0781KT NAUSEA
This is an excellent ambient/noise tape featuring 90 minutes of untitled hypnotic experimentation pieces. The tape opens with really eerie ambient noise and an ominous, echoey piano and from there expands into screeching machine sounds, industrial noise rhythms, beautiful synth-landscapes and sampled, processed spoken-word repetition. It's quite well recorded, with careful attention to maintaining a top and bottom of the mix (even in the midst of all-out cacaphony), and fluctuates from frightening, oppressive sound to meditative drone and back again. It's not for everybody, but noise junkies will love it.
(Mute Ant Sounds PO Box 1144 Williamstown NJ 08094 USA) Ken Miller

8:11 ON A HOT SUMMER NIGHT comp
Sounds like NEW YORK CITY RHYTHM went to the land of Emo for their summer holiday and they came back with a whole trunkfull of screaming vocals, distorted, synco guitars and otherwise violent, highly emotive playing! Very very nice. These guys can punch holes in my ceiling anytime. THIRD WORLD PLANET noodle for a bit, then scream their eyes out and that's it for them. Does PETTY FORWARD THOUGHT have a didgeridoo playing with them? Their track "6" is pretty angular and angry, with weird time signatures and flat-out thrashing with two shouting vocal guys. Man, what in hell are these guys so pissed off about? ROT:IRONSMILE... never mind, you can guess by now. Quiet parts followed by slammed-into loud parts with LOTS OF FUCKING YELLING!!! Bet you didn't see that coming. Their "er for two" or whatever it's called is the most melodic joint of the bunch, with some brilliant bass chording and some hyperactive snare work. The yelling/singing contrast is good too. FROM MAGGY TO MARGARET's "Better Someday" follows similarly, though slightly less angularly than the others. Nice breakdown too. THIRD WORLD PLANET does "Ranting Isn't Enough," which is...uh...merely a rant. A pissed off Canuck chickie complains about the world while that didg sound haunts me again. Obviously the real news here is the LET'S PUT THE X IN SEX track, from last year's reunion show. "Balls To The Wall" even gets a loud shout from the audience, who were clearly in the house to party down. Live, LPTXIS just *fly* through this ACCEPT classic, the verses are hyperspeed while the chorus slows down to almost no-BPM. Sweet. Glad to hear that backup screech kid's voice hasn't dropped yet. I bet Duncan, British Columbia never knew what hit 'em. WARSAW UNION sounds practically unplugged on "Black Tie, Midnight" which emotes inwardly. (?) Yeah. ROT:IRONSMILE gets the last word, with a live recording of "One Year Ago," which is spoken word with guitar and/or bass harmonics. Word.
(Diminutive Records PO Box 8183, Victoria BC V8W 3R8 Canada) Ian C Stewart

A&B "FULL MOON AND EMPTY ARMS" 7"
Slow twangy country acoustic guitar and brushed snare drum gunk. With slide guitar. Bad. Wholly deserving the "Ponderosa" font on the cover, moreso than anything I've heard all day. "The Sunflower Field" adds weird reverby slide guitar nonsense for a mildly (very mild) psychedelic effect. Twangy as fuck! "High Blue Northern Sky" has that "Ramblin' Man" snare drum thing going. And the vocal harmony on the chorus sounds like... shit, OAK RIDGE BOYS or somesuck crapola. This record should come with free dirt and a cowboy hat.
(Executive 26120 Hendrie, Huntington Woods MI 48070 USA) Ian "The Anti Oak Ridge" Stewart
bo1@mvie.net

