Cassette Review: PKWST / Cancer Lake (The Centipede Farm)

[$5 // https://centipedefarm.bandcamp.com/album/pkwst-cancer-lake]

As with most confusing splits, this one has a track by PKWST first, then one by Cancer Lake and then on Side B it goes PKWST-Cancer Lake-PKWST with the split tracks between PKWST being about the same total length as the one in the middle from Cancer Lake.   For some reason, to remember the correct letters, I like to think of PKWST as "Peak West" without the vowels and I'm not sure how accurate this is (I didn't really look into it) but it works for me.

PKWST begins Side A with strong electronic synth drone with static or heavy distortion, depending upon how you look at it.    These demonic sort of vocals come through at times and it has these screeching, distorted guitars as well.  I don't know noise/drone has a subgenre for being metal/hardcore, but if they do then I'd likely put PKWST in it (I'm sure there is a fancy name for it, I just don't want to know what it is)   It's dark and then it comes to an end with these static skips that could be a video game error.

Cancer Lake has an eerie synth sound, almost like Jason Voorhees (Which oddly enough is a character based around a lake) but yet also slightly on The X-Files side.   It's got these chugga-chugga locomotive builds to it before turning into this massive space laser show.    The contrast between the two pieces are the differences between being in Hell and space, I would imagine, and yet somehow both are places I have never been and am only being taken to by the sounds I am hearing which makes for a fascinating pairing.

On the flip side, PKWST begins with windy static and screams.   By the end of the first track from PKWST we get talking which is an interesting and fitting end to the destruction.   Cancer Lake comes back with the chugga-chugga sound and I must admit that even the first time through it is rather easy to identify each artist individually.   The tracks don't take that long of breaks in between, but Cancer Lake does seem to have a lighter sound and as such you can really hear the difference and think "Oh yeah, we're back to PKWST now" when Cancer Lake is done with their slips and that slight bit of windy static.

PKWST ends things with those demonic screams and dark synth-like static that has that "Pulse" sound to it where the damned souls try to come through the machine.     As I listen to this more and more, and despite the talking at the end of the track earlier, I feel as if these tracks were split but might work just as well if they were given the even divide of PKWST being on Side A, and as such those three tracks flowing together, and Cancer Lake on Side B.  

If you should feel so inclined (and you should) I recommend downloading the five tracks (And pay the $2 because you probably spend more than that a week on something less artistic) and then arranging them by artist and listening to them.   With comic books and action figures I live in a world of variants and I think it'd be kind of amazing if there was a variant of this cassette out there without the divide.   I'm not really going to bootleg one because I feel like this was done as such for a reason but just the fact that you can switch up the tracks show how powerful this split cassette is.