Thursday, February 5, 2015

Cassette Review: GASP. (Fuck Mtn. Label Records)


[$5 // Edition of 50 // http://straightpanic.bandcamp.com/album/gasp]

It starts by plugging into an amp.   There is static.  Oh, the static.   It's like being inside a wind tunnel.   The wind goes in and out and has a helicopter type of build.    This turns into some electro-static type of sounds (ZAP!) almost like a bug zapper.     Sharp feedback and slight screeching takes us out of the tunnel and into the streets.

This is resounding.    The static starts skipping.   Sharp tones begin looping.   Static steadily holds its ground and being stuck in that wind tunnel seems to be the theme throughout this cassette.    While it can be interpreted in any number of ways, you just have to imagine someone trying to escape somewhere, believing they are out after much struggle, only to be drawn back in.

One option would be for this to be like a man stuck in a hole and every time he climbs and thinks he's about to reach the top he falls back down, only having to start again later.    This sounds like a story I heard once.   Who was it by?   Was it Camus?   It could also be sexual, but my mind tends not to go there.

What you have to think about this cassette is personal for each person listening to it.   You have to take yourself to the deepest, darkest depths of your mind and find out where you would be the most lost and vulnerable and then what you would have to do to get out of that place should you find yourself there.    I know what I must do and have done to stay out of that place, but do you?   This is not a listening experience so much as the measure of a man, a test if you will.    Take it only if you have the strength.






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