Clubs for Boardgames - IXTLI / Ollin (Tundra Dubs - 2011)

The strange thing with bandcamp pages, is that you allready have a digital copy of the music you've bought before the fysical medium is thrown into your real-life inbox.You can also stream the entire album if you are not obsessed with those nice little boxes with an 80's medium in them.

This tape is one that fits perfectly in the Witch House/Drag/Ghost Drone category. Nice slowed down samples, mixed with hip-hop beats and heavy layered baselines dragging along the tracks. The cover art uses the symbols mostly found within these genres.

'IXTLI' is mostly based around an 'Oh tell me why'-sample dragged town in tempo and layed within the baseline and the beats.

'Ollin' hangs more on the baselines than the former track. Just a sparse voice sample occasionaly passes by. The baseline itself does uses an 'Ooooooooh' synthesizer pad as the basis.

Overall, this is a nice tape and, if you prefer the digital format, playing it on repeat at least puts you in a trance for half an hour.

purchase/stream/download from: http://tundradub.bandcamp.com/

Zombie Zombie - Plays John Carpenter (Living Tapes - 2011)

Another tape that first was released on cd. On this one there are four interpretations of the music score works of John Carpenter by Zombie Zombie. Not to difficult to make up from the name of the release, is it?

It completely sounds like those soundtracks for 80's series and movies like Knight Rider, Miami Vice or Beverly Hills Cop. Real bass-driven tracks with a little cheesy sounding leads upon it and topped of with preset sounding drum rhythms.

All songs do have a great drive to them, which keeps you nodding your head. Especially 'Assault On Precinct 13' sounds better the original. Closely followed by the 'Halloween' and 'The Bank Robbery' theme. Only the original 'The Thing' theme is slightly better than the one made by Zombie Zombie.

All in all a great interpretation of the works of one of my favorite directors. Going to watch Christine again, i guess.......

4/5

ÐOSE - PLUNGE (Clan Destine Records - 2011)

This cassette is one of the small pearls in the sea of music. Slow darkwave-like guitar, bass and drum, depp slightly distorted vocals and despressing to complete it.


Not much to say about it actually, you just have to plunge right in yourself.

5/5 Blips!

P.S. Comes with a very nice poster!

Raison D'être - Prospectus I [re-mixed] (Ravenheart - 2005)

A vacation in 2005. Being in the South of South-Limburg, a place called Mesch (yep, almost the same as the synthpop band). Going through the new CD section in Orkus Magazine, I stumpled upon a CD from Sanctum on Cold Meat Industry. Reading the description, I realized I had to have this! The description was about the CD being one of the best industrial albums of that year.

How wrong could I have been! At that moment I thought Mesh was industrial :) And after listening to a sample of Let's Eat, I thought I would never ever buy horrible music like that. How could they call that Industrial? But slowly my musical taste changed: from synthpop to rhythmic industrial to industrial to noise etc. etc. etc.., Oops! Can't go any further than noise.

So along the way the review in Orkus came to mind again. I took my changes and bought the CD. This time I was overwhelmed by structures and singing in the release. I now think it is one of the best albums ever made! The era of Cold Meat Industry Collecting has begun.

That automatically brings you to Raison Dêtre (reason for existence), who has more than 10 releases on the label. The first one being Prospectus I. Here I have the cassette on Ravenheart of the re-mixed version.

The 9 tracks are mostly build around orchestral and vocal loops. This works very well for a time, but to the end of the cassette it is beginning to get a bit boring and predictable. The songs on themselves really stand out it is just a bit of the same everytime.

For having fond memories of that vacation, CMI and the other works of Peter is gets:

4/5 blips

The New Blockaders – Live At Morden Tower (Mirror Tapes - 2011)

Slowly, but certain, I feel like I'm going to the more old-school post-rock industrial underground blipside of the spectrum. Not only because in the 70's and 80's there where more cassette releases, but also to find where all the great sounds of today originate from. Doing a little archeology to learn something from the past.

A great help in this is the fabulous Mirror Tapes label. Releasing old and sometimes forgotten (by the listener or the composer) music on tapes. Or, in this case, the original recordings of two TNB concerts in Morden Tower, Newcastle.

These concerts have been released on cassette for the first time in 1983 by TNB themselves. Later that year, they where released by Aeon. Then in 2000, they where released on a bootlegged CDr by Siren Records.And finally, in 2003, they where on the compilation Gesamtnichtswerk on Hypnagogia. And now again on cassette!


The first track is the one of September 1983, starting with rumbling noise. Very soon the screeching comes in, which is heard throughout the track. You can hear a lot of the cut-offs and pitch variations that are used in today's noise scene.

