Music Review: Davko "Davko" (Hair Del.)

https://hairdel.bandcamp.com/album/davko

One thing I will always be a fan of when it comes to cassettes are those who choose to use the medium to be creative.    I've had this long running idea which never actually happened for a label called Collage Cassettes and you would have a series of, say, 9 cassettes and when you put them together 3x3 they would create this picture- like a puzzle- and then when pulled apart it would still look interesting but not be whole.  It was a nice idea of everyone who had a cassette being connected in some way and, I mean, honestly, someone needs to do this (but it won't be me, sadly)

For this self-titled Davko cassette there are fifteen different handmade covers and I mean when you have an edition of 15 and the time to do so, why not?  It makes each cassette feel special, even though it should also be about the music on it, but if you were going to do an edition of 100, yeah, mass produce that artwork.  But even on 25 maybe you could manage individual artwork and I appreciate that sort of thing when it comes to cassettes-- that personal touch.   I think that's why I love cassettes so much too: they feel so personal.  You couldn't make someone a mix on a record and even when people make mixes and put them on CD or just a digital playlist they still call them "mixtapes" (Though it annoys me to no end when an artist releases a mixtape and it's digital only.  That's a playlist!)

Davko starts things off with the sounds of soft, glass tones and a saxophone.   In the distance on the third song I can hear a cell phone ringing.    Definitely some glass work which recall glass bottles ala Jay Peele and then the jazz flute comes in.   And then percussion like bongos joins and even the sax comes back into the background.   Though there are experimental elements to this, overall I would put it under some sort of jazz banner.   But it's under that free jazz/noise jazz/weird jazz type of focus which I enjoy the most lately.

At the times the bass can be grinding while the pianos keep things moving faster.   It's got a smooth flow to it now but by the end of "Military Police" it begins to sound heavy, almost approaching what could be considered metal.      And there is another reason why I like this cassette so much: it takes what you know and what you think you know about music, specifically jazz, and isn't afraid to mix it up and let you hear something infused you might not have before.   I don't know what I expected going into this cassette- I knew nothing about it- but it is great in ways which I never could have imagined.