Cassette Review: C.J. Boyd "precariat" (Tinyamp Records)

[$5 // Edition of 100 // https://tinyamprecords.bandcamp.com/album/precariat]

When this cassette by C.J. Boyd begins, there are Star Wars type space synth sounds and singing where it just seems to be these long notes sung out with great force yet I'm not sure whether or not there are actual words in there.    This is my first introduction to C.J. Boyd, who is around in the cassette community, and I'm already interested in where it might take me.

As Side A goes on it takes us through this clean electric guitar note progression.   It's a cross between that classical feel and rock where it starts off with a rattle but then continues with just all around rocking.   So after the initial bit, this is all guitar notes but it rather well displays just how gifted Boyd is (perhaps trained also) when it comes to the guitar.

On the flip side, we begin with this guitar drone sort of hum, such as when you just let one note play itself out.    Somehow this makes me think more of someone who might not know as much as I thought, where they are just plucking notes at random or even kind of like when my son plays with the electric guitar on Garage Band on my iPhone.

There is a sort of distinctive FNL sound that comes out though which makes me think of this more as a controlled chaos and my earlier assumption was perhaps even a way of Boyd saying, "Haha, fooled ya!".     For a little bit, I think it's over and I'm just waiting for the cassette to end.     Then it comes back quieter, with strings perhaps and the random tapping of typewriter keys.

What I like best about this cassette perhaps though, although I do enjoy the journey it takes me on in between, is how at the end it comes back into the synthy-space sort of realm with the vocals mixed in- which now have distinguished words- and as such it ends as it began.

I can't really compare the vocal sounds to anyone else, but the closest thing I can come to saying is that it feels like it is taken from a stage show, such as when "The Lion King" was on Broadway, as it just has that projection to it.    Though everything about "precariat" seemingly makes it larger than life so that's only fitting.