Cassette Review: zack christ "[tom ramme]" (husoptagelser)

[£6 // Edition of 40 // https://husoptagelser.bandcamp.com/album/tom-ramme]

It takes a little while for this cassette by zack christ to begin but when it finally does boy was it worth the wait.   Words are spoken and then we enter a loop of electronic skips.    Singing clips become spliced into this and then it begins a pattern of other various sounds chopped up and delivered in patterns that leave them some part electronic and some part something else.

Knocking beats lead to cymbal crashes.    Tones come out like Knight Rider.   They begin to build and turn insect-like.    It's a video game where you are battling bees and you are losing.    It comes through faster, harder and more like Knight Rider again.   There is a sense of urgency to it as the wooden block is being hit.    As the sounds coming out can change slightly the pace and rhythm remains.   Audio clips are spliced in of both a man and a woman talking but not to each other.    The synth comes through like lasers with those singing clips as well and I'm thinking this is channeling some vaporwave then.

It begins to slow, the once moderate pace reduced to stops and starts.    Drum machines and that Beverly Hills Cop type of synth tones come out as the pace picks back up and this is seemingly going back and forth between vaporwave and chillwave though it might also be inventing some completely new genre I haven't found a word for yet.    After a brief lightsaber sound, we dig into some really nice electronic loops that I cannot really do justice in describing other than to say that I really like them.

While it is not dubstep it does have that saxophone feel to it somehow.    Clips of someone screaming/singing throw the idea of chillwave out the window and begin to make me think this is something like vaporwave only with that hardcore vibe to it which I just have no idea how to place.   Is there a hardwave?    It slows down for higher pitched tones and it sounds partially like something is dying, as if it is the end.   The static skips return and whirr us off to end Side A.

Side B begins with beats loops and if Side A was any indication this could be going into vaporwave.   Smooth tones come in next and this is some kind of electronic jazz flute.   Static skips come in as this doesn't sound as much like a loop as it sounds as if it is stuck in a loop.    Tape manipulation tries to mix it up a little bit but I feel like we are in vaporwave mode here as it verges slightly on instrumental hip hop as well.

This pattern repeats in a way which doesn't entirely feel like Us3 but could be a scene from some Samurai movie.     Electronic whirrs blast into much slower beats now, as if the cassette has been screwed.    Singing brings us into some definite vaporwave territory and then everything becomes static like a drive-thru speaker.    We then appear to be stuck at a red light with something that once again may or may not be dubstep (but probably not).

In what can seem only fitting, this cassettes on notes of 8bit and as it seems to defy categories I am just as impressed by the fact that it can seemingly sample genres and artists and come together to craft its own sound without any real direct point of comparison.   Mainly, this is the type of music which cannot be describe in a single sentence or press blurb but rather has to be felt in its entirety to appreciate and I enjoy the hell out of that.