ADD N TO X ON THE WIRES OF OUR NERVES CD
Two weeks after this CD appeared in the AUTO PO Box in scrubby Dublin, Ohio I was in London on my honeymoon (it was great, thanks) and saw reviews of it in every single magazine I picked up. Wow. And they were in NME News because they just signed with MUTE. Hmm. Not to mention their 9/10 rating in the April 1998 SPIN (hey, I had to read something on the flight to London). Does that mean they shouldn't be in AUTOreverse, which is strictly for do-it-yourselfers? Probably, but I'm all about breaking the rules, so fuck it. Just look at that CD cover! Come on. ADD N TO X let their computers do the talking. Quite literally on the opening cut "We Are ADD N TO X" which features a mechanical voice synth program introducing the three band members while a (probably unattended) synth goes haywire beneath. Hi ADD N TO X, nice to meet you. Thanks for introducing yourselves. So many groups would've spent those first two minutes PLAYING A FUCKING SONG or something. "Murmur One" is pure synth burble, the likes of which I've not heard since the last batch of FUXA vinyl came through. The live drums degenerate into hacked drum 'n bass loops and a few cartoon samples. Space rays and the like. "Gentle Germans" is a near-ambient piece of backwards-synth echo wank. A pleasant one, but wank nonetheless. "Planet Munich" skitters along a reverb tunnel on tiptoes, occasionally stuttering out a weird drum rhythm that's syncopated to who-knows-what. Do the references to Germany make this Krautrock? I would have to hear some Krautrock before I could answer that myself. "Nevermind" is some quality drum and bass buried beneath a shitload of unbecoming effects. dit-a-dit dit, squelch squelch dit dit dit. etc. "Grey Body, Green Gun" has a midtempo scratchy pimp groove and insect-like synth squibbles flying around in every direction. The right remixer could turn this here block of marble of an album into a very nice statue. Of what I have no idea.
(Satellite Records 12 Ingestre Place, Soho London W1R 3LP UK) Ian C Stewart

AER AFTER
Soothing experimental ambience. Shiftting colors of sound hum beneath layers of reverb haze. Overall very very pleasant sonic abstract expressionism. Or something. "Tentative" adds guitar and vocals with acres of delay on them, sounding like a cross between LOW and (wait for it) SEEFEEL. Gleefully minimalistic and staunchly understated. If this song were any quieter it would be a JOHN CAGE cover. Awesome. "Ripple" brings the guitars out and clicks on the digital delay pedal again. Somnambulating on the line between noize and minimalist bliss pop. Fucking sweet.
(DDT PO Box 26086, Kitchener Ont N2G 4V8 Canada) Ian C Stewart

AGATHOCLES HUMARROGANCE CD
Over-the-top thrash/grind mania. Twenty tracks in 40 minutes. The riffs are like CARCASS or any other Earache bands from the early 1990s: low and fast! Likewise for the vocals. Until "White Horse," which starts off with a quiet bass-and-drum swing that sounds startlingly like THE STRAY CATS. Then the guitars come in and blast away on the bass riff. Whee! "Alright, Let's Feel" does kinda the same thing, except the guitar does a fake clean-jazz chord. "The Bastards Have Landed" is the title of the week! The song itself is pure blast-and-spew. The last track, "Mince-core" is AGATHOCLES' signature song...it's their very own "Iron Maiden," "Black Sabbath," "Motorhead," or "Stray Cat Strut"!
(Morbid Records Postfach 3, 03114 Drebkau Germany) Ian C Stewart
http://www.morbidrecords.de/

AKA MEETS STATIC INSECT
A split tape that came with paper glued to both faces so that you could not play the tape without
ripping the paper or taking it off. A hint? AKA is minimal and nearly scary (but not quite). I suppose
it could be called experimental...STATIC INSECT fare better or at least more interestingly. SKINNY PUPPY and Wax Trax!?
(MUTANT CACTUS RECORDINGS 274 Arthur St, Acton ON L7J 1M3 Canada) Chris Gregory

