The Noriegas - Crosby, Stills & Noise

Awww yeah, you know what time it is. KZSU’s in-house noise rockers / rotation messiahs, The Noriegas, are back at it again with their signature extended cavernous jams. Features an intergenerational lineup of ex-General Managers and Music Directors. Plenty of stretched-to-the max electronics, ringing wind instruments, pitting drums, and krautrock wanderings. Every once in a while, a huge gong will ring out to remind you you’re still on this planet.
 

Bacanal Intruder - Do While, If Else

Check out this nifty little tape we got in the mail from Other Electricities! They've sent us a bunch of great CDs in the past, but this is the first tape we've ever gotten, so we're double excited.

Bacanal Intruder is a Spanish folktronic musician who creates glitchy organic beats using physical instrumentation and programmed effects. Light and refreshing “toy-pop” landscapes to daydream too. I love it.

Trapdoor Tapes Strikes Again

Oh snaps! Sorry for the delayed posts, but we're back! A few weeks ago we got a wonderful package in the mail from what is rapidly becoming our favorite Australian DIY label. Enclosed in this package was the tape Vomir's Fucking Exit.

 

Fucking Exit is full-on assault of kerosine rumbling and cthonic rage. Most of this short tape is a concentrated blast of harsh noise strong enough to burn phosphanes in the backs of your eyes. Put your face to the fire hydrant and take a sip of this one!

     

This tape is highly limited, and features the coolest xerox cut 'n paste art imaginable... per Trapdoor Tapes usual. Check it out on their killer website and sneak a peek at their new jams on Soundcloud.

Filardo - Enter the Edit Suite

Picks up right where Brian Wilson’s Smile left off: sunny harmonizing vocals, painstakingly layered walls of sound and explosive creativity. Imaginative lyrics, big-time vocals and a varied palette of sounds—all of them top-notch and wholeheartedly unique. Some tracks are reminiscent of late 1960's Britpop, others are saturated with heavy Bossa Nova--but all of them work.

Check it out at Holy Page Records here.

Holy Page Halloween Compilation

The incomparable Holy Page Records just blasted this Halloween mixtape our way: 25 tracks, none of them take themselves too seriously, and that’s why this works. Halloween themed too! The original cassette glows in the dark and has candy corn and pumpkin stickers (see Fig. 1). All songs are just as good as their titles (just head over here and take a look why don’t you…), and although they align themselves mostly towards the electronic end of the spectrum, there is something for everyone in this goodie bag: lo-fi rap, ambient narc-washes, thrasher rock, etc. There is probably nothing better than this album for those valiant 3-6 AM radio slots—trust me, it’s even better than playing Prince and Joe Meek at the same time. I cannot say enough good things about this tape. Play it during Spring Break, play it during Christmas, play it at your wedding.

Trick-or-treat bro!

Good Amount - Opening Eye

Sci-fi Casio keyboard explorations from everybody's favorite "neo-neon" artist Christian Filardo, the man behind the brainmelting tape label Holy Page. These four tracks very well could have been A-sides for the soundtrack to a cartoon version of The Terminator or a Tracey Trance/Alex Barnett collaboration in disguise.

Clocking in at about 32 minutes, this is another great bite-sized album which moves quick, from the rumbly lo-fi of the creepy-crawly minor-chord intro to the conclusion: a
moody Vangelis, sci-fi romp through the Alpha Quadrant.

Mostly consisting of slow pulses of synth and drone, it also gets more peppy and psychedelic when it needs to. Undoubtedly inspired by fistfuls of those yellowing garage sale sci-fi books with those inexplicably kickass covers.

It was recently released on tape (and digital version) by his buddies Dwight and Liz. Check it out on the website of their label Crash Symbols.

Kenichi Sakamoto - Bio Feedback

We got this tape a little while back from Ginjoha, and although we liked it enough to immediately slap it on our year-end list, we never got around to reviewing it until recently. It packs a nice one-two punch with both sides clocking in at about 15 minutes, which makes it convenient for small commutes, or those short interludes where you can catch a quick break.

Per usual, the artwork is stunning--with a nice detached filmy quality. Kind of reminds me of those sick Nova videos we would watch in school, or going dumpster diving for yellowing chemistry textbooks after finals week at the local college.

Side A: Starts off with high-pitched hissy electronic beats that would drive your dog crazy. Later transitions (with the help of some heavy industrial equipment humming) into a clicky percussive loop. It’s all catchy in the strangest way possible. At the 10:30 mark, the piece breaks down into squeaky feedback/intergalactic transmissions.

Side B: Gentle, whispering intro. Slowly shifts into harsher vibes—deep resonating pulses and tangled knots of synthesizer. The last 5 minutes is probably the best of the entire tape—a pastiche kaleidoscope of bewitched string elements, broken clockwork, spooky vocals, and that scene from Toy Story where all the toys came back to life and crawled out of that gunk, and it scared you so badly that you peed your pants.