There are two real factors that you will immediately sense in this cassette when you press play. On one hand, there is the musical aspect of this all. But there also exists these pieces in between the songs which until you hear them through until the end (of Side A) might seem a bit confusing. The artist is talking with an older woman and asks her things such as "How did it feel when your parents died?" My first thought- don't ask me why- was that they were visiting someone such as a grandmother in the "old country" and decided to record the experience. That country was never really made specific to me, but still, I imagined the two as talking face to face for some reason. (And yeah, if you read the Bandcamps you can find all that info)
As it turns out, the conversation is entirely over the phone. The woman I thought to be a grandmother is actually revealed to be the artist's mother (which was also a possibility for me, I just wasn't going to assume based upon age of anyone. I really don't remember a lot about my great-grandparents, for example) The thing about this conversation is that it intertwines itself within the songs.
I've always thought of various possibilities when it comes to music. Often times I think "If I removed the vocals from this band, then what would they sound like?" In this scenario though I must admit that if you were to take the phone call clips out from within the music and just do the musical aspects of this cassette from start to finish on Side A, yes, after hearing it this way now it would seem as if it was missing something to me. It wouldn't feel complete, which I suppose stresses the importance of this phone call.
The music itself has this bedroom pop feel to it. Somewhere between EFS and The Lyndsay Diaries and something like High Pop. It can gain these chill beats and even explore the electronic side a bit to where vaporwave can be slightly heard, I believe. These blissful tones come and go on Side A, but on Side B it is a different story.
Absent are the straight forward audio clips (Though they are sampled a little bit) and the music finds itself to be both instrumental and with vocals which can be manipulated. I've often written about my intent to create music in fragments. I'd wish to write a three or four minute song and only publish the best thirty seconds or less of it. Sometimes I have ideas that I want to hear musically, but not for that long.
With this cassette, as someone who thinks about doing such things and never follows through because I'm not really a musician, what you have to realize and what you have to take away from this review is that the artist has taken this rather personal phone call and spliced it with music which on its own would stand out because of how great it is. This was done in such a way that... It's like this: the artist took two different things, both very much worth listening to in their own right, and combined them to make something which is somehow even more incredible. I don't know if I'll ever hear bedroom pop the same way again.
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