Review: Craft Spells - "Nausea"

Craft Spells - Nausea

(2014 Captured Tracks)

It's not often an independent label breaks the milestone of even one hundred releases, and it takes a truly exceptional one to leap from that benchmark with as much, if not more vitality and fresh output as it possessed in its more formative years. As Brooklyn imprint Captured Tracks gears up for its upcoming release, Craft Spells' sophomore album titled Nausea, which just happens to catalog number 200, they've marked a point at which fans look back at a prodigious label's history of nearly six years. Craft Spells is the perfect vehicle for such a trip down memory lane. Justin Vallesteros' dream-pop quartet, like many other Captured Tracks veterans such as Wild Nothing and Minks, has reached a healthy young adulthood. It is mature enough to curb inclinations toward extremes; Nausea neither naively clings to pop immediacy like a crutch, nor does it stoop to pretension. But that's not to say the album's maturity masks the charm and energy of its predecessor. Rather, it builds on the debut's coy, c86-inspired delivery by resting it atop a base of creamy baroque pop, a technique deftly employed by Jack Tatum on Wild Nothing's 2012 effort Nocturne. In further layering and reconstructing its sound, Craft Spells' former shyness becomes a Nausea, the panic of existence.

As Wild Nothing's soaring string arrangements took to illustrate the night sky on Nocturne and DIIV's liquescent guitars mirrored the uniform immensity of the Oshin, Craft Spells' Nausea comprises the land in the Captured Tracks landscape. The strings groan with a certain earthiness, forming a plot suitable to house the garden's worth of lush piano and vibrant pentatonic keyboard that Vallesteros' arrangements call for. In fact, I'd even say that the sparkling guitars that formed the core of Idle Labor in 2011 are often merely an accent to the solid, nearly-orchestral arrangements that appear throughout Nausea. The opening title track's electric piano throbs with a sort of nostalgic melancholia that pervades the album, the apathy that comes with growing older. We hear these touches of frosty sadness in the flautal keyboards that float over "Komorebi" and in the suave trip-hop soundscape of "If I Could". Combining the jazz-tinged danceability of Heavenly Beat, the crackly singer-songwriter warmth of Chris Cohen and the dreaminess of just about every artist on the imprint, Craft Spells' Nausea might just be what sets the tone for the next hundred Captured Tracks releases while still "crafting" its own unique image. 

Cassette Corner" TG + TC - "Untitled"

Thibault Gondard + Thomas Charmetant

(2009 Stochastic Releases)

The element of surprise has always been one of the aspects of the cassette scene that draws me to the subculture, and I believe it might be a sort of nostalgic attachment to my childhood love of baseball cards. Plucking a Topps 12-pack from a protruding rod that flanked the checkout conveyor belt at Target; reading the fine print beneath the foil wrapper's middle fold, which listed the probability of opening up a rare 'gold' edition card, or one that held a small swatch of a game-used jersey; peeling that wrapper away to behold a starting lineup's worth of all-stars and misfits; studying statistics and summaries printed on the back of each. To purchase a tape that I know nothing about gives me that same feeling I had with a new pack of cards in my hand. There's so much to examine on the way home in hopes of striking DIY gold. Though I may never have opened up a rare baseball card as a kid, yesterday I found what you might consider the cassette equivalent of one.

I made a trip to Newport Kentucky's Torn Light Records after receiving a message from the store's owner, Alex York, notifying me of a box of cassettes that had just arrived at the store that he thought might interest me. He was certainly right, as I arrived to a briefcase of tapes that nobody in the building was able to identify. York told me that they were a donation from Art Damage, a small space that used to function as Cincinnati's premier spot for experimental music performances. I took home three of the tapes from the box, including a rather peculiar-looking selection: the cover was simply a square of printer paper adorned with the initials "TG + TC" scrawled all across its surface as if it were the front page of a notebook belonging to a lovestruck middleschooler. The tape itself was Mountain Dew yellow with small star sticker affixed to the center, the kind placed next to perfect spelling test scores. Popping the tape into my brand-new walkman when I got home, I discovered that the childlike innocence of the tape's design is reflected by the music it contains. It's a masterpiece of art brut, a raw art form that exists only partially rooted in reality; it's not quite abstract, but it channels the quixotic aim of a child artist who lacks the motor skills to deliver his thoughts to paper. By means of minimalist, free form instrumental noodling (with the addition of some psychedelic sampling) French artists Thibault Gondard and Thomas Charmetant create beautiful soundscapes that transcend reality without doing anything technically impressive. 