The second track is more reverberating (yes, that is a word) than the first track. It has a more analog feel to it. Although there are also some screeches, it is more organic.

Really hard to describe what is actually going on on these two tracks. Maybe using contact-mics on plates of metal, or just some sounds thrown through feedback loops and playing with some parameters. But man, I like it!

No score for this! You just need to have one version of these amazing concerts in your cassette/cd/lp collection.


P.S. If you would like some other information about the British start of it all, a bit more focused on synth music, watch 'Synth Britannia'. A great BBC documentary about the early days of synth music in the UK.

The Haters - Wind Licked Dirt (Hanson Records - 2008)

This cassette is of the type C0. So no sound on it, then? Well the subtitle of this release is 'This tape is played by rubbing dirt in it'. The real artist is you!

I got this tape from the International Record Fair in Utrecht. Bought it from alt.vinyl. The owner is a really nice guy with some fantastic and rare records. One records made of glass with golden grooves and another one where the grooves where so thin that you could hardly see them. If someone could point me to these records, please leave a comment or contact me.

The release was the first one by The Haters in a series of "anti-records". These are four 'records' that do not contain any sounds, but should challenge you to make the sounds yourself. The second one, Oxygen is flammable, contains some plastics where you should poor water on to make sounds. The third one, Fire , contains a record with all blank grooves that you should tamper with the enclosed steel wool. The last one, Shear, is a ball of cotton that you are supposed to squeeze to generate sounds.

This release, and the other "anti-records",  are more a form of art that wants the 'listener' to act, than an to just listen to sounds or songs.

I couldn't get any descent sounds out of the dirt, but for the concept it gets:

4/5 blips for the hips

P.S. The dirt is included, so no need to scoop some up yourself.

Various - Polyphonal (Delirious Riot - 2007)

Polyphonal is a concept album. The only prerequisite was a telephone and use it in your song in any way you like. This emerged in a tape plus a bonus 3”CDr. The tape contains a mix of experimental tracks and indie rock tracks. The CDr features two tracks of the experimental sort by Dutch masters Machinefabriek and Wouter van Veldhoven.

A lot of tracks have names referring to the telephone in every way. From ‘Tone’ through ‘Walky Talkies’ to the new ways of communicating aurally over  a distance ‘Senegal (Skype Version)’. The use of the telephone in the tracks is also very different. The one plays its entire song through a telephone, another uses modem like sounds and a third uses the beeps and stretches/twitches/manipulates them to an extent that you almost do not recognize them any longer.

The design of the package is really nice. A blood red tape in a grey sleeve with a couple of different pictograms of telephones on it. But you can see that at the top off course.

 All in all this tape is an odd man out due to the mix of different styles. I don’t have a lot with the indie rock music on it, but the requirement of using a phone makes them a more bearable. And sometimes it is nice to listen to other music styles.

 

2/5 blips for the hips

Merzbow - Collection 4 & Collection 5 (Blossoming Noise - 2010)

This time I will review two tapes at the same time. Why? Because I can. No, it is because you can see this almost as one release. Released together with ‘Normal Music’ and ‘Flesh Metal Orgasm’ on the great label Blossoming Noise.

Masima is currently (re-)releasing old stuff from the 1980’s and 90’s. A lot of them on cassette. But these tapes are not a real re-release of old music by Masima, but a remix of the old Remblandt Assemblage cassette, that was also featured in the Merzbox as cd3.

Anybody in the experimental/noise scene who hasn’t heard of Merzbow must have been living under a rock for some time. This prolific man has released hundreds of recordings. It are so many that I think he doesn’t even know what he has released in all those years. From extreme noise walls to the more experimental, alone or with others (Sonic Youth, Nordvargr and Alec Empire to name some), live or in his bedroom studio.

The packaging is a form of Dadaistic art. Merzbow has lend his name from Merzbau, a construction of waste in the house of Dadaist Kurt Schwitters. So the packaging really suits the content.

The music on the cassettes are definitely of the not-so-noisy type. As said before, it are remixes of the ‘songs’ on the old Remblandt Assemblage cassette. At a first listen it sounds like some child is playing on a broken piano and a cat is scratching its claws on a sheet of metal. But these tapes really need to grow on you and you have to be in an Merzy mood to feel how great this actually is. Remixing incoherent sounds into something new is really a challenge on its own. But this is what Masima does best. Creating such an atmosphere in his tracks that you have to keep listening to them to figure out what sounds are used in creating the tracks. Even if it is a HNW or something easier listening like these tapes, they all have deep structures.

