More Recent Cassette Acquisitions

Emeralds - s/t [c30, Hanson] Picked this up at Hospital Productions, an inexplicably located DIY/Black Metal/Noise shop smack in the East Village of Manhattan. Lotta product we didn't know anything about, but I'd heard the latest Emeralds "Solar Bridge" CD and was very taken with it, so this s/t tape was a score. Listened to in the car on the way back upstate from Brooklyn, right around the time they issued a tornado watch for the Hudson Valley. Lemme tell you, it was POURING buckets. So the tape... a good bit darker than the full-length, has elements kinda like Growing + their guitar phasing. I gotta give it up for Emeralds though, because the songs SHOULD be 15 minutes long, and allowed to phase in and out, here and there. The one side, in particular, sounds like a piece I would hear walking into a giant warehouse, a blown out bass throb that speeds up and slows down in a most sinister way. Very awesome and monumental.

Various - Mash Mansum [DNT, 2008]
First off, one of the sweetest screenprint inserts I've seen in a while. Big props to DNML for the art. This comp. is on the edge of the hot shit art/garage/no wave thing going on. The fidelity of the cassette is exceptional. The music is a bit of a mixed bag, for my taste. 7 bands, my favorites being Hunting Lodge, who kick things off with a garage/hardcore collage that ends in a brief cover of 'Down On The Street', and Neck Hold. Neither of these bands seem to be represented online. So, if you are down with Arab on Radar, Mika Miko, or any other affected, ramshackle outfits you will be quite pleased with this cassette. Strangely, the last segment by Twin Crystals, "Live in Olympia", sounds like a basement Nine Inch Nails jam, which is weird but true.