CASSETTE REVIEW: Marlo Eggplant “6.13.13” (Personal Archives)

http://personalarchives.bandcamp.com/album/61313

            The best music often times paints a very vivid picture in your mind while you are listening to it.  On this cassette, Marlo Eggplant does just that.   But as I listen to this cassette and enjoy it so much, I also want to search Bandcamp for everything I can by Marlo Eggplant, and in a lot of ways I think that is also the true measure of something great.   Granted, this is not even the first time this month I’ve had the attitude of “OMG.  Must get their entire discography”, but what I can say, I listen to some all around great music.  (Not to brag, just comes with the job)

            On Side A of this cassette, there is static and a lot of mechanical clunking type sounds.  When I was a kid (and I mean maybe between the ages of 10 and 15) I had this slight obsession with people dressed in full clothing being in water.  Don’t ask me why, but I loved the fact of people in jeans and what not getting thrown into pools or whatever.  Needless to say, back then one of my most memorable scenes from any “Star Wars” movie was what this Side A reminds me most of.

            Of course the scene I am talking about is when Luke and company find themselves in what is essentially a giant trash compactor, filled with space trash and some water that has them going under at times.  I love that scene still to this day, even if they are in such a panic to get that button pushed to save them from being crushed to death.  (Though now that I think about it, I also enjoy scenes where the walls start closing in on you, but that is for another story)   Without the whining of Luke Skywalker or pleas of Han Solo to want to have sex with someone since they are about to meet their end, this is what that scene would sound like.  Yes, this is what that scene would be like without the humans, and I think that is quite cool.

            Side B takes on more of a nautical sense, as it has the sound of a submarine distress signal, which just ends up growing louder and almost like a bell.   Regardless, it keeps with my water theme and that’s cool with me, even if the Star Wars scene has since gone back into the memory of my mind as opposed to being so much upfront. 

            This could be a good place for you to start listening to Marlo Eggplant, but regardless of what you listen to and when by this artist, you’re going to come across this eventually because it is just that essential.