The A-side of the cassette opens rather startlingly, an unaccompanied male voice speaks a sentence in french, ceasing to talk as soon as you've realized what you're hearing. It is quickly replaced by the somber wheeze of an organ, looping three trumpeting notes ad infinitum. These are supported by a subtle, yet omnipresent synthesizer chord, always passing through but never moving, as if the neck of a stream were stationed in the background of this living soundscape. Voices re-appear, and it becomes evident that we're eavesdropping on a conversation between a man and a woman. For twenty resplendent seconds, all these elements converge into one, each instrumental track travelling in its own direction, like a single vein in a body of many. The second half of this side of the tape consists of a minimalist composition for solo guitar, variations on a simple loop fleshed out by the bubble of manipulated feedback.

The B-Side is the highlight of the tape for me, though, opening with spacious bass chords, vaguely jazzy, that accompany a clumsily played cello. It's a rather ominous sounding improvised piece that actually has a few chill-inducing moments. Then comes the album's grand finale. A melancholy acoustic arpeggio gallops along as a chord organ swells and tumbles like one of Van Gogh's swirling night skies. A spoken word vocal, wonderfully mellow, eases into the tune. It's been said that French is the language of romance, and the beauty of a song like this is all the proof I need that it's true.

Review: Meryl Streaker - "Sky Burial"

Meryl Streaker - Sky Burial

(Driftwood/Ronald 2014)

Often, bands are praised for their ability to fluctuate, be it in tone, mood or instrumentation, but rarely will you come across acclaim for an act whose output is wholly monolithic. It takes meticulous attention to detail and production to create an album that maintains a static sense of emotion and flows seamlessly throughout, and it's even more difficult to do so without sacrificing the interest of the listener. Sky Burial, the new tape offering by San-Diego emoviolence trio Meryl Streaker, provides a great example of a release that stretches a moment's worth of unadulterated emotion into an expanse of influence. The mood in question here is one of rage and frustration, a subject that no member of the band is a stranger to, as each is connected to the project Flowers Taped To Pens, a post-hardcore 4-piece that brings an often fast and blistering intensity to the warm twinkle of 90's midwestern emo. Meryl Streaker brings that same intensity to the table, but from a different source of sonic inspiration: dark, growling guitar, slathered in reverb, calling to mind the eerie drone of black metal, or the sinister atonality of early Sonic Youth. The vocals are indecipherable screams, nearly as high-pitched as a dog-whistle, a great contrast against the melancholic, bassy instrumentation beneath. Tracks like "My Ishmael" balance melodicism with aggression, leading up to the grand finale, "Insignificant Steps and Shallow Breath", in which delicate guitar notes spiral downwards like the dimly lit staircase of a haunted house, weeping beneath banshee like screams. It may, initially, be difficult to cull beauty from the grim depths of Meryl Streaker's bleak delivery, but there are actually gobs of it buried within, to those in the right mindset.

