Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Bootleg Cassette Review: Dominic Coppola "Beloved" (Sequel)


[$6 to Download // $12 for CD // https://sequel-label.bandcamp.com/album/beloved]

This is the first time that I've decided to bootleg a cassette in order to review it.   I can't promise that I will do the same every time someone sends me a digital subimission to review, but this time, yeah, I decided to do it because why not.   So this album is a total of 51 minutes (give or take, according to Bandcamp) so I put it onto a C60 and split it in half based upon seven songs on each side.  

This was also my first time printing a j-card for this and I just used the image on Bandcamp for the cover.   One day I might create my own art for the j-cards but that is if I do this again.   I also kind of cut it so that the name and title are between the shortest and second shortest piece when it should all be nice and easy to read in the shortest piece but I like how it kind of fragments-- it makes it look to me like something very home made, which is nice, but also just split-dimensional.

The music of Dominic Coppola can be described best as a strong ambient hue drone glow.    That might be a lot of words for one genre, but like those who came before him and make similar music at times (I'm looking in your direction, Lost Trail) this is best experienced as far as I'm concerned on cassette because it manages to bring out these sounds which other media might not.    There is something too clean about a CD that you can only experience through the rough edges of a cassette.

As it grows loud it also grows powerful.    It gets a little bit wavy at times but perhaps the best way to listen to this one is just by putting it on with nothing else to distract you and simply lose yourself in the atmospheric pressue of it all.   "Beloved" is as relaxing as it is engaging and for that it is something which you must experience at least once in your life, though I expect when you do listen to this you will be coming back for it again and again.

I really hope that I didn't offend anyone by putting this on cassette because that isn't my intent.   I just know that if I put this in line to listen to digitally I'd likely never get around to it and seeing as how I rarely get around to any digital reviews these days I felt like I needed a new system.   Obviously I'm not making these cassettes to mass produce or anything so I'm not making money off of them.   I just hope that someone who loves cassettes as much as I do might also get inspired.







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