CASSETTE REVIEW: Elizabethan Collar “Elizabethan Collar” (/\\ Aught)

http://aught.bandcamp.com/album/elizabethan-collar

[PLEASE NOTE: This review was originally written as "/\\ Aught" as the artist name when it is in fact the name of the label.   This has since been corrected in the title of the post, but the original review remains intact as I only referred to the artist one time by name anyway.   Sorry about all that] 

            This is a very strange cassette based on the packaging because it has the name and title on it, but otherwise it just comes in the clear plastic baggie and has no real information about it otherwise.   I feel like I’ve been handed a blank tape by someone and am not sure whether music will come out if I play it or if it is just wiped clean.   So at least they have that slight bit of information to show what this exactly and by whom.

            Side A has three different movements with pauses in between for effect.   We start with funky electro beats that I can only relate to Prodigy because my knowledge of funky electro beats only extends so far.   Then the sound begins to switch over closer to Mr. Oizo, and it definitely just sounds as if it is on one big loop.   We then switch it up to an acoustic version of electro, which sounds something like tapdancing or Stomp, and then Side A closes out with a slower 8bit synth loop.

            Side B has only two movements and it begins like Knight Rider.   It builds, and as it builds it intensifies.   It very much somehow puts me into a trance, but I don’t mind.    Loud synth blasts come out on the second act and it reminds me of that lone Underworld song I know from the Trainspotting soundtrack.

            I think it’d be kind of neat to be given this cassette with no idea who even the artist or title of it was and you just had to listen to it and then when you posted about it on some universal website someone would reply and say, “Yeah, that’s my work!  I’m /\\Aught!!”, but then you would rely on the master storytelling of people who might not even be able to remember their passwords, so just buy this cassette and leave the storytelling to the artists.