heap, durable, easy to produce, nothing tops a tape for a start-up label. CD-Rs are on the rise, but a tape has far higher fetish power as an object.




Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan
[New Age Tapes, 2005]

Recorded by the Skaters’ James Ferraro at 1983 UFOlogy convention, Teotihuacan sounds as aged as its fictional history. Fuzzy string tones straight from early-Technicolor kung-fu movies conjure lurid lotus and poppy blossoms. Buried mantras blare like unearthed Lomax recordings of children at play. If Lomax were drunk and jamming his bulky mic down the throats of said children. Judging by the meditative pulse and warm tone of the recording, said kids don’t mind much.

Meandering serene drones in fading amber light. This analog bliss should never have seen the light of day. I mean that in the best way of course. Teotihuacan is a little too fragile and personal, given to misinterpretation by the simple act of hearing.

The Skaters haven’t yet let me down, and this project certainly doesn’t. “Project” sounds wrong, though. Teotihuacan doesn’t bear marks of such calculation. It’s a spontaneous expression of joy.

Neil Campbell
Teasel/Thistle
[Heavy Tapes, 2005]

Heavy Tapes may be the seed of the recent cassette-label bloom. Run by the good people of Double Leopards and boasting a catalogue littered with DL releases likely fetching severed digits and donor kidneys on eBay, Heavy Tapes has released edition after micro-edition of lobe-swirling drone. The latest batch of tapes (get ’em while the gettings possible) features this (inter)stellar burst from Neil Campbell of the mighty Vibracathedral Orchestra. Playing essentially one wavering note per side over twenty-eight minutes, but doing it oh-so-well, Campbell channels the same cosmic force every psychedelic avenger covets. Difference is he nails it most of the time, avoiding the blasé twitters of acupuncture-clinic-worthy angel tones.

But we’re not just star-gazing here. Campbell’s pretty pissed on the FX pedals, addling his base tones with snaky shrieks and swarms of distortion. Like a cup of tea with a brisk colonic, Teasel/Thistle simultaneously soothes and scourges. I’m confident the tape is far more satisfying and cheaper than the colonic, unless you’re low-balling the practitioner. I don’t advise that. Buy Teasel/Thistle instead, if copies remain.

Lauhkeat Lampaat
Mystery of Hyyry
[Pohjoisten Kukkasten Äänet, 2005]

Another dispatch from the gentle folks at POK. The cassette comes in a vellum bag wrapped around a hollow tube of straw. Fragile package, fragile music. The brothers Tonti annihilate themselves on Mystery of Hyyry. This tapes bears light traces of music, the quiet remains of the struggle to vanish. Improvised percussion of the soup-pan-and-overturned-garbage-can school stutters between rhythms pleasantly, while quiet handbells occasionally reach the hearing threshold. An odd assortment of plucks, pings, whirrs, and bangs provide the loudest sounds. Lots of objects put to alternate uses—an attempt to recover and recontextualize domestic noise.

Though these two flex chops to great effect in Rauhan Orkesteri, this tape has an oddball, outsider flavor. The void-like silence surrounding the muted music enhances this sensation, as if a crowd has cornered these two madmen to judge them quietly. Despite this line of thought, the Tontis are certainly sane. Their eccentric pieces ring with intent and intelligence. When they can be heard, that is.

Robedoor/Loopool
Blood Trance
[Not Not Fun, 2005]

This tape is a summertime creation I’m told. Worthwhile information; otherwise I would have dragged out the glacial metaphors for yet another attempt at drone exposition. Definitely ritualistic, this one. One needn’t peek at the Julian Cope-esque insert to get the idea. Loopool’s infinite dirge and desperate death mews would convince you quickly enough. If this sound be summer, it be summer in the desert, surrounded by bones, the only moisture around the gummed blood oozing from recent victims of the brutal sun.

Every drone group I’ve encountered consists of relatively normal folk flaying guitars, twisting knobs, and stomping pedals. For once I’d like to see the players match the sound. This would require that Robedoor be a mob of skeletons with faceless lumps of desiccated flesh atop the vertebrae. On their side, the undead band anticipates Halloween, sacrificing slow-beating hearts to electric rumble gods and moaning ur-language gurglers. While the fragility of Robedoor’s decayed persons might complicate the music-making process, finally I would find an answer to my question: How is it that alien sound emits from ordinary people?

Ha ha! It was supernatural all along!

This tape hits the spot. No high-profile, years-in-the-making work will satisfy me more than this $3 buy. Drone passes at the speed of consciousness, and when I slip into its time, I feel as if I’ve entered a chopped and screwed version of my own mind.