Monday, March 14, 2016

Cassette Review: German Army "General Survey on Growing Concerns" (Metaphysical Circuits)


[$4 // Edition of 54 // https://metaphysicalcircuits.bandcamp.com/album/general-survey-on-growing-concerns]

I really like the idea of there being a general survey on growing concerns.    Have you ever had to take one of those assessment tests on a job application- like when they ask you if you "strongly approve" or "strongly disapprove" something?  I'm applying for an hourly job, don't make me get into the head of my former co-workers.   But those would be better questions-- ones about the growing concerns of this world.   Why do they never have an option for "Where do you see yourself in five years?" as being "The world will be over in three".

German Army starts this cassette with hollow, echoing trill.   I feel like I've been spoiled by German Army lately, especially by listening to Final Cop as well, and to that extent I mean that I kind of feel like maybe I'm starting to get comfortable with the music to the point where I can begin to predict it.    I didn't really think this as much before I heard vocals on a German Army song, but then I started wondering if maybe German Army songs all had vocals all along and I was just confused.    So now we're back to an instrumental cassette and my mind has gone back to where it was before I heard the German Army songs with vocals (and Final Cop).

An electro-buzz brings about an eerie pinball sound and I've started taking notes for this in phrases which someone might one day seem as poetry.    The mood is peaceful and it could be used for meditation.    Then it becomes grinding with a jingle, a chanting rhythm in some sense as well.   Synth laser strikes come out next and I begin to think of it as being glo-fi.    Transformers sounds and big, serious synth beats like a pulse take us to the end of the first side.

On the flip side we have those synth beat tones that I love so much, Doctor Who whirrs and it just becomes mechanical in its delivery.   After this we get into something closer to that eerie feel again as it could be more closely related to a soundtrack John Carpenter might have made.    I didn't hear it as much on the first side, but here I was seeing characters like Jason Vorhees come to life.

Many of the patterns on this cassette tend to repeat but the overall themes repeat from Side A to Side B as well, which I believe really kind of ties it all together nicely.   If you really think about it as well, you can focus on a greater theme and then apply that to the title rather than have your mind wander on visual adventures inspired by the audio.   A lot of the mechanics of it and grinding could be attributed to working the 9 to 5 and barely scraping by, if you will.   Just things like that which are on my lists of growing concerns.   Perhaps your growing concerns differ and you will hear those in here instead, but that just makes it a bit more personal to me which is only another reason to love it.






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