Cassette Review: Ben Spiers "Consolation"

[£4.50 // Edition of 40 // https://benspiers.bandcamp.com/album/consolation]

Ben Spiers is an interesting musician.   I'm always going to see first name + last name artists as being singer/songwriter types, but as this music will demonstrate right from the start it is quite far from that.    Though there is some nice guitar work in here.

When "Consolation" begins it has sonar sounds mixed with deep synth waves and a lot of it is just resonating guitar notes.   It is some sort of guitar bliss, guitar heaven if you will, and through much distortion this appears to be made entirely with an electric guitar and thus effects pedals as well because that would add in the distortion and other noises.    As I think more and more about that though, the end of this side comes with some static bombs which only goes to show me that this is more than just electric guitar play.

The second side begins with little beeping noises like R2D2 or changing the nobs on something of the sort.   As some synth beats drop- boom boom boom- there is a slight ringing and it's not just in your ears.   It gets quieter, takes almost a little break, but then returns with some sharp feedback.    It then begins to come through in sort of static, wavy whirrs I can't quite explain but it is rather different from the previous seemingly guitar based work on the first side.

So the majority of my ideas about this being someone simply playing and electric guitar were quickly shot down on Side B as this just evolves into an entirely new creature in many ways.  You need to listen to this one, but you need to listen to both sides of it as well because you just can't get enough.