WINDOW “Strand/Immersed” C79 (Crash Symbols)

Window is a Canadian producer who has been active for a short while. This 20 track collection clocks in at over 1 hour and 30 minutes of tracks that were first released digitally in separate efforts over the course of 2011-2012. The whole thing radiates positive energy and is a prototypical example of what trance should sound like. For this reason I found the music to be just as suited for a packed club’s dance floor as it is for a relaxing night in. The dense soundscapes and occasional samples tastefully thrown in foster an atmosphere of relaxation yet simultaneously upbeat. Despite the fact that there are 20 of them, not a single nor remix song felt repetitive.

Buy/stream here: https://crashsymbols.bandcamp.com/album/strands-immersed

--Roy Blumenfeld

GRANNY FROST "Blown Cleen" C20 (self-released)

This tape is really weird in a way that feels very fin de last siecle to these weathered ears. From the dorky-awkward project name and ambiguously scatological/auditory title to the slanted and disenchanted lo-fi guitar hooks and non-sequitorial/depressed but smarter than depression allows sung, spat and drawled (I swear he sounds like a New England Howe Gelb at one point) lyrics, “Blown Cleen” could have easily been a pick of the month in an issue of CMJ circa 1995 or so. This thing is an unruly mishmash of what some may still quaintly refer to as “indie-rock” or “lo-fi” and ain’t dope white-boy poet nerd bedroom rap gets all smeared through somewhat tedious (in a good way, the tedium makes the depresso-dork factor feel authentic) tape-collage flotsam. Reminds me at moments of early oh no po mo slack rap Beck if Beck wasn’t a slick little hip weasel with money sluicing down his cute chin. I hated this tape on first listen. I loved it on second listen. I really like it on third. As one refrain goes: “nicely done, spank the pink the butt fat guy.” Yo, check it.

https://grannyfrost.bandcamp.com/

—Brantley Fletcher

KALEIDOSCOPE DEATH “RestOfTheDrumTracks/DeadDrum” C30 (Uuhngreh Schpuggenuh)

At the recent Grammy Award ceremony, Kanye West said some remarkably stupid things about Beck winning Album of the Year over Beyoncé. Before you say “Who gives a big fat crap about the Grammys, or what Kanye West said at them?,” hold on, buckaroo! This isn’t about Kanye West in the slightest. This is about Kaleidoscope Death, a fucko-noise-folk butt-punk combo from North Carolina. They’ve released a kind of double-EP on B-more label Uuhngreh Schpuggenuh (and I canNOT believe I had to type that). It’s the one I’m reviewing right now. Check out the name above, and the link below. And then GET OFF MY BACK.

What’s this Grammy nonsense, you ask? Well, Kaleidoscope Death also had something to say following Beck’s Grammy win: “We, the members of Kaleidoscope Death, agree with Kanye West.” (What?! No!) “Yes. We believe that Beck should give his Grammy to Beyoncé. And then we DEMAND that all the awards given at the 1995 Grammys be given to Beck for his work on Stereopathetic Soulmanure. That means you, Tony Bennett, must relinquish your Album of the Year statue for MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett. Bruce Springsteen’s Song of the Year Grammy for “Streets of Philadelphia” should go to “Satan Gave Me a Taco.” Best New Artist, Sheryl Crow? No! Beck. And he should also get all the Grammys for all the other categories, including Children’s (The Lion King), Country Album (Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Stones in the Road), and Historical (The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks on Verve). Once this 1995 catastrophe is rectified, we could maybe start giving a shit about the more minor ills from this year that Kanye’s talking about.”

Wow. That wasn’t expected in the slightest. But it’s not exactly out of the blue either. Kaleidoscope Death owe a great deal of this tape’s listenability to Stereopathetic Soulmanure, an odd-and-ends compendium of crazy lo-fi experiments that’s also one of my favorite Beck recordings ever. So I’m pretty effing into what Kaleidoscope Death is doing on these EPs, since they embody the spirit of Beck’s earlier and punkier stuff in a very flattering way for both artists. (By the way, the title of side A comes from the fact that the drum tracks recorded for these songs were the last ones recorded that day. The second one has no real drums, but there’s some weird percussion on songs like “Sloppy Peeper.”)

