Wednesday, March 12, 2014

CASSETTE REVIEW: Heavy Boots “In All The Ways That I Am Small” (Furious Hooves)


                Once upon a time, even when CDs were still outranking everything else and MP3s didn’t exist like they do now, someone out there decided that they like records and that vinyl is the superior form of physical music, which then lead to somewhat of a rebirth of the medium,

                Personally, I never liked records as much as everyone else really seems to.   I always felt that they were a very fragile way to listen to music and while I feel music needs to be cared for, it could be a circumstance of just when I was born, but yes, I have obviously always loved cassettes.

                This all only needed to be made note of because when I listen to this tape, despite it being a cassette, it sounds to me like it was being played through a record player, yet more specifically a phonograph record player.   It’s not so much that I’m citing records over tapes, I’m just saying that this has that feel of a time when records had to be played to match the soundtrack to a motion picture and Mickey Mouse was racist.

                The songs themselves each offer a little piece of something different, as they are each their own little miniature movies set to soulful music somewhere between Tiny Tim and Billie Holiday.  (Yes, I’m pretty certain that a ukulele makes an appearance on here)

                What you need to understand about this tape are two things, which both play into the physical release itself and why I feel it is just so important for you to own this on cassette.  

                There is a little book inside of here, and this all done by the same lovely person, and in that way it reflects how each of these songs seems to be its own little book of art only in the musical way instead of the pen and paper way.

                When I first read about this tape being released on Furious Hooves, I thought the idea of it coming with a strand of actual hair from the artist was a little bit… I don’t know the word exactly.  It was somewhere between odd and creepy though, in the way that it was definitely out of the ordinary yet at the same time, I could imagine something crazy along the lines of a psycho stalker getting a hold of the hair and being like, “I have your DNA!!  I can clone you!!”

                Okay, so maybe I have a bit of a wild imagination, but let us not forget the memory of Selena and that movie with Jennifer Lopez.   (And now my mind drifts to J-Lo selling tapes which include pieces of her butt and, yeah, I’m going to need to switch my medications again I think)

                The best way to describe this cassette is by the strand of hair which comes with it, and how that is justified:  She is literally giving you a small piece of herself.   As much as that is true in the fact that you’re getting her hair, it is as much if not more so true in the heart of each and every one of these songs.





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