€5 //
Edition of 20 //
https://burlestor.bandcamp.com/album/- //
This cassette begins quietly, with scattered sounds that appear to be in a large area with great acoustics. It has to have a large ceiling and I can think of a place in my mind where I went once- I think it might have been the capitol building in Austin, Texas but I'm not sure. Darker guitar riffs come through with spoken words now which I can only assume are audio clips. A banging comes in as well but it feels more industrial than anything else. Aside from the audio clip this could easily turn into a NIN song ("The Fragile" era) at any moment and I'd see it coming.
A lot of the sounds seem to fade and it gets quieter as the spoken words continue. Outside, an ambulance starts its sirens up and somehow seems fitting to the piece but is something which cannot be done again. Do you ever get those moments in music? You'll listen to something and an outside force just seems to blend in with it so well- maybe your neighbors arguing or a link you opened that started playing a song without you clicking on it- but you can't make it come back because it was so random? I love moments like that.
This has become rather quiet and minimal now. A sense of darkness still, words spoken quietly, and it has that boiler room feel to it overall. A ringing drone comes in and begins to build now. There are some odd noises as if someone is stumbling around a room but that drone persists. An audio clip now is talking about a love letter. And then a sample of a song which sounds like Elvis Presley as well. The audio clip and song are somehow combining and the actual music (such as the drone) has faded now. This makes me want to watch "3000 Miles to Graceland" now.
As the audio clip seems to be anything but dead, it sounds as if it has grown sexual now... and violent. The words go back to the original part and Elvis continues to sing. He says: "You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a gun". Google has made it so that I can see that this is a quote from the movie "Blue Velvet", which I saw once but it was so long ago now I feel like I want to watch it again. A different kind of audio clip comes through next with a different style of music to accompany it. It almost has a carnival feel to it.
Static begins to come through as a radio frequency and it also sounds like heavy breathing. This goes on for a while but then beats come in followed by more words I feel are an audio clip. This brings Side A to a close and it had some momentum going with Elvis but seemed to kind of fade out there, which is a good way to go because this was a lot to take in for just one side of a cassette. I like to think of the flipping of sides here as a sort of intermission.
Side B opens with a slow drone and then there is speaking, which I believe to be in Russian. This takes on the sound of a woman moaning, which brings me back to that sexual idea from earlier. As we stay in that abyss drone, some rocking beats come into the sound and this one has been quieter than most anything on the first side up until now but it has this build now like an old air raid siren. The beats fade, that dark drone in the background continues and I hear some definite X-rated moans. There is also this singing in with everything else and it's quite the combination.
We are now taken into the sound of water. It sounds like water dropping into more water, but also like someone kind of moving around in it as well. Sirens from outside mix with it again and I kind of live near the center of the city but not in too bad of an area right (Right??) There is a hollow aspect to this as well. Church bells tone now, as if on the hour. As it did to end the first side, this also just sort of drones out and fades away as it ends overall.
While this cassette has many drone qualities to it, a more minimal and quieter approach to things, there are enough other aspects of it to engage a listener who might not like drone. From audio clips to beats to the sounds of pleasure, this is definitely a new take on a genre (or perhaps a combination of genres) which has seemingly seen it all. Just when you think you've heard it all though, you'll listen to Burlestor and be proven otherwise.
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