t & a recorded live in detroit (one-sided) 7"
[2007, tovinator]

ah, back to a place where seven inch records play for the proper amount of time. the distro's description of this says "sounds weird at any speed", but it's a 45. i do agree that it does sound weird played at 33 rpm.

total bummer that this is only one-sided because i'm really diggin' it. the b-side has a cute little monster on it, so i suppose i can be satisfied with what i've got. the record starts off with some whirling tape manipulations from tovah while dilloway jams on guitar. by jams on guitar i mean he plays a couple of chords at random intervals with a delay pedal. is nice, yes? yes. after a few minutes he'll transition from the guitar to electronics and the track will take on at first, a sputtering type of sound, and then it's on into a brief respite of drone and something that actually resembles music. all the while there's terrific reverbed screeching sounds happening all about. bottom line, they're making a lovely racket. at the five minute mark we get to what sounds like a locked groove of looped droning noise, but stick with it, because eventually they'll work out of it.
released in an edition of two hundred, this is out of print nearly everywhere. well, this is shocking, volcanic tongue still has copies. i'm beginning to think that europeans don't buy noise music and that volcanic tongue was set up just to extort money from desperate americans. think about it.

Recorded Live in Detroit

plethora's cassette brings me to the end of the what we do is secret package. well, technically i also have another tape from at jennie richie that i somehow missed when i did my review of them earlier, but i think i'll just let it slide. you should know by now that they rule. speaking of which, once again, motor & famine would be the place to look for it. two copies left! again i wanted to give my thanks to john for all these awesome tapes.

religion c20
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

edmonds' (not too far outside of seattle) stan reed (psychform records, broken penis orchestra, blue sabbath black cheer, the splinter squid affairs (one happening today!)) is the lone man responsible for the, harder to find, plethora project.
religion boasts some pretty fucked up imagery: a naked doll (except for shoes and socks) with no arms that has safety pins sticking in it which begin at the torso and go all down the legs. i want to say i like it, but i'm not sure what that says about my character, so i'll say i don't like it.

as should be the case with all album artwork, the imagery won't stop at the cover. the two pieces of music on this tape will carry over a darker element in their sound. if you only know of broken penis orchestra this is definitely a change of pace. you won't find any sample collages, nor the more fun, silly aspects of that project. this is straight-faced, and i'm digging it. the overall musical theme to both sides would be drone. i mentioned that there was a macabrely nature that creeps into the sound, it actually doesn't come to us in the form of dark ambient drone. been there, done that, right? tampering with the god hole, part one, relies on layered drone which will fluctuate, giving it some greatly appreciated depth. i'm also quite fond of the higher pitched table saw-esque noise. real nice. while i immediately latched on more to the b side, after giving tampering some more consideration, i think it's every bit as good as its accompanying track. speaking of which, the insanity meditations, part three (just where are these other parts?) plays up the mood far more than its predecessor. there's a sublimely haunting feel to it which is pierced by shards of feedback. actually, that sound reminds me a lot of robert horton's superb swings mix, from his trees rarely move disc. it has that similar sound of someone on an old playground swingset, with the way the feedback moves being akin to the creaking of the swing's chain as it's moving outward. anyway, i love this track. this time out you'll find that there are more unique sounds happening within the track's structure, whereas the a side managed to take three similar sounds and twist their shapes into something more interesting. final thought? this is a real killer cassette.

The Insanity Meditations, Part 3

alright, while i'm well in the thick of albums that people've sent in, i can get pretty bummed out (burned out) when i don't get to review things that i actually want to, so i'll try and post some additional reviews, along with the obligatory ones. granted, this requires a great deal of dedication on my part, and i'm pretty lazy. we'll see how this goes. i've got a couple of seven inches that i bought a few months back that no one else has seemed to give any attention to, so i'll tackle them first. sevens provide for cheap and easy review material. hopefully.

pillar to post / mauled by a deer 7"
[2006, heavy tapes]

i'm pretty surprised that i haven't seen pillar to post mentioned anywhere yet, hell, you can't even find it on slsk. normally, heavy tapes stuff is a hot commodity. plus, i don't think that they put out too many releases on vinyl.

seven depressions is the noise coupling of california's shannon walter (16 bitch pile-up, allen pyle) and damion romero (astromero, speculum fight, waves (ca) (with john wiese), telium group, slug, p tapes).