Cassette Corner: Reighnbeau - "Hands"

Reighnbeau - Hands

(Bridgetown Records 2014)

Though I've been a stalwart supporter of shoegaze ever since I first laid ears on the genre, it can, at times, be a rather polarizing scene. Most shoegaze bands could fit into one of two camps, each of which is identified by its own brew of instrumentation. Most populated these days is the dream-pop faction of shoegaze. Cloaked in a bubble of reverb, these bands possess a watery guitar tone that ripples and dissipates endlessly across its own surface area, strummed chords displacing shimmering crests in their wake as if a jet ski. The drums are often relegated to the background and vocals tend to be rather theatric, taking heavy influence from the Cocteau Twins. The other brand of 'gazing stems from My Bloody Valentine's guitar tone. While the dream-pop style focuses on lightness, MBV's sound is like a black hole, an infinitely dense point in space from which nothing can escape. To listen to these bands is to be consumed in droning noise, pounding percussion and gnarled feedback propelling you along. Each of these is great to listen to on its own, but for a new shoegaze release to catch my attention it must find a way to bridge the gap between elegance and abrasion. Hands, the newest cassette by New Mexico's Reighnbeau, does just that.

It's perhaps most evident on the opening track, "Splinters" in which frontman Bryce Hample and guest vocalist Emma Crane whisper over trebly guitar chords, kicking up residual twinkle that arcs and spirals above all else. This beauty is as fragile as a post-snooze button dream, shattered by a gale force pulse of dark guitar drone. In this way, Reighnbeau has two strategies to approach a hook. First, there's the traditional manner of doing so: a dramatic chord change, a captivating string of plucked notes. But there's also a tonal approach as well, lacing two contrasting textures and timbres together in an act of transitional crescendo. Could this principle be illustrated in the album's cover art, reminiscent of the yin-yang symbol? It certainly is bold, minimal, driven by contrast.

Cassette Corner: Zach Phillips - "Recorded In Hell"

Zach Phillips - Recorded In Hell

(2014 Lillerne)

Often, when I think of "avant-garde" music my mind instinctively wanders to the outskirts of sound, the natural habitat of extremophile artists. There are times when traditional songwriting can get boring, especially in recent years, when inventiveness and creativity can be overshadowed by production. When the three chord pop construction begins to tire me, I turn to the creations of these extremophiles. I call them this because the sonic worlds they reside in subject them and their listeners to extreme climates. On one end of the spectrum, there's noise music, often harsh and visceral, but therapeutically so. On the other end, brute minimalism, like William Basinki's Disintegration Loops, or Steve Reich's mind-numbingly repetitive compositions. Though these two extremes have their virtues, there can be a degree of parody in each. For something to be truly avant-garde or cutting edge, it takes a sort of strangeness that defies extremity to create something original. The artists on Chicago's Lillerne Tapes label do just that: each of them paints their own surrealist soundscapes from fairly common instruments in rather ordinary ways. Each of them holds the key to extract the inner eccentricity hidden in the everyday. For example, Gabe Holcombe's Vehicle Blues project concocts towering dream-pop epics from rudimentary drum loops and droning guitar chords, while Katrina Stonehart weaves 10-minute tapestries from loose fragments of crunchy surf-pop. Each of them, says Holcombe, who doubles as the label's owner, "makes a little out of a lot". The artist who I think exemplifies this principle the most, however, is Zach Phillips, who is just off the cusp of his sophomore Lillerne effort, Recorded in Hell.

Though his songwriting tools are bare and familiar, (voice and piano), Phillips' ingenuity allows for him to meld these elements into something both bizarre and satisfying. Phillips frantically hits piano keys while nearly whispering his spoken word vocals into his Tascam 488. The recording quality is extremely lo-fidelity, causing some songs to crunch and distort beneath the weight of tape hiss, while others force one to really focus on the track to detect any discernible sound at all. Though his piano playing can, at times, remind one of Erik Satie's Sports et Divertissements series of compositions, what ZP's recordings most sound like to me is trying to read a magazine while Mister Rogers plays on the TV in the other room, jaunty melodies pounded out on a keyboard as a good-natured vocalist smiles and delivers lines overtop of it. There's a voyeuristic quality as well, hearing Phillips' hushed intonations as if listening through a cup pressed against the outside of his bedroom wall. Recorded In Hell can be an uncomfortable listen at first, but is ultimately charming and undeniably original. If you're able to see the beauty in the music of Jandek and Daniel Johnston, you'll love this tape. 