ALLEVIATION CD comp
An enjoyable compilation of goth, industrial, and goth-industrial bands that opens with a cool song by DUST, one of LYCIA's side projects. A good mix of atmosphere and heavy beats. The second song starts off promisingly, but the only reason not to hit skip is if you haven't already heard enough limp-wristed ROBERT SMITH knock-offs. I said KNOCK-offs. Next up we have some noodly dada strumming from MY GLASS BESIDE YOURS, featuring Brian John Mitchell of REMORA (reviewed elsewhere) who is the man responsible for this CD, and from my brief experience, is also a generally decent human bean. Next up, THE UNQUIET VOID, a band that has appeared on a few PROJEKT samplers--drum machines & synths & atmospheric guitars. Tess Records' TRANCE TO THE SUN offer up a VERY SIOUXSIE-ish song with galloping bass and meandering guitar. Gosh, we're in the '80s again. FALLING JANUS take the JOY DIVISION tack, they've even got that one-fingered synth technique pioneered by Geanine (or whatever the hell her stupid name is). I hate to keep comparing bands like this, but it's unavoidable in this case. AN APRIL MARCH have a pretty cool song here, poppy in a way, sort of maybe reminiscent of THE BREEDERS (I wonder if they just cringed reading that?). FAITH AND DISEASE have a decent, well-played live song in fast 5/4 time with goth girlie singing. Follow that with another LYCIA side project: SNOWBLIND. Mike Vanportfleet's voice is always haunting and effective. PETER ALDRICH's song has a slinky 5/4 (again!) bass line with a relaxed vocal. Nice, very. One of the best things here, reminds me vaguely of CONSONO. PINEAL VENTANA up next with another decent tune, Kevin Haskins-ish drumming and a bit of THROWING MUSES too? More stylish goth girlie singing. TUBALCAIN are Cleopatra Records' industrial, and they kind of stick out on this CD due to a slightly more pro-gloss. Could hear this on Alternative Radio if they sucked enough butt. Ends with a sample of "Revolution #9"--isn't that redundant? 17LARVA serve as a DIY comedown from the hyped previous song, and then DA SEBASSTIAN follows with a bit of spoken word backed by drone. ATTRITION follows with an excellently creepy, "Tubular Bells"-y song that could easily be the best thing about a horror movie coming to a theater near you. ATTRITION side-project ENGRAM ends the CD with a sample construct that eventually breaks into the electrobeat it threatens throughout its first half. FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY on a mellow day. Overall: a lot of toss off opening band types, but there's also enough decent and even really cool stuff here to be worth any goth's time.
(Silber Records PO Box 18062 Raleigh NC 27619 USA) C Reider

ALL THE PRETTY HORSES QUEENS AND ANGELS CD
I don't know why I've had such a hard time writing about this disc. It's probably because after I review it, it's going into the stack of keepers in the back of my closet so I can move on to other stuff I need to review, and I'm not sure I'm done listening to this one yet. Singer S GRANDELL has this incredible, rare quality to his voice that's absolutely riveting--imagine MEATLOAF if he could sing except a lot breathier and focused--and the music is arranged around his voice instead of drowning it out completely (hey, what a concept!). If I had to pin this down into a genre, I'd say it's goth? Metal? Some combination of the two, mothal, or gethal, or....If the band isn't getting a lot of attention now, it will soon.
(TRG Records 2217 Nicollet Avenue S, Minneapolis MN 55404 USA) Holly Day
http://www.visi.com/~skindog/

ASCENSION: A SYLVIAN LIST COMPILATION
I confess I am a total sucker for anything DAVID SYLVIAN, so I knew all along, dogmatically, that this comp tape of music by SYLVIAN fans was going to be good. In fact, it is. The first four tracks aren't anything like SYLVIAN at all: CLIVE COLLETT'sinstrumental "Wisty," for example, is 100% pure recycled GLASS. Quite nice. PLANET 10 have dainty strings, jangly guitars and a sweet crooked tune, and sound like whatever Brit fops will be hip by the time you read this. FISH WORSHIP (fine name...) please us with a long meditative song, chiming bells, and a soft warm voice, and make me think of suave, forgotten mid-Eighties bands like LOTUS EATERS or A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS. You'll find yourself humming ''Gooood's maaaking mooovies...'' all day. GENEPOOL's "Dreamland": big guitars, a strong, self-assured voice and an anthemic feel that makes them sound like, er, PEARL JAM, but in a good sort of way. But the real fun for SYLVIANites arrives with the second half of the tape. The instrumentals by JASON JOSEPH, DOUG MICHAEL, MARK B ALLAN and TINTY MUSIC are SYLVIAN replicas so perfect, fans will think they've died and Gone To Earth. MICK KARN's trademark basslines, MICHAEL BROOK's moody landscapes, ROBERT FRIPP's screaming guitar solos, STEVEN JANSESN and RICHARD BARBIERI's extravaganza - you name it. The illusion is perfect. Amaze your friends! Make them think you own an immensely rare, invaluable promo copy of DAVID SYLVIAN's eagerly-awaited new CD! They'll never discover the truth. Tape of the Week in my deck. SYLVO fans: you can't live without this.
(PO Box 85363, Seattle WA 98145-1363 USA) Paola Sorrentino