These recordings are certainly more reminiscent of “Tasergun,” “Pink Noise,” and “Thunder Peel” than anything off Morning Phase. Songs like “Cardboard Skyline,” “Mr. Death,” and “Beans & Eyes” rock themselves to seasickness, thrashing and lurching almost without abandon, but with an acute sense that in their DNA lies a primordial tie to No Wave. (Hee hee – DNA.) There’s a silliness to KDeath’s tunes, sure, but they’re executed in the best experimental basement tape way, with lots of fuzz and hiss and grime, lots of dirty energy, and a willingness to work within the confines of their recording situation. Thus they emerge from their studio space (or crawlspace, or whatever) with a totally weirded-out but riotously listenable cassette, barfing forth from your speakers with sassiness and rigor. And the collection of “unique stuffings” appended to the J-card is a treasure trove of bizarro-ness – how did they know I was in the market for odd dress shirts from 1992? Remarkable! Produced in an edition of 25 (I’ve got #11). Kanye needs to respect this artistry – he should give his awards to Kaleidoscope Death.

http://uuhngrehschpuggenuh.bandcamp.com/album/restofthedrumtracks-deaddrum

--Ryan Masteller

AFTERLIFE "Sensory Overdose" C30 (Sic Sic)

Synth-ambient vibes throughout this'ne. One piece on each side.

Side 1 starts out with electronic fluttering and I can't help but picture a guy with a beard and a guy with a ponytail in the studio in the 70s, working on some sort of educational soundtrack. But that's how my brain works. The first piece swells into a bad ghost dream and then the swelling continues into electric/electronic buzz-saw concentrate before giving you cartoon ghost bloops & soundtrack music for "Unsolved Mysteries of the Paranormal Kind".

Side 2 is more bubbly, gurgly, & loopy, but still a heavily electronic/synth banger. I keep expecting them to stop & do a stoner buddy comedy skit or bust into some zydeco grindcore or something, but they are mostly sticking with the theme. There's some liquid blipping-bubbling under digitized lily pads for a while, which is cool, and the sick jam also goes into blubbery garbage-disposal mode for a bit, which is always a welcome thing. Later in the track, there is definitely some looping going on, front-and-center, with some carryings-on underneath it. It builds with layers of electronic swamp muck, and then falls apart into a sparser voyage, and rides into a groove before ending with an ambient drone-out with tinkling.

hand-numbered edition of 85, & sold-out at the label.

http://www.sicsic.de/sicsic059/

- - Garrison Heck

MONTE BURROWS “Fantasy Living” (Spring Break Tapes!)

Los Angeles’ Spring Break Tapes! are harvested from deep listening seas. These gems require wireless ear snorkels for proper aural appreciation. Monte Burrows delivers his transmissions from otherworldly travels, and rewards his listeners with aged layers and pickled dimensions upon multiple playbacks.

This and Braeden Jae’s “Gutted”, both released December 2014 are the only ones left at the trading post. SBT!’s range from ambient drone artifacts to experimental hip hop preserves. There may be a time for the cosmic beats and another for the contemplative atmospheres. They also publish beautiful full color zines.

http://springbreaktapes.bandcamp.com/album/fantasy-living
http://www.springbreaktapes.com/#/monte-burrows-fantasy-living/

--Adam Padavano

FURNITEUR “Furniteur” (Prince George Records)

Furniteur is Washington D.C.’s indie club-vibe solo act Brittany Sims and the DC label Prince George records has deemed this music worthy of a (shrink-wrapped!) cassette release for cruising in your Sebring convertible, in a warm summery suburban kind of area. That is the #1 application I would prescribe this tape for. Do not listen to it in the New England winter, your sad old Dodge Spirit, while driving home from the sauerkraut factory where you work. 

So, all of this is recorded on analog synthesizers, and released to cassette, which I suppose makes it “cool.”  “Furniteur is human aesthetic,” writes the label review of the cassette. OK, fine.

The opening track, “Modern Love” is a laid back synthy jam, with vaguely sexual bored-sounding monotone lyrics. Fun enough to tap a toe to, sounds really rich, makes me nostalgic for Ladytron’s first record, or that nifty flash-in-the-pan Casio band The Capricorns. The second track, “Secret Plans”, is where I perk up a little.  Here we have darker, new-wavier, muffled and vaguely threatening bored-sounding lyrics. Makes me feel like i am at a huge cavernous dark dance club like in the movies, doing scary injectable drugs, flailing my arms in a strobe light, and afterwards I will take a bath in Cosmopolitans and have a long chill on a king sized taupe colored luxury bedspread.

This third song (“Out of Love”) mostly makes me feel like I am trapped in a lucid nightmare where I smell like a  Sephora and I am inexplicably trying on suede zip up boots in lower Manhattan. ( I then read that “Furniteur began as a concept while Brittany was studying fine arts at the New York Studio School in Greenwich Village.”) A small victory here with the Julee Cruise/Badilamenti vibes on the washed out, unintelligible “la la la” lyrics, but… I had to flip the tape over for this?  The final track, “Kaleidoscopic” returns to the new-wavy-gravy, with a few rippy guitarlike sounds thrown in for good measure, but now I have that hungover, shoe-trying-on feeling, and the lyrics are indulgent and heartfelt in a way that is making me even more uncomfortable. But, all told, we have a more-than-small success in achieving a Lana Del Rey vibe here, which I am into, as such, not mad that I listened to this tape. 

