Ambitious double-album by cassette heavyweight champions No Mind Meditation. It’s taken me a lot of time to wrap my head around this thing—mostly because I’ve been asking and re-asking myself: is there such a thing as a perfect album? If so, this would be a candidate for sure (and a double album at that…)
While reminiscent of their debut Face Skull Spirit, Molecular Clock ramps everything up to unforeseen levels of grandeur: bigger crescendos, more radical departures from the familiar textures in music. There are several "movements" on each of its four sides, which cover a full spectrum ranging from "comfortably numb" to "bold and triumphant." And due to it's fuzzed-out long-play medium it stays for you for a little while, even after the tape has rolled to a stop.
It's inspirational more than anything.
This box set was sent to us by Goldtimers Tapes, packaged in a lovely two-cassette folder with a download card and a hand-silkscreened book of artwork. 50 copies exist.
One of the many minimal synth recordings busted out by 20-somethings in their basements during the 80’s. Sounds like neon. If it was a little more pop-driven, it would fit perfectly alongside volume 1 of the Stones Throw Minimal Wave Tapes series. If it were 90 bpm faster, it would make an awesome workout video soundtrack.
Allegedly, this tape was found at random in a thrift store somewhere in the US. “Brain Syndrome” and “Disconnect” are simply stand-in titles. I can believe that. And I can also believe that there are plenty of other gems lurking out in any of the thousands of thrift stores that pepper lonely highways…where profound musical inspiration is laid to rest in foggy Tupperware crates.
This tape is so good that Sonic Meditations decided to repeat it on the B side so that you can save yourself the wear and tear of pounding the rewind and fast-forward buttons over and over. 100 copies of this sucker exist. If you and your buddy ever had a "radical" late-night recording sesh back in the day you might want to pick it up...this might be you.
Sun-bleached dubby psychedelic rock from our friends at Not Not Fun. Peaking Lights is a duo who have been known to refer to themselves as A.C.I.D. (Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis), who hail from Wisconsin, (of all places…) although their radiant trippy jams fit right alongside NNF’s excellent roster of Californian day-glo psychrockers. Highly recommended for fans of Pocahaunted, Sun Araw, Robedoor, Terror Bird, or Topaz Rings.
Crazy psychedelic wanderings through swirly keyboards, crystalline xylophone apparitions, whispers of guitar, and crunchy bass chords thumping from speakers that blew out months ago. Soooo so good.
I believe the cassette version of 936 is sold out, but it is still available through NNF on vinyl or CD.
Remember when every band used to have a kickass name? Yeah, me neither. But while it seems like some groups are really lacking in that department (read: Muse), here’s a band that really excels. Dust Bunnies, a four-piece indie outfit out of Chicago, play a unique mutt-like breed of folk-pop that effortlessly blends derivative psychedelia and strummy bar music with the kind of stuff that it is so far removed from rock music that it reminds me exactly why I hate the blanket term “indie” in the first place.
This album totals 18 songs, a full half of them being the scrumptious kind of sub-minute samples, garbled tones, and single-take instrumental ditties that make lonely jerkwater highschoolers wish they had been alive during the original incarnation of Guided by Voices...and then cry tears of joy when they reunite.
The sheer creative firepower and loosely-contained anarchy on this tape is so perfect for the medium that I almost feel bad to people who have to listen to this via MP3s.
Another charmingly-disorganized cassette from Plutapes. Well-played, well-played.
The debut album from Polish video artist Folja! This release, the second from the brand-new Polish imprint Sangoplasmo Records, muses on the concept of found sound—quite literally-- nearly every song is accompanied by a music video documenting Folja hiding copies of the CD in lonely isolated woods, cupcake shops, burying them in parks, etc. (All these videos are available on his website, which is also peppered with other artsy bits of stuff and fluff). Each of his songs includes some truly superb field recordings—it's refreshing sometimes to remember that the world itself is a pre-tuned, rosined instrument and that you can do some serious damage with a $40 pocket recorder. I must have listened to this thing a dozen times already--irresistible cool midtempo jams with light, airy, sprity/pixyish riffs and complex intelligent songstructures. Dreamy and coursing but with definite goth elements, and a few choice bits of (dare I go there...) "witch house." Recommended if you like jj, ceo, or that one waaaaaaaay-overplayed riff in the Empire of the Sun song “Walking on a Dream.” But seriously, don't sleep on this one.
Unfortunately for most of you, this tape was printed in painfully low quantities (read: 44). Sangoplasmo is completely sold out, but perhaps you can dig one up on a distro or finagle the trade of a lifetime.
Daniel D. Smith, AKA The Face Melter, AKA Red Electric Rainbow, drops off quite a doozy with this c94 tome from Rainbow Bridge. The c90, otherwise known as the "Trenta" of the cassette world, is reserved for only the most daring individuals, but in bombastic show of grandeur, Smith slam-dunks an extra four minutes on, and raises the ante to unprecedented levels. The cassette itself is lovingly housed in a clear case (perhaps expressly for exposing that thick wad of tape slumbering in there…)
As the executive of both Neon Blossom records and the Neon Marshmallow Festival you can pretty much guess what kind of music he tends to gravitate towards (dazzling, white-hot synthesizer manipulation) but as this lumbering, wobbly tape picked up speed, I noticed how he had effortlessly adapted to the Rainbow Bridge aesthetic—summoning slow-rolling tides of static and sprinkling spotty break-ups into his otherwise sunny pieces. Collaboration at its finest.
Side A in particular caught my attention—all the pistons are firing as he coasts through a magnificent fuzzed-out sea of voices and then nobly self-destructs into the uncontrollable din of an alarm clock symphony. Breathe…breathe… Side B.
P.S. The Chicago A.V. Club recently had an excellent feature on Neon Blossom Records as part of their Tapes 'n Tapes series. Check it out below:
A charmingly-decorated c62 from 2010 sent to us by Rainbow Bridge records, bringing us the talents of "internet DJ" Julia LaDense and seasoned noise-vet Sensible Nectar (AKA Pregnant Spore, Dementia and Hope Trails, Human Excuse, The Inappropriate King Live, etc. etc. etc.)
Julia LaDense's side is a muddled collage of manipulated foundsound: gloomy distortions, traffic hubbub, and unabashed eavesdropping on the neighbors through the apartment walls. This is probably what radio sounds like in purgatory. As I listened, I heard snatches of rhythmic pulses, mashed melodies... there's even a guest appearance by Akon which should make it a no-brainer, yeah? Sensible Nectar does what he does best, but in a slight departure from his usual work, His 30-minute track "Special" explores the musicality of harsh noise, interspersing soul-grating blasts of feedback with gentle ambient landscapes. This immense slab of tape brings the best stuff of Cherried-Out Merch to mind--it toys with riffs and melodies but in an entirely different structural context. Quite a rush of blood to the head. Rainbow Bridge has been cranking out ultra-limited, top-notch noise projects for the past three years. But with a sprawling catalog topping over a hundred releases, you might want to catch up before you fall behind.
Ambitious double-album by cassette heavyweight champions No Mind Meditation. It’s taken me a lot of time to wrap my head around this thing—mostly because I’ve been asking and re-asking myself: is there such a thing as a perfect album? If so, this would be a candidate for sure (and a double album at that…)