SARA AYERS VOICES CD
The Editor is a smart guy - every time he sees a CD cover featuring ghostly and tasteful b/w pics, dead trees and/or cemetery statues he knows it's time to call the Gothic Reviewer...this CD has the lot...and hey, it's good! MS AYERS is clearly a tortured, romantic soul who writes and sings (her voice is impeccable, very warm and suggestive) lovelorn lullabies and general musings about life. It's all very sad and heartfelt. It's a cross between THIS MORTAL COIL and TORI AMOS minus the cornflakes, if you can imagine that. Good Gothic value, but it will appeal to all the romantic souls out there anyway. ''Funny how life's so sweet, a sugar skull dissolving on my tongue''.
(Dark Wood Recordings PO Box 1786 Albany NY 12201 USA) Paola Sorrentino
http://www.wizwax.net/ayers

BagG "LUCILLE"
A hot cassingle, the A-side being a cover of the old (okay, not very old) country chestnut "Lucille" by KENNY ROGERS, soaked in psychedelia, somewhat BUTTHOLE SURFERS-esque. If they'd pressed this on 7" yellow vinyl it'd be plastered all over every goddamned college radio station from here to the mighty Mississip. This is actually pretty fuckin good. I find myself banging my head and singing along at the top of my lungs every time the chorus comes around. They've forced me to realize that maybe I secretly LIKED this song even when Kenny, the obsessive stalker and underwear sniffer sung it. Good god. Of course I was a pre-teen then, so you can't blame me for having less than good taste at the time. The B-side "9X A Night" is in a similar faux country vein and is also pretty good, but I kept hoping for a chorus of "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." Dammit, this should been on vinyl!
(DeWitt Records PO Box 24449 Cincinnati OH 45224 USA) C Reider
http://www.bounce.to/bagg

BagG LIFE'S A SONG WORTH SINGING
The newest offering by BagG is truly twisted and genius in its blatant style trashing. Not a moment is wasted, right down to those calculated segues between songs. In a word, these guys know how to rock hard... and get soft-boiled when duty calls!! They cover all their bases with remakes of KENNY ROGERS and BLACK SABBATH, never once flinching in their convictions to ROCK!!! It's hard to pick faves on this one; whether it's the space-humpin' rock of "Sweet Leaf," "The Stroke," "Lucille" or the ass-kickin' rap core power of "Pain," or "Stagger Lee," the cheeziness reigns supreme with great production and obvious playing power. The variety of this lot brings a tear to my eye and a slimy pang of guilt to my stomach. Props go out to y'all. Peace.
(DeWitt Records PO Box 24449 Cincinnati OH 45224 USA) D Blood
http://www.bounce.to/bagg

BagG LIFE'S A SONG WORTH SINGING
We are all children of the sun, and 80's metal will rule the world forever. I honestly liked the their rendition of the SABBATH tune "Sweet Leaf," and SQUIER's "The Stroke." Both were very cool and will keep this tape out in full view of the guests at my house. The scratchin' on "The Stroke" was very cool and gave the song a brand new sound, you all need to send this one to BILLY himself and get his opinion on it, I think he is touring the state fair circuit these days. I think that TOSSER and SMOOTHIE need to write more and have the band lay down more 80's retro metal of their own. This has a very clean sound with good construction, keep on rockin' gentlemen, and of course puttin' a shout out to my man IAN C STEWART always helps too. Get it for all those 80's junkies that just didn't go deaf enough at all those concerts in high school. Eat some Skyline for me guys!!
(DeWitt Records PO Box 24449 Cincinnati OH 45224 USA) Howard Cowell
http://bounce.to/bagg

BARB WIRE DELICATESSEN compilation CD
They say first impressions are the most important. While I don't really buy into this oft-quoted belief, I have to admit, this disc could not have made a better entrance inot my house-from my cat's point of view, that is. This one CD came packaged in a shoebox-sized container, just the right size and shape for my cat to paw open and curl up into-she spent a week sleeping in this box until something else came along she liked curling up in better. Now as for the music on the disc itself? I haven't decided if I like it or not. The songs consist of a decent solo female vocalist accompanied by a keyboard--however, while this disc is strong on the musical side of things, it definitely lacks in the lyric department. I guess you could say I like this disc a lot as long as I listen to it just as music and blot out the actual words being sung. Candy was invented for people this sad.
(Eristikos PO Box 61113 Phoenix AZ 85082 USA) Holly Day