Review: Sketching - "Sketching"

Sketching - Sketching

(2014 Self-Released)

Warbling, chorus-laden guitar, gnarled drum machine strokes and trebly caresses of ethereal synthesizer congeal into something alien, yet somehow familiar on the self-titled debut release by Louisville new-wave project Sketching. Drawing from the distant, distorted brand of dream pop that accented late 00’s acts like Washed Out and Small Black, as well as from the nuanced, bouyant vibe of 80’s new wave. Though the album may initially seem a sea of viscous electronic noise, nearly impossible to navigate, there is an intense impressionistic layering to be discovered by those who plunge their heads beneath the surface. These songs, though formed from the most abstract of sounds, carry the empty weight of a quiet room, broken by the subtle shuffling of an antsy child seated on the couch, or the clatter of silverware in the kitchen. Silence throbs in the listener’s ears until it’s bent and warped by soluble synths that slowly seep into the virgin canvas of blank sound. A cover of Bruce Springsteen’s stellar 1984 single “I’m On Fire” sends a Tom Waits-esque drawl floating on a crest of reverb bubbles, while “Anita” buffets the listener with its gothic, liturgical repetition, reminiscent of the intro to the Cocteau Twins' "Sea Swallow Me". Perfect music for staring at kitchen appliances late at night, or reaching out to illuminated spacecrafts in a Spielberg film.

Interview: Big Booty Bill and Da Fish

An excerpt from a minizine I printed for Ephemera Fest, here we have an interview with Triple B, one half of the vapor-rap duo 'Big Booty Bill and Da Fish'. He also manages his own tape label, Kandahar Homedubs. 

How did Big Booty Bill and Da Fish get their start? What was the first song you recorded and how have you guys improved since then?

big booty bill and da fish was started as an inside joke. i was really involved with the vaporwave scene back when things were just starting to get big (i remember when the now-infamous dummy mag article came out), and i thought it was hilarious that a couple of people were trying to turn vaporwave into this online subversive/political movement about communism and radical politics and the like. i also find white rappers who do nothing but rap about being white really funny. i wanted to rap over vaporwave before anyone else did because i saw the entire "movement" as a huge joke. we had made a couple of rap songs in the past, just for fun. da fish had just gotten an ipad, and it came with garageband. we made "college song" on a car ride to new york, and that's also where we came up with our rap names. it wasn't until later that i threw that onto "very omnipotent swag corporation" and started really working on big booty bill and da fish.

What rappers do you particularly enjoy? Does Da Fish listen to rap? Besides that and Vaporwave, what do you dig?

i really like naughty by nature and danny brown, and i think the new drake album is good. i'm also getting into some bones/teamsesh stuff, i actually sent him a beat a few weeks ago. when we recorded the first two mixtapes, da fish had never heard any rap songs, but he's really into eminem now. he's really more into classic rock, like the beatles and the monkees. i don't listen to vaporwave that much anymore, aside from luxury elite. i've been exploring the carolinas' local music scene, so i'm gonna shoutout black santa and ivadell because i've been playing them a lot. i also like dean blunt and loumar.

Dude, Dean Blunt hits so hard!!!

so true. i know someone who is a hardcore hype williams fan, he's spent like hundreds of dollars on purchasing their entire discography. he gave me a copy of the narcissist on cd-r, it sounds amazing

Amen man. On a side note, what do you think is the all time dankest meme? Also how come the name of the label facebook changed from Don't Hate If You Get Memed On?

it changed because people were having issues finding us and also facebook kept seeing the word "meme" and assuming it meant "community page" which was messing with the settings on here so i changed it. also da fish is with my mom picking up dinner right now so i'll have to get back to u on the dank meme question.

No problem, what kinda food is he getting?

subs from which wich. yum yum yummy

ah, rad we just got one of those in our town. In the meantime, tell me a little about the Kandahar Homedubs label.

try the milkshakes! as for kandahar homedubs: i started it because i was tired of seeing my friends get screwed over by people who had no idea what they were doing. i know people who had to buy copies of their own release to give to their parents, and i also know people who got no profit at all from their tapes, which really bugged me. i also wanted to start a label like artist in residence, but make it so everyone could afford it. i always treat every aspect of each release as its own work of art, especially the packaging. i see a lot of really ambitious labels that put out great music, but it's boring to look at! i want to be the alternative to second-hand, individually-dubbed cassettes with "a" and "b" hastily written on them in sharpie.