pillar to post begins with multiple layers of droning noise. you've got a deeper drone providing background ambiance, a higher pitched one, and the main one finding a happy medium between the two. droney and buzzy goodness.

side b, is really fucking with my head. not musically, but logically. you see, played at 45 rpm it's eleven minutes and thirty-nine seconds long, and no, there's not a locked groove at the end. now, i'm pretty damned certain that this should be impossible. i was under the assumption that about seven and a half minutes was as much as you could squeeze out of a single side. i ripped this twice just to make sure that nothing went wrong with my turntable, and i got the same results. once you move past the set of locked grooves in the beginning, it does indeed take nearly twelve minutes to play out. musically, this betrays the title of the track. a more appropriate name for this piece would be nuzzled by a fawn. it's a bright field recording of spring birds chirping along with running water, from a stream, perhaps. while the track has a very static sound (as in not changing), if you listen intently you will notice that it isn't just one long loop over and over again, which is what i would've suspected that would cause the length to be so long. no, it's not a loop. even looking at the image of the sound wave when i ripped this, it was obvious that there were changes to the track, most notably around the nine minute mark when the chatter of birds becomes flock-like. length-related confusion aside, mauled by a deer is a pleasant listening experience.
there's still some copies of this available (even from u.s. distros! surprise surfuckinprise). this is rather pricey for a seven inch, eight bucks. of course, with heavy tapes, as is the case with sloow tapes, what you're paying for is the art aspect as well as the music. it's easier to appreciate this in the bigger picture sense.

oh, i nearly forgot, extra special props for the etching of sebben & sebben on the a side. that is, of course, a reference to the wonderful harvey birdman, attorney at law cartoon. oh stephen colbert, how i wish you wouldn't have left to focus on the colbert report, even if that show is also funny. i miss reducto!

Pillar to Post

crack the static blood c20
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

here's another one of those chinesefish presents cassettes. if you didn't know, chinesefish is to geoff walker (gravitar, magnetic lucifer, basket case) as esther is to madonna; they be the same. damn, these are probably the first and last times that madonna and gravitar have been mentioned in the same sentence. additionally, el bombastico employs the turntable talents of one dj flutter. hmmmmm.

on paper (or computer screen) it would appear that walker's going off on quite the experimental limb here, but it's not merely a case of either sink or swim. the flutter factor seems to come by way of the sound layers, i don't pick up on any scratching whatsoever. personally, i think it's for the better. there are those rare few who can pull it off rather well, guilty connector, i'm talking about you.

crack the static blood starts off with tink! the first thing you hear are these jungle-esque beats... yeah, uhhhh, is right. when that fuzzy guitar comes in, joined by geoff's blues-drunk, affected vocals, it's actually pretty fucking rad. by the time the track's winding down i found myself bobbing along to the beat. oh, the shame. the first half of water features a spoken word bit over the top of slowed-down beats and some other interesting layers. it'll transition out of that to something more song-like, with the vocals in world weary bluesman mode at this point. the last track on the a side is instrumental and reminds me of something that could've been used on any def jux release (minus el-p's sci-fi fixations). rjd2ish. i like it. ooh, spoke too soon about the scratching, there's just a wee bit in the druggy outta touch. i'd have to say that the scratching is appropriate considering the fact that the vocals are slowed down; it fits the feel. the longest track of the album (at five and a half minutes), recording #58, is my favorite. it's also the most stark departure from the other material on the cassette. with its multiple guitar layers, drone and tinkly metal percussion, it'd be more suited for a basket case album, but i am not complaining that it's here. static blood ends with a chinesefish solo track, do not be afraid. interesting little piece of music. it'll begin with slow droning guitar chords, minimal light percussion and then once the vocals come in, the music switches to sped (way the fuck) up drum machine beats, that are pushed so far back in the mix that it creates that listening to something on real (real) shitty speakers affect. it works. as for the vocals, there's two layers, one where geoff's repeating "do not be afraid of.." i can't make out the rest, the other layer will again feature slowed down talking. don't ask me what he's talking about, but it sounds good and eerie.there've been countless projects (from members of rock bands) that have tried to combine elements of rock with electronic music / turntablism and have utterly fucking failed. geoff walker and dj flutter have, in my mind, succeeded with this cassette. i'd attribute most of the success to flutter's sound sources, but geoff's efforts on tink!, water and recording #58 are great.