BB2X4 THE BLENDER CONDENSER
I'm a great admirer of KD SCHMITZ's zine TEN THOUSAND THINGS and have been curious about his tapes, so I was pleased to have this compilation he made of looped samples from various hometapers fall into my hands. Unfortunately, I just don't get it. KD's own "Less Progress" sounds like you're about to pass out from nitrous oxide. SINISTER DEXTER's "Acoustic and Electric" sounds like a whole lot of RDRDRDRDR under some ti-ti-ti-ton, whereas RAY CARMEN's "Bubblegum Buddha" is more LUT-DUT-DUT/DUT-D'DUT over rrn;rrnrnn. And so on. I don't mind having most of this stuff on in the background while I'm writing, I guess. Maybe you have to develop a taste for this kind of thing. But why would you want to? Some of the selections are downright unpleasant. At best, it just seems to me as though if you're gonna loop some sound over and over, there oughta be an MC bustin some rhymes or something; my favorite of the 15 cuts was JOHN SAILOR's "His Answering Machine"-- the only one with spoken words.
(PO Box 1806 Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 USA) Indy Ana Jones

BEAUTY KILLER MORE
I seem to have lost the sleeve, dognab it. It had my notes on it, too. I wouldn't have listened to this twice otherwise; Mit's really not my kind of thing at all. At its best it sort of reminds me of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE without the singing (or screaming or whatever it is they do). I'd rather have more RAGE and less MACHINE... it mostly just sounds like a bunch of banging and squauking to me. There must be people out there liking this kind of thing but I've succeeded so well in avoiding it that I don't even know what to call it.
(Old Gold Cassette PO Box 8776 Atlanta GA 31106 USA) Indy Ana Jones

BETTY GOO GOOICIDE CD
Slow GREEN DAY with CHEAP TRICK pretensions! Mostly-happy modern rock with probable AAA Playlist aspirations. Track one: "Buzz": Pop rock with the hi-hat wide open and mildly rockin' guitars. And vocal harmonies galore. Track two, "Waste," picks up where REDD KROSS left off, wherever that is. Remotely ballady up front with an uptempo chorus. "On The Outside" and for no apparent reason I think SUGAR. It's the acoustic guitar. That's all it could possibly be. The production on this disc is very good. The songwriting ain't bad but BETTY GOO have yet to write their "If I Can't Change Your Mind" or "Annie's Gone." Or even "The Freshman"! The DURAN DURAN cover "Sound Of Thunder" is superfast punk bullpooey. I hope it makes them happy to fuck with SIMON LE BON etc because I know several aged Duranies who'd kick these biotches dead in the ass if they heard this travesty! Remember the first time you heard EVERCLEAR? If so, get this---if, like me, you can't even remember the *last* time you heard EVERCLEAR, then... uh...skip to "Cha Cha Ho" at the end and go get some dinner.
(Cindy Levine Mgmt PO Box 590 Needham MA 02192 USA) Ian C Stewart
http://www.shore.net/~bettygoo/

BIDOCHE MUSIQUE DROIT DE CUISSAGE
Dig out your old grey coat! Pile on the eyeliner! 1981 is back! JOE FLEURY clearly didn't listen to a single Nineties record in his life. And so he delights us with fifteen tracks that are pure VISAGE-SOFT CELL-GARY NUMAN (listen to "FM Station" and shed a nostalgic, mascara-blackened tear). At times he also sounds a hell of a lot like that compendium of snobbish Eighties-ness, DALI'S CAR, and I will love him forever for this (ah, that bass...). Weirdest of the bunch: "Jungle Beat," where he rants on about ''dancing to the jungle beat'' with a voice and a beat that's perfect suicidal JOY DIVISION. This guy is a genius. Fantastique!!!
(J.Fleury, Dailles 22, 1752 Villars-sur-Glâne, Switzerland) Paola Sorrentino

BIG CITY ORCHESTRA AND WHEN WE WAKE UP THERE IS SHEEP IN OUR EYES
A concept tape about sheep (?!?) from the famous BIG CITY ORCHESTRA (famous around here, at least). Herders: the musicians. Abattoir: their label. It could have been a potentially funny thing; unfortunately, it's just a lot of old ambient dwindlings. I can't resist to the temptation to say it's a woolly concept tape, ha ha.
(Doomsday Transmissions PO Box 26086 Kitchener Ont N2G 4V8 Canada) Paola Sorrentino