How did you get in touch with Amy and Luxury Elite to put out releases? What's the background on those guys?

lux and i go way back. i knew her before she started the project, and she was totally down for putting something out through my label, so we just threw some ideas around and came up with 101.7 WAVE II. i met amy through a friend and instantly fell in love with how weird his music is, and also how he's only 15 and is basically making this music against the wishes of his parents. i think that's really cool

Do you have any Kandahar stuff lined up for the future? What about new Big Booty Bill and Da Fish material?

i got an account on datpiff so yeah we're putting out a new mixtape soon and it will be on cassette too. as for kandahar, we're repressing the lux tape and putting out some stuff from a few friends. also send me your demos!!!!!

Who would you most like to put a tape out for one day?

dean blunt or saint pepsi. i was gonna put out something by him but he's dealing with label stuff with carpark so that's been put on hold

Where do you get your tapes/tape materials from?

way too many places. for packaging, i usually go to aliexpress or dhgate, since it's cheap. for tapes, i have a gigantic amount of maxell communicator c30s that i got off ebay, but i'm starting to buy off tapeline.co.uk for nicer, tabs-out tapes. i got the custom rubber stamper thing off ebay. it's really neat, you use a pair of tweezers to stick individual letters into the slots. that's how i made the 101.7 WAVE II labels. also, da fish is having a hard time figuring out what his favorite meme is.

I don't blame him, too many good ones out there

so true. i think my favorite meme is "symphony no 9: scherzo" aka the song that everyone used on their videos because it was the song that came with windows xp. is that a meme? if not then the dankest meme is bazinga. so true. i think my favorite meme is "symphony no 9: scherzo" aka the song that everyone used on their videos because it was the song that came with windows xp. is that a meme? if not then the dankest meme is bazinga. da fish says "that's 65 percent more bullet per bullet" is the dankest meme

What do you like to do that's not music related?

hang out with friends, take weird instagrams, and sometimes i read comics. da fish likes to play video games and "swag all night"
i think looking for weird stuff on ebay is my most destructive habit

What's the weirdest thing you've found?

i bought a guitar from the ukraine. it was made at the height of the soviet union. the guy sent it to me in a cloth bag and by the time i got it, the neck was almost entirely snapped off. it's getting repaired right now. and i'm gonna use the refund money to pay for it.

Dude that's awesome!

da fish says he likes to go on the "totally bizarre" category on ebay from time to time. he just found a preserved turkey heart.

That's pretty bizarre.

"is that even legal?" -da fish

Half-Gifts @ Ephemera Fest in Lexington, Ky

Had a super rad time trading and talking zines at Ephemera Fest with my pals from Tobacco Magazine! Thanks to Chuck Clenney for inviting me to do a reading.

Review: Mecha Yuri - "Anime Murder"

Mecha Yuri - Anime Murder Compilation

(Mecha Yuri 2014)

For the past year and a half, I've been casually observing the evolution of Mecha Yuri (formerly Harmonicanadian Reckords), a collective of lo-fi artists who happen to be major fans of anime and shows on Cartoon Network. Upon my discovery of their bandcamp in late 2012, each of the artists was in a sort of embryonic phase, creating short, goofy concept releases that sounded like re-issues of Sebadoh demos and rarities: warbly acoustic noodling, spacey electronic/drone compositions and the occasional twangy garage rocker. Almost each album or single warranted a new project title, and each member of the collective featured would be credited under a monosyllabic pseudonym. It made for a confusing discography to navigate, but that only gave it the sort of mysterious allure that I tend to enjoy. As time went by, and the collective changed names, some of these projects began to solidify and mature. As of now, there are four concrete projects who have put out albums as part of the Mecha Yuri collective. Their latest release, Anime Murder, brings these artists together for an extended listening experience. Each track is exclusive to the compilation, making for a stellar introduction to the world of Mecha Yuri.

