[$5 // Edition of 25 // https://bastianvoid.bandcamp.com/album/phonics]
While this is a reissue from a 2013 cassette release, I feel like it is just as relevant today as it was two years ago because even though it might seem as if a lot has changed in that time not that much has. "Phonics" begins with the sounds of distorted melodies. There are whirr beeps and then it becomes slightly Kung Fu and 8bit at the same time, which of course brings about notions of a video game such as "Fatal Fury". There are background sounds which fool me into thinking they are whispers of some crowded room I am trapped in during a horrible dream, though I know deep down inside myself they are not a field recording and made by some other device. Quiet static ends what I like to think of as the first piece.
An 8bit trill roll brings about space lasers. Sonar blips are in it as well. We are somehow underwater yet in outerspace at the same time. I imagine some blend of "The Jetsons" and "The Snorks", but only because I like to think of things as cartoons. Though, isn't it funny how the atmosphere in space is more closely related to that of underwater than what we feel on Earth? A little bit of R2D2 brings about static skip jumbles, which I believe takes us into another piece. It's a blissful drone and it gets wavy,
In what could potentially be our third piece we have swirls which become almost modem-like and then there are those video game sounds which remind me of Mario jumping. Space laser whirr synth makes it presence felt, and yes I have been using those four words a lot lately so I'm thinking of simply calling it "SLWS" now. A sort of talking comes into it as well and for some reason it reminds me of a sciene display. Not the type of thing you'd go to as part of school (in a class room) or at work, but maybe at a museum or some sort of conference where science people get together to talk about new discoveries and ideas.
Side B begins with various sounds of space. There are laser beeps and waves. It's still electronic and it almost reminds me of a soundtrack from some movie out of the 1980's. I'm not 100% sure why, but I am thinking of "Flight of the Navigator". Electronic water droplets or some sort of fragments come out next and build themselves up into tones which can somehow resemble X-Files. Through lightsabers we find ourselves back into that sort of talking part and then by the end it's all ambience wih synth loops and robots. The synth loops do almost become some sort of tone loops, but I still can't place an exact finger on what they are and I like that.
So to go be able to go way up into space to way below the sea and everywhere in between, Bastian Void takes us on quite the ride and as such this is a cassette I find to be worth listening to quite a few times before you pass judgement on it. My best advice to you- which worked for me- is to buy it and then listen to it a few times before you decide whether you like it or not. After the first time through you might think, "Yeah, I like this, what's the big deal?", but you won't really understand how much you like it until maybe the fourth or fifth time through.
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