BITTER BLOOD III: IN SEARCH OF THE SNARK CD
Be afraid. Be very afraid. For once in my life words escape me. I just do not know how in the hell I am supposed to describe to you what I just heard. I would have a better chance performing a lobotomy on
myself than breaking down this CD into something other than a horrified facial expression. I am not sure if I should round up my tribe and rain dance in the desert or go slay a dragon. Dust off those Birkenstocks and pack a lunch, kiddies, it's folk rock time! I honestly can't tell if these guys just stepped out of their local Renaissance Faire and wanted to pay homage to JETHRO TULL or if there is some sort of "subliminal" thing going on here but I suddenly have the urge to get my ass some crystals and have my tarot cards read. All I can remember before the blackout is lots of tambourines, flutes, scary poetry and some bad, bad vocals. We're the GRATEFUL DEAD. Thank you and good night.
(Razzle Enterprises Creative Channel 2 Design PO Box 68 Guilford IN 47022 USA) Chrissy Taylor

BLACKLIGHT BRAILLE SONGS FOR THE LONGHAIRED SONS CD
This is the cult of OWEN KNIGHT and his victims who dream of a time-warp backwards to centuries of old, circa middle ages. This is music for druids, hippies and new-agers who live in a fantasy land full of castles, dragons and Tolkienisms. I can just picture these people sitting around a small fire in the woods, rubbing various sizes of crystals, rapturing voices of love to Hobbit and other creatures in the realm of fantasy of the mind. This CD has a few OWEN KNIGHT standards which reek in any century! When I hear him screech out "Pretty bird! Pretty bird!", I wanna stone someone to death! A few of the instrumentals are not that bad if you like new-ageist jams. And the songs written by Richard Von Nida are the best of those, but just when it begins to sound listenable, OWEN KNIGHT pops up with a song that makes me want to clean my ears out with soap! This is not as painful as OWEN KNIGHT's solo CD but it does feature OWEN KNIGHT and that is reason enough to avoid it.
(Vetco 5825 Vine St, Cincinnati OH 45216 USA) Faruq Al-Qahira

BLACKLIGHT BRAILLE INTO THE WORLD OF THE GODS CD
1997 CD by eighteen-member band from Ohio. At least they want the world to think they are a band. But I know a druid/new-age/medieval cult when I hear one and I have had the (dis)pleasure of hearing this lot's releases before so I am familiar, I am familiar. This CD starts with two halfway decent songs and I am thinking to myself that things may have changed, but OWEN "Mr. Saw" KNIGHT comes on song #3--"Blue Druid March"--and all good feelings disappear with a single stroke of harp and the voice of OWEN KNIGHT. The songs without OWEN KNIGHT are decent sounding hippie jams that are well-recorded. GREGORY MORRIS wrote seven of the fifteen tracks and just his songs alone would have made a vastly different CD. His songs are guitar-based pop that are low in druidness (a good thing). "Jennifer The Renegade" is a nice, mandolin-led pop song. I would give his songs a positive review but they are surrounded by the presence of Mr. Saw, OWEN KNIGHT and hearing his songs ruins any momentum at all. My wife Fatima Al-Qahira liked the cover painting that OWEN KNIGHT did, I just wish that would have been the extent of his contribution.
(Vetco 5825 Vine St, Cincinnati OH 45216 USA) Faruq Al-Qahira

BLACKLIGHT BRAILLE BLACK MOON SELECTION CD
Eleven of the fifteen tracks of this CD can be heard on BLACKLIGHT BRAILLE's "Into the World..." and "Songs for the .." CDs. The four new ones on this CD are similar to those two releases. Faruq's question is: why put out a "new" CD with 73% recycled tracks on it? Faruq's answer: because OWEN KNIGHT is some kind of cult leader and is trying to get his new-age/druid/medieval/Hobbit message out to people who did not hear those two CDs. Stay away from OWEN "the Sawmaster" KNIGHT. Please.
(Vetco 5825 Vine St, Cincinnati OH 45216 USA) Faruq Al-Qahira

