Friday, January 16, 2015

Cassette Review: Demonstration Synthesis "DS12" (5cm Recordings)


[$5 // Edition of 25 // http://5cmrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/ds12]

When I first found out about these Demonstration Synthesis cassettes and their numbers I thought they were part of a greater set, such as this being "Part 12" and you'd want to hear the other parts in order to fully appreciate what was going on overall.   While I still find that to be true on some level (But really, isn't that true of any artist and their albums?) I see it now more as being a case of this being "DS12" simply because it is the twelfth piece of music released by Demonstration Synthesis and the order in which you listen to them or if you are able to get them all doesn't have quite as big an impact.

That being said, these are worth tracking down and having to the point where this should really be my twelfth review for Demonstration Synthesis except for the fact that they're just so scattered.   Sometimes it's hard to find them as I can't find an official site telling me where to go to get each one.    I had a list once from doing internet research to find them and I think I made it up to about six or seven at the time and have since given up, just hoping one day they will all find me somehow or present themselves as a boxed set (I still stand firm in my boxed set theory)

So "DS12" is here and I'm telling you how you can find it, so that should make it that much easier for you to come one step closer to completing that Demonstration Synthesis collection.   I can't speak for all of the other releases by Demonstration Synthesis obviously so I'm not even going to read into my past reviews to see what I had said previously about the music (Likewise I didn't read them before listening to this because, you know, spoilers and all)    Right away I notice that both of these sides begin as soon as you press play.   Sometimes I'll sit down, start a cassette for maybe a minute or two and then get distracted by something else and have to stop it, so my biggest thing here was making sure I wasn't listening to this a minute or so into it.    But yeah, it starts as soon as you press play and does not wait for a single second to bring you the jams.

The combination of music on here ranges from Miami Vice tones to 8bit with hints of Transformers transforming.   It's just an overall electronic type of vibe that can't be compared with another artist or even a label or genre because it mixes them so flawlessly.     Really, it's a combination of movements that have been heard and appreciated before by other artists (and sometimes it becomes what some labels are known for) but it's just taking those individual ones and stacking them together.    I feel badly saying it because I still enjoy the music of the artists who make something that is only one level of what Demonstration Synthesis is doing here, but this in some ways makes other artists seem obsolete.    Well... Maybe obsolete isn't the right word, but if you look at the other artists as being, say, peanut butter sandwiches and jelly sandwiches, then Demonstration Synthesis is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which makes you wonder why you'd ever go back on that.







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