Cassette Review: J. Surak "Dillhole and Fashion Delete" (zeromoon)

[$7 // Edition of 50 // https://zeromoon.bandcamp.com/album/dillhole-and-fashion-delete]

I'm not sure I want to know what a dillhole is, but I'm pretty certain I am in favor of deleting fashion.    Paying way too much for your clothes is really not impressing anyone except for other people who pay way too much for their clothes.    Those of us who buy better quality clothes for less money and wear band shirts are only laughing at you, not jealous.

In any event, this cassette begins with a quiet, ambient church bell ring which kind of sounds like drone.    It's minimal until a dog whistle type of sound comes out and also takes us into a form of drone.     There are slight variations but it mostly maintains that same high, partially audible high pitch frequency.    We pick up with some dark synth and then there is a sort of "Tom Sawyer" drone going on.

So as the drone intensifies, the dog whistle sound stays in the background.   Do you know when you get that ringing in your ears and they say it's because someone is talking about you?   It's kind of like that.    Still ringing, space whooshes enter and then an alarm pitch with slight sonar background beeping.    It picks up in loudness and static, but continues ringing into whirrs until it simply cuts off.

Side B opens with ringing guitar notes which buzz almost like Blur.   Static waves crashing become mixed in and then a fax modem takes over.    Screechy scratches, building waves and space synth take us into a sound that to me somehow sounds like a rodent.   I'm not sure how or what kind of rodent exactly, but it's what I hear.

This turns into a pleasant tone drone and then it grows into something electronic with synth.    It turns into a sound I like to call merry-go-round broke down to end on and basically it's that sort of loop that you might hear when riding on a merry-go-round only it's manipulated to sound as if it is in pieces and breaking apart.

Overall, this is a pretty wild ride we're taken on here.   If you have dogs you might want to take that into consideration when listening to Side A, but it doesn't seem to harm human or cat ears from best I can tell.   It just goes to show you that something can be drone without sounding like every other thing tagged "drone" and also not be boring either.    A fine example of what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it.