BLACKLIGHT BRAILLE CARBONEK CD
This CD starts off with hippie jam #infinity and OWEN "I play the saw and a shovel and do some shit poetry" KNIGHT spouts some of his new age/druid nonsense. Thank Allah this is the fifth of five CDs I have been cursed to review from this band (cult) out of somewhere in the midwest. The music is the same as the other BLACKLIGHT BRAILLE releases: wind chimes, recorders, various hippiey noodlings and improvised tracks played by fifteen members of the group (cult). The music is harmless enough on this CD despite the high percentage of medieval flavors that is heard. But I just do not like anything connected with OWEN "Pretty bird! Pretty bird!" KNIGHT. These people have musical talent, a studio to record in, money to put out endless amounts of CDs and they deliver a creation that is dated by hundreds of years, forced and pretentious at best. I feel bad for these people and I feel bad for myself for all these hours I have lost listening to the void of talent that is OWEN KNIGHT.
(Vetco 5825 Vine St, Cincinnati OH 45216 USA) Faruq Al-Qahira

BLACK MAYONNAISE COLLECTION 1992-1994
90 (!) minutes of de-tuned and distorted sludge. The effected drum machine gives the collection a mechanized feel, whereas the hypersluzz bass and octave-down harmonized vocals (with delay on 'em) make it kind of trippy. The opening cut "Untitled" and the "Canto" series all make me feel like I've been inhaling paint fumes too closely. "People Who Resemble Slugs" and "My Baby Left Me So I Fucked A Beer Can" go so far as to form near-tangible melodies, though nothing you could really sing along to. Without a harmonizer. The more musically "together" bits sound like GODFLESH leftovers, or SWANS demos from 1983 (assuming SWANS ever actually made demos). Over on Side B, "Demon Rap" actually sounds like something from a WORDSOUND compilation. Is that rap under all those effects? Sounds like "haw, bleah, haw, gurrgle haw haw bleahhh" or something. "untitled" (track two, side B) is a weird mix of synth samples and spoken bits put through the effects ringer. Blah blah blah and then MIKE DUNCAN (Mr Mayo hisself) covers "Then I Kissed Her," which was also covered by KISS on LOVE GUN. Aw yeah. See, he *does* know how to party! All the hypersluzz swazzle bleah comes together rather gloriously, I think. This collection is a Rorschach test for the ears! And guess what---I see sludge!
(370 Newton Circle #507, Akron OH 44305 USA) Ian "Hypersluzz" Stewart

BLINKING LIGHTS PULLY FUSSY
Musically this tape is pretty good, with sparse guitar and bass arrangements, and the occasional inexplicable burst of deafening feedback. Unfortunately, for some of the songs, the combination of a shy vocalist and a mediocre microphone makes the lyrics incomprehensible, which is a shame because the
songs are pretty good. "Scared 2 Dance" offers a catchy keyboard line over a drum machine, with barely audible lyrics about people who go to dance clubs and how they scare the vocalist. Without a doubt the best song on this tape is the abrasive "One Eyed Insurance," a bizarre (and fairly well articulated) blues tune which sounds like REDD FOXX on angel dust. "Bedtime Story" is a really good song, aside from the annoying bursts of dog-whistle-frequency feedback and the muddy vocals. "Lucifurr" has really good spoken-word lyrics about a demonic cat. This tape has some great material, but the poorly recorded vocals make it frustrating to listen to sometimes.
(Frazzled #6, 19 A Asticon Rd Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 USA) Ken B Miller

BODYCOCKTAIL INSCRUTABLE HAIR IN AN INSCRUTABLE WORLD CD
Bare & repetetive old school DIY industrial. Analogue synth + singing. The approach is very akin to NOMUZIC, although I doubt one influenced the other, or the other way around. All lyrics on this disc are lifted from the collected poems of WALLACE STEVENS. ZAN's label Zidsic or Zidslick, or Zudsuck or however he's gonna change it next, has a catalog of over 500 tapes (!!!) and is newly re-organized, and he's set a personal goal of getting at least 5 copies of each of his tapes out to someone ANYONE who'll take 'em. So, since you were going to pop one of your tapes in an envelope to trade anyway, why don't you make one out to this guy and help him out.
(Zan Hoffman PO Box 4730 Louisville KY 40204 USA) C Reider

