Music: "Terror'ish presents the Marvelous Cosmic Space Association" tape

OK so maybe there was some intention toward Sun Ra style Space-with-like-barely-musicians when this was recorded, and there's a bit of marching band camp sound. Terror'ish mastermind Rob Bekham is known to be dismissive of the recording session (Garageband.)

What you have (instead of whatever they tried for?) is this Curtis Mayfield-style dope-funk (Like those scenes in Superfly) churned out by Noise-scene familiars, (so instead of coke it's... mushrooms-and-coke?) drug-munch stomp. Like this makes a better soundtrack to Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch" than Ornette's old ass ever could.

Murky, murkily recorded by, OK essentially a funk ensemble (drums, perc., bass, guit., and leads sax and synth.) Sounds like some ugly basement party, or like that scene in "Jacob's Ladder" when they're dancing and she gets the tail-hallucination. (Spoiler Alert)

This is butone very cool object in the large and diverse Terror'ish/DJ MDMHey discography. White tape. Psychy art by Mr. Bekham on some grooved, recycled(?) paper. High-Density Headache label. Highly Recomended!

Music: MARJ tape

MARJ is a (were a?) nasty impression of a band. Conflicting hyper-ideals and low-energy consumption crust-kid talking to.

The thing is these guys are all really fucking great at music and their ideas get all mangled up in wild ways sometimes that are real visceral and dense... and then they get involved in, eh I dunno...

But MARJ is (was?) great.

Good god, Acme can play the damn drums. Every riff leads with drums, and then the riffs disentigrate, guitars into pedaled-out weirdness, bass descending modally. Then smack, back. You can hear the vintage head/cheap cabinet tones bouncing off Little Hamilton's peeling-paint walls and everything.

Dime-turns/happy-hardcore/weird noodles command. God, I do like this tape/band a lot. Feedback... uh, I'm feeding back.
Short and complicated. Self released. Recomended!

Music: Various Artists "Fake Sound Routine Volume Two" tape

Basically a really really tight comp. from Ren Schofield's (Container, God Willing) I Just Live Here label.

 Real zone-in type repetition is order of the day from each artist here, making this a great document of, uh what I heard is an ongoing trend in underground music: introducing Techno signifiers into the D.I.Y./"Noise" aesthetic and shit. (Which I think has been going on around Nashville for a while, so...)

Starting with the locals: Container's "In a Pile" starts off best-of side-A run, through FRAK, Diamond Catalog, and Unicorn Hard-On. Technically among the most "true Techno" tracks here, (not that I'm an expert...) Basic Channel-esque synth and drum machine delay-evolve in a really spacey way. A vocal sample here, an analog squirt there, and sometimes weird "bong-rip" or completely unrecognizable sounds emerge, then fade back into the Tech-void. By the end, the beat has intensified to a sort of in-your-face coke zone and lazer-delayed synths start flitting from the top of your head. It's like a static-charged sweater, but the whole sweater is wires. Fucking rad.

Unicorn Hard-On's "Feel Dead" buries the Tech beat in heavy resonant filter-swept bass synths and a Romantic-sounding MIDI piano, which is great. It's quite melodic/consonant, and shit, it's about time for some melody to reemerge in out-music. The melodicism doesn't precur texture though. Digital and rough fragments grind into yr ears and stick barbs from the rhythm. It's good stuff.

Other noteworthiness too, like, a lot of this stuff's very good. I already lost the insert though, halfway through writing this review, so other bandnames and titles are a blank. Screenprinted J-card. Recomended!

Music: Hands Off Cuba "Volumes of Sobering Liquid" EP

The title is right. Four cuts of sober Kraut-fusion-lite.

The signifiers are all motorik and psych but stripped of the weirdness and edge usually associated with those terms. HOC give sort of a "Dad Rock" take on their influences.

That's not to say it's not pretty good. The level of musicianship here is high: most of HOC are session players, or play in other bands that value technical proficiency. Scott Martin's drumming is of particular note for its precision, but the playing here is over-controlled and reigned in: tasteful to a fault. Live, Martin unhinges a bit, making exciting transitions between his rapid stop-gap fills and hypnotic, contrapuntal beats.

Too-tasteful is a complaint I have with the other instrumentaion as well. Ben Marcantel's synth (Moog Opus 3) gets a prominent name check on the cover, but is really only audible/interesting on track 2, "Plastic Handle". At other times is could just as well be one of the soft organ sounds favored by the band.

"Ramrod", which begins side 2 chugs into a bright, pulsing motorik but too quickly gets comfortable in its Neu-groove, then drops it for some ambientish delay-guitar.

"Sabretooths" kind of rocks though, opening with a stuttering drum beat, doubled by filtered samples and Adam Bednarik's bass line spanning like an octave and a half. Cool Morricone guitar chords, some fills, and then the record is over.

Pen and ink artwork by Martin on 85% recycled sleeve. Sebastian Speaks.

Music: Uncle Skunkle and the Scarecrow Family Band "Happily Ever After" single

Another throw-back punk record, but the band's based in Paducah, KY, so they're "marginalized" by default. Plus this record is pretty alright.

The recording is clean with minimal compression, so it relies on the natural distortion of the instruments and amplifiers to give it a lot of punch. High marks for that, since we mostly don't hear a lot of that in our Big Muff-addicted, Master Limiter-reliant punk mileau.

Side-A (45 RPM) contains one, very "pop-punk" a-la-Exploding Hearts track. The female vocals on alternating verses subtract a bit, due to the fragility of her (no idea who any of these people are,) voice, but it's a nice "sweetheart mixtape" type of thing in general.

Things start to cookin' on the B-side (33 RPM) though. "Machete" is pretty Psychotic blues-punk. Nothing new but convincingly performed. Would have liked to see these guys at Betty's. And "Dead in the Pipeline" is really sick. Hard Core Surf riffs, very raw sand-in-your-trunks/cat-scratch music. Real bouncing minor bass lines. Screamed vocals.

Pretty cool disc I got for cheap. Pug Face Records

Music: 84001 "525-617"/"Summer Sketches volume 2" CD-R

Pastoral delay-guitar. It's kind of lilting. It sounds like it's made by a fulfilled-feeling *person. And relayed like a meme, delayed, looped digital memesis.

Man, I really like 84001 as a continuously recording CD-R project. Their sole vinyl object sounds cool--don't get me wrong. But they shine in the little corners. Little bitrate-fatigue moments that make you stop all processes, close tabs.

And let yourself be baptized in melting synths/chunked-out sequencer drums.

This is trippy music at its core, deeply psychedelic: images displayed as sounds. Sonics that slide-upward the brain. Filter warbling like more than just a filter, they take little trains around the classy side of town. I get a feeling like very rich weirdos listen to this while they refurbish Renaiscance paintings and drink from their Gatorade water-fountains. It's a very comfortable feeling. Plush robes, ignoring cellphones.

There are daliances here that remind me too of some bourgoisie questionable ideas... Banjo/acoustic guitar jams like late night billiards sesh, don't recall what we talked about, eh, good. But I mean Phish are a real influence here, along with your Oneotrix and Balam Acab and Hypnophasia.

Free CD-Rs from the band. I'm guessing you could d/l these over at their site.

*"...fulfilled-feeling person," should not suggest much in the way of personification, like i.e. real persons. 84001's sound is beautiful in its purity of digital-tone. It's net-music. It's de-personification Matrix music. Recomended!