Cassette Review: Igor Amokian and Army of 2600 "Welcome To Glitch World" (Bonding Tapes)

[$6.06 // Edition of 50 // https://bondingtapes.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-to-glitch-world]

Have you ever felt like music might have some kind of battle one day?   I'm not saying that it's going to be band versus band live on pay-per-view or anything, but perhaps there is one day some kind of alien invasion and the only way to keep them at bay is through the loud guitars of AC/DC.   I don't know.   But I would like there to be some situation where Igor Amokian can say, "I HAVE AN ARMY!!" ala Loki in the first Avengers movie.   Maybe not.

Through distorted beats come electro pulses.   Lasers are shot and this is energetic.   Through loops there comes a bit of sharpness but it is like radio frequencies.   This makes me wonder if anyone out there has ever used the word "frequency" to replace "freak" or vice versa.  I'm sure there have to be artists with names like "Radio Freakquency", right?  But the spelling of it becomes so awkward looking I don't know if anyone would.   I was trying to think of it the other way around as well, such as using it like "Control Freq" or "Dance Freque", but that doesn't look much better.  R2D2 sounds come out in here as well and it sounds like robotic video games as Side A comes to a close with whirrs.

On the flip side there are pinball machine game sounds, scratches, noisy electronics on the whole and, yes, even robot screams.   This becomes a laser symphony with whooshes to end on.    I realize how cassettes work- the tape inside has one piece of music on each side- and both of these sides play right up until the end but it just feels like Side B goes by a lot quicker than Side A did for some reason.   It reminds me of one of those optical illusions (Though I suppose it would be an audio illusion) such as putting a pencil in a glass of water and having it look like it's split in half.   It might also just be me, but this is something that I can't seem to shake after several listens.

With everything else, this is just a nice exploration of electronic music and from start to finish there isn't a spot where it seems to let up or make you think "Oh, we could have done that".   It is one of the most consistent electronic cassettes I have ever heard and fans of electronic music on the whole should be really into this one without any questions.