Cassette Review: Exploring Therapeutic Encounter "Exploring Therapeutic Encounter" (Tested Souls)

[$6 // Edition of 100 // https://testedsouls.bandcamp.com/album/exploring-therapeutic-encounter]

Often times when I read an artist name and can't quite make sense of it I just sort of take it for what it is and move on without thinking about it too much.    The idea behind Exploring Therapeutic Encounter, to me, is one that I'm sure we have all felt before or at least I know that I have.     It's like seeing someone at random, perhaps for the first time in a long time, and when you do it makes you feel better somehow.   If not better then it at least answers some questions or somehow brings some sort of therapy to you.    Do you get that?  Does that ever happen to you?   Well, you know what?  It happens to me on a daily basis and that's without leaving my house because it is the affect that music has on me.   Bam.  I went and flipped it on you.

So anyway, this cassette begins with some grinding and clicking noises in a certain rhythm which then incorporates a chainsaw sound and all I can think of is Rob Zombie's "Living Dead Girl", though none of the instruments are the same.    Sounds of ghosts trying to break through, back into the realm of the living, come out and then there are static rhythms and buzzing.    This brings out some distorted vocals which make me think of something that glitches or just a general harsh noise act.   Though there are then uplifting guitar notes before the alarm sounds and Side A comes to a close.

Side B kicks off with glitchy synth laser blasts and then the sound of Wookiees, trash compactors or bees can be heard.   There is *some* sharp feedback followed by what I can only refer to as skramblez.    Trap beats then come out in a loop with whistles mixed in.   It's this cross of Marilyn Manson (early stuff, naturally), Dana Fowler And The and "March of the Pigs" as vocals make their appearance.    There is tinging, more glitching, some bees and then it ends with this sound of static modems combined with their sped up squeals.

Overall I'd say this could be industrial harsh noise, if such a thing existed and we felt the need to put every piece of music into subgenre after subgenre, but really it's just something you should hear if you've ever listened to Crowhurst and liked it or anything similar.    Good stuff here, people.