough to expose a skeleton of what's attacking you but never enough to suggest yr going to be able to tell the fireworks from the gunfire.

Full color cover of melting dude (though in a domestic setting) works perfectly with the analogy. Edition of 33, still in print:
http://www.905tapes.com

BIG KIDS/PHASED OUT: “Friends Don’t Die” split c20

To continue with the news from Vermont, although Brattleboro’s Tinderbox, an amazing, central studio and performance space, has sadly closed for good, leaving the city nearly barren of interesting live music, it turns out things are still bubbling behind closed doors. What I’m trying to say is, this tape totally rules, I love it. If there were a best of 2009 list for me to contribute to, this would definitely be on it. Two quartets, fucked as punks, indecipherable lyrics, blowing out doors, and just generally being loud, fast, and full of audio clips from movies about skateboarding.

Big Kids have a pretty crisp sound, evenly recorded with killer screeching vocals, while Phased Out went more with the dogshit style of recording that I have a very tender place in my heart for, the way super loud instruments sound to a portable tape recorder placed in the middle of the room. Kind of surprising considering they’ve got some pretty complicated instrumentation executed by simultaneous members of bands like Witch and King Tuff. Nevertheless, it’s duly appreciated.

Xeroxed inserts, edition of 200. Only available by mailorder, and almost out of stock!

http://www.myspace.com/phasedoutloccosonly
http://www.myspace.com/bigkidzz