The first band to appear is Radical McKickflip, an acoustic solo project that deals out peppy pop jingles with clever, often funny lyrics. I rather enjoyed the track, "He's Animal Crossed The Line", from his demo LP last winter, a fun little tune about becoming too attached to video game characters. His initial two tracks on the comp deliver his same winning formula, but he also offers up a 10-minute epic: "It's a Mystery", which initially starts out as being about a murder, but slowly morphs into a tragic love story, accompanied by a train whistle and melodica. It's his most beautiful track by leaps and bounds. Next up is oyasumi, the most prolific Mecha Yuri artist, formerly known as Death Punchies. His sound blends the droning rock guitaristry of the Velvet Underground with Animal Collective's dizzying psychedelia. Bordering on shoegaze, the sound of "Isabelle" is enormous. Cavernous reverb, chirping synths and swooning vocals all make up a creamy wall of rich sonic fluff. The OMNIPRESENCE also channels Animal Collective's sound, but draws more from their earlier work on Danse Manatee and Sung Tongs, freak-folky jams with gnarled, lo-fi vocals. He also whips up a gorgeous ambient track, "Inspiration Cycle". High Impact Sexual Violence, the collaboration between Radical McKickflip and oyasumi, throws in a garage rock cover of an already decently punky japanese tune from the anime K-ON. They even sing it in the original language! This compilation is chock-full of quirks and fun. Check it out below.

Cassette Corner: Big Booty Bill and Da Fish

Big Booty Bill and Da Fish - First Two Mixtapes

(2014 Kandahar Homedubs)

For some, this hour-long venture into the discography (two mixtapes) of vaporwave rap duo Big Booty Bill & Da Fish might seem a gimmicky release, yet others will find this release to be one that displays enough depth to warrant intense study and obsession, the sort that often stems from outsider artists with a rich collection of lo-fi explorations. Triple B and Da Fish are brothers; the former is in his mid-to-late teens and the latter, I assume, is about eleven or twelve years old. The two have a chemistry that only kin can share, exchanging cleverly written (and often hilariously deadpan) verses. Bill is blessed with nice flow and, once a dash of reverb is added to gloss them over, a decent set of pipes that mesh well with the sultry, saxophone-laden samples that often compose his backing tracks. Da Fish has an awkward, yet charming delivery, vocals culled straight from the elementary school chorus, stumbling over multi-syllabic phrases like "I'm a ladykiller not sure of infatuation / but if she wants to go I'll take public transportation". It sorta reminds me of a fire safety rap I'd have listened to at an elementary school assembly, given that it had the psychedelic post-internet production one might hear in a Yung Lean track. Though a couple songs lack direction on this tape, "Big Booty Boards of Canada" for instance, 90% of it hits extremely hard. "Enid", a lush, dream-pop jam about the struggle to find fast food in gentrified Brooklyn, is my cut of choice. Though a challenge to get into, Big Booty Bill and Da Fish serve up some of the freshest and most entertaining rap I've heard this year. If only I could get my hands on a physical copy...

DOWNLOAD THEIR MIXTAPES BELOW

very omnipotent swag corporation: http://www.mediafire.com/?djbhvv78b6j8jap 

(lyrics: http://www.mediafire.com/view/?8plq5eb46o44bvn)

dictatorship of the swagletariat: http://www.mediafire.com/?v0zpaeguoickan4

first two mixtapes on cassette: http://kandaharhomedubs.bigcartel.com/product/big-booty-bill-and-da-fish-c60

Cassette Corner: Quarterbacks - "Quarterboy"

Quarterbacks - Quarterboy

(2014 DBL DBL WHAMMY)