Water

live at poggies c16
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

seattle's mindless thuggs are tantamount to a rock circle jerk. let's see, there's three guitarists (kevin richardson, paul hood and jon vermont), two bass players (josh davaney and tugboat jim), two percussionists (steve ross and jimmy) and a singer, josh mooney. calling what mooney's doing singing would be a bit of an exaggeration, let's call it rambling set to music.

first, i'll go with the objective part. these two tracks were taken from a live performance on october of 2006 with portland's datura blues and locals kount fistula at the poggie tavern. i'm not familiar with the bar, i think it might be in georgetown. coincidentally, the thuggs and datura blues joined forces again tonight, at the blue moon tavern in the u-district.

i actually like the music that the mindless thuggs play. it's indebted quite a bit to 60s psychedelia. what i really don't like are the vocals. they'll detract from the best part of the band. it sounds like some drunk guy in the crowd decided to hijack the mic during a jam session. it's too bad really, because josh is a funny guy, but the singing thing isn't working out, in my opinion. the vocals will cease at just under four minutes in, allowing the rest of the guys to start coherently jamming. with so many people, what're you're going to get is a bit of structure from the rhythm section, different solos from the guitarists while the third guitar player is generating feedback from his amp.
while the mindless thuggs have had two releases on some good labels, i feel pretty secure in saying that they aren't essential. the enterruption tape was a bit more interesting because the quality of it was so bad that it sounded more like weird noise than rock music. my biggest issue is that there's no real payoff to listening to this. yes, they're playing music, but does anything actually stick with you? no. will i want to listen to this again? no.

Live at Poggies Side A

magnetic nazarene c20+c40
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

du hexen hase, i think that means you... rabbit witch? it sounds a lot better in deutsch, i'll give 'em that. this trio of seattle kids consists of pete, adam and eric. that's about all that i can find out about them. i did see pete the other day at the times new viking show, drunkenly thrashing about with kilynn from little claw. hmm, maybe i can be noisebloid's pacific northwest correspondent. leslie, let's talk.

looking at dhh's myspace, under their influences, once you filter out all of the jokey bs, there's really one band (that i'd heard of) who stands out as obviously being influential. that'd be crash worship. while it's apparent that these guys are well acquainted with charnel music's catalog, the two magnetic nazarene tapes are mighty impressive. du hexen hase does a great job of navigating us through familiar territory, but still managing to point out sights that we hadn't seen, or noticed, before. their music has that cozy feeling to it, but when i try and make comparisons they always come out as "this sounds like x but without y". not being total sonic retreads, but still offering us something we can immediately relate to, is du hexen hase's ace in the hole.

one of the things that i'm liking the most about magnetic nazarene is how, for a band that adds more than just a touch of psychedelia, they rarely traffic in drone. that's a big key which is separating them from countless similar minded bands.

the jam band that doesn't really jam approach works surprisingly well here. there's this structure v. unstructured dynamic that they'll use and it really holds my attention. the form will come mostly by way of the drumming / percussion. wisely, they won't overuse it. the four tapes consist of just four songs, and these guys give themselves plenty of room to work in multiple ideas, never will they weigh too heavily on one particular idea. the a side of magnetic nazarene is the most minimal. the music is sparse with guitar noise, random electronic texturing, clanging in the background, a drum fill here, a cymbal crash there, etc. there's a real nice ambient foundation, and what might be vocal samples, i can't tell, it's buried back there a bit, but both are providing the perfect canvas for their free form playing. the flip side of the first cassette will signal a rise in the noise factor. there's more of a focus on the electronics and affected guitar, instead of just guitar noise, though, there's still plenty of that. it sounds like someone's having fun with a delay pedal, but this is the kind of drone that i can get into. great job with this side. the second tape begins with a real similar sound to what they left off with, almost sounds like someone using a handsaw. in the early stages of this track du hexen hase does a fine job of combining minimal electronics with organic instrumentation such as a cowbell, tambourine and drums, later on they'll add a flute to the mix, as well as some brief vocal sounds. i'm really liking the closing track. this one's a triumphant resurgence of guitar, but it's also capturing the band at their most structured, granted it takes them almost ten minutes to give it to us, or in the scope of the full album, forty-two minutes. anyway, when that moment finally comes, it's worth it for the driving tribal drumming and repetitious guitar chords. oh, how sweet it is.
if you dig bands like brothers of the occult sisterhood, the dead c, abrasion ensemble, gravitar, quintana roo, shadow ring (decidedly less artsy), franciscan hobbies or ashtray navigations; du hexen hase would fit comfortably in your record collection... tape collection... mp3 collection, whatever. now, i'm not trying to say that this band sounds the same as any of those, but rather, that they're kindred spirits. this is definitely recommended.

