There
are times when it is rather easy for me to listen to a cassette through, hear
the different elements and experience them as a story with a constant flow from
start to finish. Hollowfonts creates
one of those rare instances on “XLVIII” where I can visualize the sounds, yet
they don’t really come together in your typical storytelling manner.
We
begin with this dark, basement type of static that turns into howls and groans
before bringing out the whirrs like electro tones. This whole beginning piece, which plays out
over time, reminds me a great deal of a boiler room setting for some reason and
I’m not sure why because I have no real experience in a boiler room.
Things
pick up from there on Side A with a steady knocking that turns into what can
best be genre-crossed as industrial ambient.
The tone of this second movement on Side A brings to mind The Phantom of
the Opera and even the boiler room feel before it makes sense, but Side B does
not keep with the spirit of the half-masked man.
On
Side B, we begin with some electro synth beats which give way to loops and this
just brings us to an entirely different place.
There is this gurgling sound, as if water is draining, and that leads my
mind to the gutter- literally- and how different is a sewer from a boiler room
anyway? (Well, quite different,
considering boiler rooms should not contain human feces) As it becomes wavy, I begin to think we
might be some place that isn’t underground and this has me rethinking this
entire cassette.
Regardless
of what you may or may not hear on this cassette- whether your assessment is
similar to mine or not- it definitely takes you for a ride that you’ll want to
continue taking until it is all used up.
It is in that way that this cassette can be addicting, like a drug, and
when it does get to the point that it becomes stale I will let you know but as
of right now, it still is not and hasn’t been for some time.
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