[$7 // Edition of 100 // https://hotdatenoise.bandcamp.com/album/burns-on-continuum]
As this is the second release from HOT DATE and also the second cassette from HOT DATE I feel I've grown spoiled with cassettes for a little while so it needs to be repeated now that I truly do adore those who choose to release all of their music on cassette. Some artists will release one cassette just for the novelty of it but the fact that there are artists out there who continue to put their music out on cassette just makes me happy because I feel like it gives my cassette lifestyle more validity somehow.
"BURNS ON CONTINUUM" begins with static whirrs which go into some rapid fire frequency changes. There is a ringing and this just has an overall feel of an instrumental "In Utero". Progressions build and images run wild in my head of there being a ghost in the machine. Space lasers are fired. There is a hollow mechanism. It's screechy, yet squealy, somehow like a record scratching. Reduced to submarine sonar it then turns to the whirrs of a theremin which always lead me back to Dr. Sheldon Cooper. (Is there a famous theremin player I could begin to reference instead?)
What can only be described as pinball glitch becomes Transformers whirls and then these noises come out in what I can only call modem-core because it sounds like old internet in that way. On the whole though, this particular part of the piece reminds me of something from the movie "Pulse" (Which if you've never seen, you should watch the original version of-- the one that the one Veronica Mars was in is based upon) if only because I feel as if something is trapped inside the technology and is coming through to kill us all. (It's one of my ideas of how the world will end, only increasing as we become more dependent on technology)
Side B opens with that ever present static which is filled with bees buzzing and then it goes into a wind tunnel with slipping string shots. There are harmonies within and it even sounds at some point as if someone is whistling. What appears to be Transformers at first later proves to be closer to C3PO and then there is a ripping static. Again I am fooled or just hearing two sounds at once as it appears as if a big bell is ringing (I like to call it the Liberty Bell for whatever reason) but I also do hear the sound of cars honking as if stuck in traffic.
This is just chaos now. There are "Law & Order" tones and a bug zapper accordion (It's a thing!) and then as it calms down into more of your standard tones it comes back with churches going into storms. It ends with a harsh modem sound, which somehow does not remind me as much of what happened on Side A as you might think. Though my idea of the churches being in the storms could go with the idea of the Liberty Bell because it could have been a church bell. (I've never actually heard the Liberty Rell ring, and always think of it as being "for display only", and yet I live within earshot of churches that go off every hour. Strange how I would make that distinction, no?)
Perhaps one of the biggest accomplishments in "BURNS ON CONTINUUM" is that it remains impressive the entire way through and just manages to engage you the entire time. Other artists who may have similar sounds might tend to take little breaks- lulls in their set- and I don't have a problem with that, but this cassette by HOT DATE just does not leave any room for breathing. You never really knew you could ask for more until you got it.
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