RIYL: Crystal Pepsi, taupe leather, Lana Del Rey, modernity, unisex fragrance, oil painters-turned-synth musicians. 

http://furniteur.com/

- - Liv Carrow

ARKLIGHT “Decadence and Paranoids” C40 (Faux-Pas Recordings)

In another time, pioneers of lo-fi Tascam recording methods wowed their friends with their brilliant navigation of fidelity. Luminaries such as Sebadoh and Guided By Voices are always mentioned in sentences following those containing the phrase “pioneers of lo-fi Tascam recording methods,” and this review is not going to buck that trend in any way. Lou and Bob are the poster children for utilizing what they had to achieve the greatest possible ends. And while I’m sure their friends, upon hearing a freshly dubbed Maxell pump out their basement anthems, were super stoked enough to elevate them to local god status (Akron, Ohio, and Amherst, Massachusetts, aren’t fooling anyone – small ponds!), Lou and Bob had bigger ambitions, and they became bona fide, groupie-embracing rock stars. As the prophecies foretold.

Arklight clearly hopes to follow in their forebears footsteps, and they’ve at least got the greasy lo-fi chops to attempt to take down the defending champs. (As usual, I visualize the struggle for audience reception as a fistfight to the death, in front of cheering crowds thirsty for blood. Is that just me?) A guitar/drum/vocal trio from NYC (using very few, if any, overdubs), Arklight wallow in the tape hiss inherent in the genre and embrace it as part of their sound. And, as one would expect given those constraints, it pretty much works out OK for the band.

Decadence and Paranoids doesn’t mess around – it gets in, it gets out, it does stuff in the middle, and it excels at it. It features fourteen short songs, all of which hover in a mid-tempo rock structure. Whoever sings – Danny Kolm, Gregory Kolm, or Max Kostaras – sounds like Lou Reed, another point of success for your average lo-fi rocker. It gets a little tedious by the end – there’s not a ton of variation here – but tracks like “Rosewood,” “Embryo,” and “Time Travellers” stand out as groovy signposts. (Kolm/Kolm/Kostaras really sounds like Reed on the latter.) If I lived in New York, I’d check out Arklight at some dingy venue. I bet they really blast PA systems to smithereens.

…I just wouldn’t expect the second coming of GBV here or anything. Temper those expectations!

fauxpasrecs.blogspot.com

--Ryan Masteller

FORCED INTO FEMININITY / RIGHT EYE RITA split “I don’t exist therefore I can do whatever I want” (Centers of Disease Control)

This tape offers two artists from the Midwestern United States who make experimental music. Forced into Femininity is the project of Jail Flanagan. Flanagan describes her process for creating her side as “hysterical and confrontational” and was soon followed by a nervous breakdown. She channeled a lot of that energy into her final product. The screeching vocals featured over numerous electronic effects from keyboard and synths that I found waiting for me were both hysterical and confrontational. Included on the Forced into Femininity side is a reading of Sylvia Plath’s “The Applicant”, which I very much appreciated.  

Right Eye Rita’s side is a bit more structured and less chaotic. That is not to say it isn’t interesting. Nonstandard instruments such as the hand organ on the song “My Glass”, as well as synths, accompany beautiful singing. I just don’t think, after listening, that Right Eye Rita had a nervous breakdown after recording her side. However, fans of acts like Zola Jesus and Weyes Blood’s pre-The Innocents definitely ought to check out.  

Right Eye Rita seems to have a minimal web presence but you can stream Forced into Femininity’s side here: https://forcedintofemininity.bandcamp.com/album/i-dont-exist-therefore-i-can-do-whatever-i-want

DANNY LANGO “When You Are Not Resting” C30 (Kerchow! Records)

As someone who adamantly sides with Harry Partch’s disdain for the commercial fascism known as western pop, I can greatly get down with this lo-fi, 1950’s style-reverb-worshipping, pop/folk serenade/dittery. The tones herein recall early Clientelle spaciness, but with less worry about the softness of pitch-perfect vocal washings. Is this ‘Punk Spirit’ or just the sound of the fuck-it revolution?! Twelve tones my ass! Careful background accompaniment fades in and out of trashcan-distant vocals/guitarstrum and simple, stoccato bass lines; a tasteful drum kit makes appearances here & there. Did I mention reverb? I should mention reverb; what it must sound like for Oscar the Grouch whenever he gets woken up by majestic, reverberant passersby. It’s not gratuitous; Danny Lango arranges the songs (or does the songs, like, totally arrange DL, man?) so that the space is consistently filled with bubble-gum-s(t)icky hooks that us listeners will only later realize we’ve been laced with such deeply buried, noisy additives.

http://kerchowrecords.bandcamp.com/album/when-you-are-not-restingand/or

- - Jacob An Kittenplan