Recent Cassette Acquisitions

Fantastic Sleep - New Master (Phantom Limb)
Duo of Grant and Ged, two of the wizards behind the Echo Curio Art/Music space in Los Angeles. Received this some time ago, but was without a cassette player. But now as I sit in Upstate NY, no one is around except the dog and I. Side A is broken into 4 tracks, nice lo-fi sheen, very pretty guitar repetitions and electronic haze. Side B, one longer piece called "Well Received By The Under Priests", is on some demonic shit. I thought my little tape machine was breaking, but no. Totally urgent blown out low-end noise clusters, Grant's guitar action is never so monumental and fractured as this. The piece kinda splinters and gurgles into some electronix and percussion then forms into an throbbing, abstract kind of sub-bass sequence that rises and falls and rises and finally blasts a final buzz then out. Totally inspired.


Yuppies - Remember the Yuppies (Self-Released)
A little 8-song mini LP I scored for $3 at the Little Claw/Eat Skull/Intelligence/Yuppies show @ Vassar the other night. I was a bit far gone by the time Yuppies took the stage, but you kinda get the idea listening to this tape. I am all for getting down with the white hot art-damage garage rock sound of young america. I gotta be honest tho, this tape sounds a little tossed off to me, like a like a demo that shouldn't have left the basement. I guess you need an equal balance of art and damage. These are solid songs, but the recording does them no justice. I was more into the live sound. I'll keep my eye on them, though...


YOGA - s/t (Tell Me Records)
This is a keeper. A lo-fi black-metal dark ambient art project. The first track reminds me of the Skaters without the incense+crystals vibe. But there's a lot going on on this tape. I can hear a lost Harmonia/Boyd Rice collaboration, John Carpenter-style arpeggiator beats deep under a grainy sheet of noise, and multiple layers going on in every track. As I understand it, this was a mail-order collaboration between two shadowy figures of the East + West Coast undergrounds. There's a lot more in the pipe from these kids and their various affiliates. Track this one down though; it kind of connects the dots between the black metal underground and the cassette noise underground.


Black Eagle Child / Sean McCann "Cambrian Members" (self-released)
Beautiful new homespun split c45 cassette by Milwaukee's Black Eagle Child and California's Sean McCann. It makes sense that these two would connect on a release, the sides blend together seemlessly. This tape is for the chill out room of the 21st Century, two long-evolving ecstatic + gorgeous drones, definitely in kind with Stars of the Lid and Growing but unique unto itself. This is definitely my jam. One of the sweetest and loveliest releases I've heard in some time.




Sean McCann "Background Sound One" (self-released)
Recent solo outing from Sean McCann. This one's a long, slow-burning, kinda tense wall of sound that adds and subtracts elements almost imperceptibly. Very much for the late-night headphone trip. Lots buried in the mix. Not unlike if Tim Hecker was working with 25 or 45 minute song structures. I'm way into pieces like this that use the time to spread out and evolve/devolve over long periods. It sloows my mind downnnnnnnnnn.