Thursday, May 7, 2015

Cassette Review: world of white ice + nipple stools "wimp abilities sluice" (Bicephalic Records)


[$5 // Edition of 30 // https://bicephalicrecords.bandcamp.com/album/wimp-abilities-sluice]

This is my third Bicephalic Records cassette and their fourth cassette release overall and, yes, it is a split just as all of the others have been.   But, really, I'm not going to sing the praises of split cassettes again, but cassettes and records do afford you the privelage of experiencing two different artists (Doesn't work as well with CDs) and as such I will never grow tired of them.

Side A is inhabited by World of White Ice and I feel like all ice should be white or else it's going to be dirty.   Also, isn't "white ice" just another way of saying "Vanilla Ice"?   Is somebody going to get sued here?   Or at least taught how to be Amish? (I think he had a reality show about that-- look it up)   The music begins with static waves.    There is a buzzing which sounds like an alarm beeping mixed with static.    Beeping patterns enter next and they remind me of bees but not "Flight of the Bumblebee".    Static synth comes in next and I'm beginning to get a video game vibe.

Whooshes become mixed in with space lasers and then they begin to sound almost like cat cries.   That video game synth remains in the background (Why aren't there more video games about cats?) and then static blasts bring thundering booms.   By the end, it has the sound of a wind tunnel and this is really just somehow the sound of being sucked into some sort of storm.   I don't have an exact location or figure- such as a boat being lost at sea- and maybe this is simply a matter of a storm as heard by a bee, but regardless it's some sort of video game I'd play.

On Side B, Nipple Stools (I'll let you think about that name) has slight screeches and some R2D2 sounds.   The other day I was listening to a cassette that had very clear R2D2 sounds and my son pointed it out (I cited it in the review but this time he was right there and didn't say anything to me so I do begin to question how strong the R2D2 sounds are exactly, since he is not pointing them out to me while he is playing with Ewoks.

The static begins to crumble and there are still beeps which I begin to think might not be so much of R2D2 as much as something else.   It's slightly scratchy and I'm never sure what makes these sounds but it's somewhere between a record player and human fingers on a balloon to me.   And, yes, I have seen the episode of "Adventure Time" where Finn the Human uses a balloon as a musical instrument.   I've also seen the episode of "Bob's Burgers" where the kids move straws up and down in their cups to create music.

I think we're going to reach a time when music is no longer played with guitars and drums and people will have to guess what is being used to make the sounds heard.  In some ways, I'm already there (and loving it!!) but I feel like it is the way that music is (hopefully) headed and as such split cassettes such as this are simply preparing us for the future.   Or at least the future that I want to live in.    So be a boy scout, not a boy band.   Be prepared.









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