Cassette Review: blood lake "fear is the mind killer" (tolmie terrapin)

[$5 // Edition of 50 // http://tolmieterrapinpress.bandcamp.com/album/fear-is-the-mind-killer]

As I begin to realize that Tolmie Terrapin is diverse a label as they come, when I first heard this and it began with a spoken word piece I wondered if the entire cassette would be a poetry slam of that nature but it was not.   No, these are some lo-fi type of bedroom recordings that cross the lines between rock and pop.    It's like something you've heard before but not done this way.

With drum machines firmly in place I can hear a number of influences come out just on the first side alone.    Primitive Radio Gods, "Low Rider" cow bell, Lou Reed's "Wild Side", "Time After Time" and even those famous Phil Collins drums all make appearances putting this somewhere between something from the 1980's and something from the earlier part of the 1990's, perhaps even the soundtrack to a forgotten movie.

I'm not sure if the two are connected or not, but when I listen to this I often try and picture the artist recording it in his own bedroom.   I have tried this in the past with other similar artists but I've never come up with more than someone sitting on their bed and that could be easily imagined by anyone who has ever been to Ikea.   However, when I listen to this one by Blood Lake all I can think of, with the artist being in a bedroom, is the specific bedroom from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", which is pretty early on in the movie and is actually Ted's bedroom because they're at his house with his step mom right before he is threatened with being sent to military school.

On Side B the randomness kicks in with a childrens choir singing, a voice mail received and then a number of kids songs sampled with that sped up Chipmunks feel.    There is some lightsaber drone as well and then the organs come out in the bedroom as well.   So while this might be bedroom at its core it certainly isn't the standard "Let me sing for you these songs" as it has various levels to it.

Blood Lake seems like the name of a French horror movie, perhaps about vampires who drink from said lake, and for all I know it might be.   This doesn't have that same horror movie vibe to it though, especially since he rhymes "sappy" with "happy", but I still like it and feel like fans of bedroom lo-fi will as well.