I've never been the type to swoon over all-acoustic solo recordings, but I do have a strong affection for demos, especially those of bands that I've closely followed. As a disciple of Quarterbacks' twangy, shambolic brand of twee-pop, the announcement that their upcoming tape release, Quarterboy, which heavily incorporates both of these elements, left me intrigued, but unable to predict as to whether it would blow me away, or leave me utterly unaffected. The one thing I could be sure of is that there wouldn't be a middle ground. Recently, the album was posted for early streaming on wonderingsound.com alongside an interview with the project's frontman Dean Engle. Normally, I'd just scroll straight to the album and save the interview for later, but something made me pause. I spotted a line of the review that mentioned that Engle was a major fan of both Tiger Trap and Henry's Dress, which stopped me dead in my internet-browsing tracks. A few months ago, I impulse-bought a split seven inch record that featured both of those bands, and it's proven to be one of my favorite records, a perfect fusion between punk aggression and saccharine c86 pop. This made me much more confident in this record. It was finally time for me to jump in and listen to it.

Most twee, though pleasant, can be rather emotionally one-dimensional: either happy or sad and usually excessively so. I felt a bit of that on Quarterbacks' 2012 tape, Loveseat. The tracks were lovely and concise, but lyrically, cute to the point where it felt forced. With this new release, it's not so straightforward. The songs aren't as much reflections on feelings but, rather, specific thoughts at a particular moment in time. The emotion is left to the listener's own reaction to these memories. As a teenager, Engle's newest songs particularly resonate with me, awkward memories of girls, each of them holding a piece of him, portals through which one can view snapshots of his life, some cozy, some not so much. For me, the most lyrically powerful of these tracks is "Center", which is about knocking on someone's door, waiting for them to open it, a practice that I still find mortifyingly uncomfortable. And on "Pool", "ONE TIME I SHOWED YOU A SONG / YOU ONLY THOUGHT THAT IT WAS KIND OF GOOD / I NEVER PLAYED IT AGAIN / IT WASN'T EVEN ABOUT YOU". Listening to lines like that gives me the feeling of brushing my teeth in the morning and remembering something stupid I said three years ago and thinking about that the whole car ride to school. Somehow, it really works for me in the context of this album. In short, the songs make me feel kinda sad, but oftentimes about things only covered peripherally in Engel's verse. Combined with crunchy, Sentridoh-esque acoustic chords and the occasional keyboard drum machine beat, Quarterboy is positively sublime.

"A UNIVERSE THAT FINALLY WORKS 
HOW YOU ALWAYS SUSPECTED 
WITH YOURSELF NEAR THE CENTER 
AS I GET OLDER 
I RECOGNIZE THAT LOVE 
IS MOSTLY SITUATIONAL"

Cassette Corner: Stars Are Insane - "Pop Industry"

Stars Are Insane - "Pop Industry"

(Rok Lok 2014)

As the head of one of my favorite purveyors of noise pop, Rok Lok Records, New York's Mike Andriani is in the position to set an ever-evolving standard for the other bands released on his own label. Through his solo project, Stars Are Insane, he is able to manufacture a steady output of his own music, each release venturing into a unique blend of genres, but still strictly adhering to a single aesthetic: crunchy guitars, shimmering melodies and a warped, lo-fi texture. October's split with Monogamy displayed Andriani's ability as a composer of sorts, featuring two ambient pieces that put a sharp focus on layering. Crackling keyboard drones rippled against sharp guitar gales, extremely abrasive, yet still soft and transcendent like an overly hot shower. A 7-inch record shared with Morgue Toad found him strumming minimal bedroom folk, this time offering a bare sort of beauty, his vocals raw and exposed, veiled by paper thin acoustic chords. His first full album in some time, last month's Pop Industry, displays some of his least experimental, but admittedly his most satisfying, work to date, introducing the twangy college rock of R.E.M. to the ultra-DIY ethic of Shrimper Records circa '92. The two styles make for a match made in heaven, resulting in a 20-track effort that feels neither lengthy nor overly indulgent. It's just right. On the surface, Pop Industry feels like it could be audio ripped from a random cassette Andriani found lying on his floor. The track volumes are a bit inconsistent, adding a bit of awkward charm to the album, an element that many Rok Lok bands seem to revel in. But the deeper you get into the album, the more you appreciate the album's intensity. I see each song as a collage of separate instrumentation rather than a single entity, and I feel the more I scrutinize each song, the more and more it feels like it could fall to pieces. But things always find a way of staying together, and I always grow to become a sort of acquaintance with each song by the time it's over. Pop Industry is a very friendly album and I'll be willing to hang out with it anytime there's a tape deck nearby.

