Monday, May 7, 2018

Cassette Review:
Talk Shop
"Battery Acid"
(VERYDEEPRECORDS)


€7  //
Edition of 35 //
https://verydeeprec.bandcamp.com/album/battery-acid //

I've always been a fan of VERYDEEPRECORDS and their cassettes are all either sold out or close to it.  Seeing mail from them is a treat in the sense that I'm not always sure what I'm going to get but I'm usually certain I will like it.   The Bandcamp says that this was recorded live which makes it all that much more special.   You know what I find great about live music (and live recording) is that when you record something live it gives it new definition.  Take a band like Pearl Jam, for example, who have seemingly countless live albums available.   When they do the song "Black" in Boston, let's say, it's different than when they do that same song in California somewhere or on the album "Ten", so it's just... it's just one of those magical parts of music.   Something not really new but still new.

Singular notes reverberate through.  Lasers come in.   This feels like destruction as it gets deeper.   It is an unwinding of sorts.   A breaking down.   A steady drum beat comes in now.   It is growing.  Building.  Electronic whirrs and static come through together and then a feeling of static as if in an alarm clock way (so, you know, think of the static skips being in places of the beeps)   A beat joins in with the rhythm and this has a certain feel of disconnect to it.   Deeper synth comes in and claps join it.   This has an "Alias"/"Run Lola Run" feel to it.   Lighter tones which make me think of bouncing balls come through as well and this just makes me want to move.   Maybe not dance, but get up and run.

This really begins to break down and it feels somewhat funky now.  It's just got this rhythm and these claps as well.   It's moving.  I don't mean emotionally, like how you can say something to someone and it can be moving, though it does have emotions to it as well, but it just feels like the music is moving.  It refuses to stand still.    Clicks come in and the song sort of fades out to end but it never really loses momentum.

Whirrs drone in on Side B with electronics which sound guitar based, as if we're going to go into "Baba O'Riley".   This shifts to a loop that has the feeling of a telephone to it for me.   This turns into an almost electronic ping pong sound which brings out thoughts of Magnetizer.   This gets into some definite synth funk now, on the verge of that 1990's cop movie sound.   A steady almost clicking beat brings about the rhythm of whirrs which are back and forth, up and down.   This has a mad scientist feel to it on some level as well, like a modern take on "Weird Science".

The synth tones which come through now are definitely more video game and there is this helicopter whirlwind behind them, as if someone is using that static of wind to scribble down on an entire sheet of paper.    I just really enjoy the way that these whirrs come through like frequencies and it can feel like someone is painting something which is abstract and yet at the same time it's got this steady beat throughout to seemingly try and contol the chaos.    But that is what the best music is right- controlled chaos?









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