Magnetic Nazarene Side B

shrine of swine c20
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

this wwdis release ventures out of the seattle area and takes us to burbank, ca, for the trio of bacteria cult. this group's name didn't ring a bell, but i find some familiar names amongst its ranks. firstly, this is another project that chris dodge is in, but more notable to me was seeing jay howard's name. jay might be better known for his harsh noise project circuit wound. he's also in, the somewhat less visible, wire werewolves, with evan from moth drakula. methinks mr. pacewicz's watched too many horror movies. the trio's completed by kevin fetus, whose focus seems to be more on metaly / grindy endeavors such as watch me burn and fetus eaters. all in all, this seems like an interesting collection of musicians, to say the least.

bacteria cult, while all members seemingly come from different musical backgrounds, have come together to create something that seems even further removed from what you might expect. i didn't know what the hell i was going to get with shrine of swine, most likely something that had a rock element to it, probably along the lines of the pig heart transplant tape. this is not that. not at all. experimental is indeed the key word. there's not an overbearing noise element to be found, instead the primary concern is on multiple layers of sound samples, radio transmissions and manipulations. those are aided by sparse, and, at times, sparingly used, synth noise. the trio will touch upon actual musicality on a couple of occasions, first during the concluding minute of the a side, and then again with a somber bit of synthesizer during the second half of the unfortunately titled, cunt in you'd. awful, awful pun. the track's damn good, though.on the group's myspace page they have some track clips from a couple of different releases (there are five total), and it seems to me that shrine of swine is a departure from their status quo. i liked this tape, there's a uniqueness in what they've created and it has a marvelous balance between experimentation, noise and some music that you can gravitate towards.

Cunt in You'd

rudimentary vaginal structures c20
[2007, whatwedoissecret]

it took a little work to find out some info about this project, but here goes: mes is shevaun thomas, out of seattle. she's active in quite a few other things too, including: zdefect, mortii, impassible peaks (with levi berner), boosatali and frühe werke (a field recordings duo with jason from red squirrels). i have a feeling that if you're not from the pac nw, i could've just typed "adskf adfhaklj ewtti woeudhk aaldfkl wodhfkj" and it would've achieved the same effect as listing all of those names.

i cautiously slid this cassette into my tape deck. why, you ask? well, mad eyed screamer is a song from siouxsie & the banshees offshoot, the creatures, and i'm not too keen on it. so, an experimental project whose name was procured from a creatures song, i think my hesitance is understandable. be that as it may, a rad noise project by any other name is just that. having previously been well under my radar, shevaun's work with mad eyed screamer is real fucking impressive. thomas' tape manipulations would fall under my favorite genre catch-all, experimental noise, with the emphasis clearly on the noisier aspect. no, wait, maybe it's on the experimentation...

side a eases us in with the lovely hum of electricity, which quickly becomes a strong backing layer for tape manipulations and squealing noises. actually, there's a couple of interesting and repetitious sounds going on with the foundation to solidify everything. i can always appreciate that. the pacing of this one is rather slow, but the contrasts between that static buzz and the denser clamor that shevaun's producing will create an extremely pleasing musical palette. okay, i think that this is now the third straight tape where the second side easily eclipses their already good brethren. this one's a monster. mes opts more for dynamics during this second piece. it opens up with a terrific few minutes of repetitious noise, but will soon delve into denser noise, only to revisit the beginning sounds a few more minutes later. the b side will continue to undergo metamorphosis until its haunting and noisy conclusion.
having went into this cassette without knowing who was involved in it, my expectations were pretty low. it was one of three tapes that i got from john that were by people i'd never heard of before. i probably should've had a little faith, but whatever, the point that i was getting at is that mes went way above and beyond what i was hoping for. i'm going to venture a guess and say that this is her first release under this moniker since googling "mad eyed screamer seattle" or "mad eyed screamer shevaun" yields about four results each, and none of them have to do with any albums. my suggestion is to make yourself acquainted with her work, pretty quick like, because there's no reason that something this good should be that obscure.

Rudimentary Vaginal Structures Side A