Review: Butterglory - "Our Heads"

Butterglory - Our Heads

(Merge 1993)

While scanning the selection of used seven-inch records behind the wooden stage in the back of Black Plastic Records, I unearthed a nugget of DIY gold, namely, Butterglory's 1993 Our Heads EP. If it weren't for a book about Merge Records I had checked out from the library over the winter, I probably would have flipped past it immediately, but I remembered from my reading that this was one of Merge's earliest and most underrated releases. Before gaining mass notoriety from Arcade Fire's towering indie epics, Merge released overpoweringly charming lo-fi pop gems such as this one. The sleeve of Our Heads is made out of a textured material that feels like old, wrinkled money that you forgot you left in your pocket, or a floppy napkin housed in a tableside dispenser at Applebee's or some place like that. In fact, I'll go with the latter analogy because the back of the record is actually doodled on with crayons, just like those given out alongside kids' menus. The record has accumulated some surface noise over the years, but that sorta adds to its crackling lo-fi texture. The 5 songs sound like a twee Dinosaur Jr, if they got rid of their distortion, and it feels like it could fit into the soundtrack of Nickelodeon's Pete and Pete. Overtly simplistic guitar lines, mechanically stiff rhythms and monotone vocals all fit together to create an effort that's somehow both bleak and innocent. An absolutely brilliant slab of wax well worth the three dollar price tag.

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Cassette Corner - Cyrus Is x Cal Thaddeus

Cal Thaddeus/Cyrus Is - Collaboration

(Snowfall Tapes 2014)

This might be the first time I've reviewed hip-hop on Half-Gifts, but this live collaboration between West Virginian beat creators Cyrus Is and Cal Thaddeus is too satisfying to pass up on. Most noticeably pretty about this tape is its design. The cover photo, for one, is a more barren take on the twinkly-emo art motif of the traditional neighborhood landscape. There's less of an inviting atmosphere here than on the cover of, say, American Football's self-titled album. Sure, both were taken in the winter (as the dead trees suggest), and even include similar looking houses, but something about the warm glow of the window against the pea green sky on the American Football cover suggests a friendly sense of intimacy longed for by the onlooker. Is it seen through the eyes of a passing pedestrian who can't help but try to peer through windows? Or maybe the creepy kid who has a crush on the girl who lives there? Perhaps it's even the lone walker on the Cal Thaddeus/Cyrus Is cover, which I feel conveys a strong feeling of isolation. Though he's strolling through a decently populated neighborhood, he's all alone with the gloomy chill of the winter air, surrounded by a vast expanse of front lawns and sickly foliage. Maybe I just dig it because the surroundings look a lot like where I live, and I often take walks. Maybe I look too far into album covers. I can't be too sure, but once again this tape's cover photo really condenses the vibe of its contents into a single moment suspended in time. 

I see this tape as background music composed in that pedestrian's head as he makes his way around the block. The tracks are not exactly full songs, rather short song fragments composed of repetitive samples. Side A has a really sparse, icy vibe, with a focus on melancholy saxophone, hushed vocal samples and slow, pulsating drum machine loops. It kinda reminds me of the Hey Arnold soundtrack a bit, which makes sense for such a low-key cartoon. Side B revolves more around jazzy piano and keyboard, but it still maintains its lonely atmosphere. Track 6 on this side actually includes rap, but I can't tell if it's sampled or performed live. Anyhow, it's still my favorite cut from the side. Great tape, bump it in your walkman and take a trip around the block if you can.