Monday, March 19, 2007
edith qbert's squash insurance
eqsi is the first tape from a wonderful package sent to me by jelle crama of the zeikzak and puik! labels. additionally, you may know of him from his artwork which has graced a ton of albums, without spending all night on google, i'll toss out some names: tan as fuck, julian bradley (vibracathedral orchestra), bongoleeros, loosers, the goslings, heteroskeleton... he used to have a rather large section detailing his work on one of his websites, but i can't find it anymore. what you really need to know is that jelle's an immensely talented guy whose work doesn't grace anything that isn't worthwhile.
save an absurdist, eat a rationalist c40
[2007, zeikzak]
new hampshire's brent field is the demented mind behind squash insurance as well as the nauscopy label. a quick perusal of their discography will affirm to you that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. it's home to such artists as: my penis is made of dogshit, one hootchie cootchie, blood sucking baby hookers, x-ray of a boiled sandwich, crappy scribbler, gang of pork... you can see where i'm going with this. if you've got a project name that makes no sense (hari kari vampire kitty, i'm looking at you), chances are you have a release on nauscopy, good job. except for hari kari vampire kitty, try harder. something from nauscopy that immediately struck me as interesting was the collection of older songs from asia, brings to mind sublime frequencies. seems worth checking out.
brent's released previously under the moniker of edith bunker's demonized vomit insurance. those were the days.
side a (there's actually track titles, but i can barely read half of them) starts off with a hillbilly folk song with the seemingly drunken ramblings of someone shitfaced off bathtub moonshine. beautiful. pass that jug over here. after a few minutes that turns into usa today page 1, which is a woman's (computerized) voice saying "i like to elbow fuck my face". it's only three seconds long. from there we go to the more spaced out acoustics of trollery mudd. this time the folk is paired with recordings of people talking. a clearly discernible "i'm gonna fucking stab you" can be heard...later on this theme is revisited as there's an additionally layered track of random acoustic folk underneath the main drugged out one...the cheerily sung "gonna stab you in the face, gonna stab you in the neck" is amusingly catchy. the absurdity is reaching an admirable level right about now, but brent never loses control of things. sure, it's pretty fucking out there, but it's entertaining and not without its redeeming qualities. for instance, the next track is a memorable synth work out propelled by some fine distortion and feedback. the closing number nicely stays within the field of electronics. the way the tape started off, i thought that it was just going to be thoroughly jokey, but there's serious music to be found, and even what comes off as silly is still fun to listen to.
mongolian beef begins the second side in rollicking noise filled fashion. there's some steady percussion and periodic singing as well as distorted synth. most of this side is filled with experimental noise, but the seven minute closer.. something about a mine shaft... is the gem of the whole shebang. a very penetrating piece of music. there's a loop of guitar and some brief buried vocals that i can't make out, and over the top of that are some whispered vocals that are played backwards. conceptually, it might come off as being rather simple, but oftentimes there's more to be said about the execution, this is absolutely one such occasion.
very impressive cassette. if you want to take a step away from the norm (in experimental / noise terms) towards something heavier on the experimentation, yet that still manages to capture your attention, in addition to merely sounding interesting, save an absurdist is certainly worth looking into. unfortunately, this poor tape did not make the journey from belgium very well, the case is all fucked to hell. postal employees are dicks, read bukowski, you'll know what's up.
Track Four, Side A
(perhaps of interest is this link to lost frog productions which has an mp3 download of edith bunker's reality is dead album.)
save an absurdist, eat a rationalist c40
[2007, zeikzak]
new hampshire's brent field is the demented mind behind squash insurance as well as the nauscopy label. a quick perusal of their discography will affirm to you that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. it's home to such artists as: my penis is made of dogshit, one hootchie cootchie, blood sucking baby hookers, x-ray of a boiled sandwich, crappy scribbler, gang of pork... you can see where i'm going with this. if you've got a project name that makes no sense (hari kari vampire kitty, i'm looking at you), chances are you have a release on nauscopy, good job. except for hari kari vampire kitty, try harder. something from nauscopy that immediately struck me as interesting was the collection of older songs from asia, brings to mind sublime frequencies. seems worth checking out.
brent's released previously under the moniker of edith bunker's demonized vomit insurance. those were the days.
side a (there's actually track titles, but i can barely read half of them) starts off with a hillbilly folk song with the seemingly drunken ramblings of someone shitfaced off bathtub moonshine. beautiful. pass that jug over here. after a few minutes that turns into usa today page 1, which is a woman's (computerized) voice saying "i like to elbow fuck my face". it's only three seconds long. from there we go to the more spaced out acoustics of trollery mudd. this time the folk is paired with recordings of people talking. a clearly discernible "i'm gonna fucking stab you" can be heard...later on this theme is revisited as there's an additionally layered track of random acoustic folk underneath the main drugged out one...the cheerily sung "gonna stab you in the face, gonna stab you in the neck" is amusingly catchy. the absurdity is reaching an admirable level right about now, but brent never loses control of things. sure, it's pretty fucking out there, but it's entertaining and not without its redeeming qualities. for instance, the next track is a memorable synth work out propelled by some fine distortion and feedback. the closing number nicely stays within the field of electronics. the way the tape started off, i thought that it was just going to be thoroughly jokey, but there's serious music to be found, and even what comes off as silly is still fun to listen to.
mongolian beef begins the second side in rollicking noise filled fashion. there's some steady percussion and periodic singing as well as distorted synth. most of this side is filled with experimental noise, but the seven minute closer.. something about a mine shaft... is the gem of the whole shebang. a very penetrating piece of music. there's a loop of guitar and some brief buried vocals that i can't make out, and over the top of that are some whispered vocals that are played backwards. conceptually, it might come off as being rather simple, but oftentimes there's more to be said about the execution, this is absolutely one such occasion.very impressive cassette. if you want to take a step away from the norm (in experimental / noise terms) towards something heavier on the experimentation, yet that still manages to capture your attention, in addition to merely sounding interesting, save an absurdist is certainly worth looking into. unfortunately, this poor tape did not make the journey from belgium very well, the case is all fucked to hell. postal employees are dicks, read bukowski, you'll know what's up.
Track Four, Side A
(perhaps of interest is this link to lost frog productions which has an mp3 download of edith bunker's reality is dead album.)
:: posted by avant gardening, 10:14 PM