So these are just two little tapes in the vast pool of Merzbow releases. But if you are not in a noisewall state of mind, they might just be the good ones to be listening to.

3/5 blips for the hips

Alain Jans - Après Moi, Le Déluge (Tape Fiend - 2008)

The nice thing about tape releases is that artists really have to try their best to have both sides of the tape filled. This gives them the restriction of not creating enormous long drones consisting of only one tone that go for hours on end. On the other hand, you can just as easily buy a C1 cassette with only 30 seconds of playing time at each side as you can C122 tapes with just over one hour on each side. Nevertheless, many tapes are fully loaded with sounds.

This release is featured on a C60 tape, so only 30 minutes on each side. Made by Alain Jans and released on Tape Fiend from the US of A. The cover art follows all other releases on Tape Fiend, consisting of a picture on the front and all other information on the J-Card.

I, personally, have never heard of Alain Jans, except for this release. So I am not able to tell much about him, maybe you are able to tell me? Leave a comment if you have some information.

Now for the music itself! Analog style drones piercing into your brain.The A side (1e Partie: Nous Sommes Vivants) starts off with bell like sounds sequenced in a pattern that reminds me of an old modem starting to dial-up. Slowly, but certainly, more and more distorted low drones are starting to come in. Halfway through, this almost half an hour track, little blobs occur and mix very well with all the low drones and distortion. After this semi hour track it feels like you have been inside a water tank getting sounds played through underwater speakers.

The B side (2e Partie: Chant De L'Ombre) has a more eerie feeling about it. It feels like being hunted down by a witch (watching The Blair Witch Project again) or being in an industrial plate cutting facility. The cutting is followed by a low drone drum. All of this is accompanied by nice atmospheric sounds that give the track more atmosphere (that is very logical, isn’t it).

As a con of this release, I can think of only one. But it is a big one. The tracks are too long. It could have easily been two tracks of about 10 minutes. Then everything would have been explored. But atleast he filled both sides.Maybe if I knew Alain better and knew his Equipment and the reason for this release he would get higher points. But whats the use of subjective points anyway.

3/5 blips for the hips

Machinefabriek - The Hilary Jeffery Tape (Machinefabriek - 2010)

An orange C10 tape inside a cardboard packaging. Only the essentials are printed on the cassette and the packaging. The naming of the tracks isn’t very original, or is it?

When I start the cassette my ears are astonished with the fullness of the Trombone sounds. Although the first track,  Hilary, appears as a nice piece of solo Trombone it really has a lot of layers. These layers give it a drone feeling.  When it is played through headphones you’re surrounded by the Trombone.

The B side, Jeffery, has an even more droning sound with low vibrating pads.  Again the placement of the sound(s) is fantastic.

This tape is a beautiful little pearl in the sea of experimental music.Thus it gets:

5/5 blips for the hips

Conrad Schnitzler – 10.10.84 (Mirror Tapes - 2010)

Conrad Schnitzler is one of the members of the second start of Tangerine Dream (after the first split in 1969). This meant a change in their music style, thus being one of the founding bands of the Berlin School of Electronic Music. Conrad always had a love for electronically generated sounds, which he also expressed in his solo works.

This tape is, like some other releases of Conrad, named after the date the songs where ‘conceived’. It is all played live and directly taped. He is not using any keyboard or other input device, it is all about twisting knobs.

Side A reminds me a lot of the Center for Electronic Music at the Philips Research Lab experiments in the late 50’s, early 60’s.  All nice swooshes and ‘uncontrolled’ sequences of highly pitched notes. It really takes you back in time to the beginning of the space age and science-fiction. HAL9000 comes in at the end of this side, erasing your memory.

Side B consists of two different pieces and one piece that is combination of the former two pieces. 1+1=3. The first part of this side is more about steadily panning sounds combined with fluttering high pitched waves, while the second part is more made of sounds a cat could produce when it walks on an old toy keyboard. Nonetheless it is a really intriguing piece because of its randomness.

The third piece, as I said before, is more or less a combination of the other two pieces on this side of the tape. Its is where this side gets together. It even has a sort of structure to it.

This tape could make a good soundtrack to a 60's science fiction movie. Seeing a swamp monster on a moon of Saturn eating some kind of mechanical fireflies isn't difficult when you listen to this tape.

The tape itself is professionally made and even shrink wrapped. Great presentation of Mirror Tapes and a good example of how new tapes should be released.

 4/5 blips for the hips

Welcome!

This blog will be dedicated to Tape Released music with an experimental touch. Old/New/Rare/Common Tapes will be reviewed. If you have any questions and/or remarks, just leave me a message.

Have fun reading!