Cassette Review // The Electric Nature "The Place of Dead Roads" (\\NULL|ZØNE//)

$7 //
Edition of 50 //
https://nullzone.bandcamp.com/album/the-place-of-dead-roads //
🎧 //

We begin with a quiet droning, an ambient sort of feel with minimal electronics mixed in.    There is this ringing where inside the vacuum of space it feels as if it could turn into a western somehow.    It feels hollow, yet it builds, grows.     The whirrs ring through the distortion now in waves.   It has a visceral feel to it.    Guitar notes now begin to make their way through and this is dark, like something from "The Crow".    In the background it sounds as if there are shaking chains but it could be percussion-- either way, I like to think of it as having something to do with the dead and their want to be unleashed upon the living.   The rhythm grows and if you listened to this one at the airport I bet it would feel like a plane taking off.

The ringing comes through now in an angelic way.   It sorts of trills but also just feels like the airplane would've taken off but not stopped and kept going all the way up to heaven (Though I suppose there is something to be said for the clouds)    This takes on a strong FNL feel now, as notes come through one at a time and reverberate.    At various points it feels as if singing could begin at any moment, but it just continues this up and down feel, like the slow breathing of an accordion.    As we ultimately come to an end of Side A, it feels as if we have simply drifted off into space, a star which has burned too brightly and now has burned out.

A loud, ringing distortion ushers us into the flip side.   We could still just as easily be in space as we could have on Side A.    Guitar notes come through now and this takes on an ambient sense.    Sharpness cuts like a knife.    The whirrs grow within the distortion and this has a sound to it which is minimal but could be on the brink of something much larger.  It just feels like we're listening to that squealing of the tires, the steering wheel spinning out of control and all we're waiting on is that crash.   Cymbals come in as it sounds as if engines are revving up.   This descends into madness, the strings sounding as if things are breaking now and it just has this general sense of chaos.

It feels as if we are playing with a saw now but the mechanics of it all feel like we're inside a giant clock- like Big Ben- and all of those gears and parts are just turning and clanking to form these sounds.    Of course, in that scenario the clock itself is likely not running on time but rather speeding up at random times to make everything around it feel less real.   We drop down further into this steady feeling of something like a vacuum- something which generates that sort of buzzing/humming- and there are screeches of sharpness mixed with this as well.

There is a back and forth now, it feels almost like a sawing and that makes me think like we're drifting out of control, as if we had control once, in our spaceship but now we are just unable to determine where we are going.   Someone wooed.    Was this performed live?  Sometimes I'm not sure it matters because great music is great regardless.   The best way to experience this cassette is to find something you can do aimlessly.  I imagine a balloon being let go, floating up into the clouds and such but for the most part even though it can go side to side, balloons just continue upwards.   You need to find a way to be able to float up and back down, then back up again.   Like a car on an icy road without brakes but totally don't try that.