ERIC BONNET LE POISON
And the bland plays on. Four tracks of vanilla, jingly little pop ditties which will appeal to all the closet CHICAGO fans among you. Eric's wisp of a voice trails along in French (and isn't even sexy, as most Frenchmen sound) and he has even got the cheek to use a BAUDELAIRE poem for lyrics (cue the old man himself spinning in his opium-soaked grave). There must be people out there who like this schlock (after all, DIRE STRAITS are millionaires...), but if there are, they surely don't read AUTO. At least the previous tape had a woman in bikini on the cover - this one's got a flower! Sorry ERIC, all the press cuttings in the world won't make me like this muzak.
(75 Rue Du Haut De La Marche, 57 385 Marange-Silvange, France) Paola Sorrentino

BRADLEY CAMPBELL 3
With a pretty lil picture of flowers on the cover comes a new splutter from JULIAN + NEIL, the latest positively possible drone kings of the UK. NEIL is ex-A BAND and has collaborated with RICHARD YOUNGS, TOTAL and their ilk. JULIAN is ex-NEGATIVE KITE and teaching us lesser sun deities how it should be. The tape consists of cutting-room floor spangles and titbits left over after they'd compiled their debut CD. Consequently, it's a pretty diverse affair, culled from bits of most of their sessions to date. On the whole, it's damn fine, my favourites being the pansy-type softer, shiny and tinkly numbers, but they're not averse to growl & burp tactics either, or occassional all-out noise. Strangely, for a drone tape, it doesn't seem to last very long, which can only be a good sign of thorough entertainment. Despite the up & down quality provided by the variety herein, it's a good one to come back to, there always being more you've not heard underpinning it all.
(Neil Campbell, 20 Highbury Place, Leeds, LS6 4PW, UK) Phil Smith

BROCA'S AREA TAEDIUM VITAE
Hey! Ambient, but good ambient. Not the usual amoeba-like shapeless wank of ambient-electronica tapes. BROCA'S AREA sound exactly like THE ORB, even better. Music for a bath? More like music for a Jacuzzi. Great production. Very cool. Shimmering. Someone should give them a contract (after all it's unfair that THE ORB have all the fame and money, when BROCA'S AREA are just as good). Meanwhile, it'll be great background music around here. If you like THE ORB and ORBITA and FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON, this is your tape.
(1819 N 5th St #G-116, Niles MI 49120 USA) Paola Sorrentino

RICHARD BROOKS VIOLIN ELECTRIC CD
If you can get past the cheesy electronic drum track on the first couple of compositions, you may find you like this disc. BROOKS is a very talented musician who unfortunately seems to subscribe to the popular theory that violins can't stand on their own and must have accompaniment. I am here to tell you that it this is simply not true! On the couple of tracks here that have minimal keyboards and are mostly violin, BROOKS' skill as a concert-level performer comes across wonderfully and makes those particular tracks the best of this CD.
(J-Bird Records http://www.j-birdrecords.com) Holly Day

BRUME + NOMUZIC TRANSPORTS CD
The chichi inner-booklet artwork (a RUSSELL MILLS rip-off) and the incredibly pretentious booklet notes (''recorded between autumn 1992 and spring 1993 through the primordial postal continuum....'') cannot hide the fact that this is just 67:22 of Then it becomes 67:22 minutes of little noises, little voices, little samplings, and generally little interest. In a word: comatose. (........this reviewer is however considering framing said little RUSSELL MILLS rip-off and hanging it on her wall next to her real RUSSELL MILLS).
(Cheeses Intl 783A Christchurch Road Bournemouth Dorset BH7 6AW UK) Paola Sorrentino

DANIEL BRUSASCHETTO BELLIES / PANCE CD
This full-length CD sounds the way it looks: black, ominous and elegant. It's a lot like early EINSTRUZENDE NEUBAUTEN - the kind of weird, unpredictable but-oddly-poetic art-noise delirium. Sulky DANIELE talks, whispers and screams his cryptic lyrics (i.e. does everything but properly sing them) in Italian and English, amidst all kinds of strange, gloomy noises and impressively sophisticated studio trickery. His past as a pseudo-Goth musician shows through in some of the gloomier tracks (the sulfurous and demon-evoking "Sint," the joyless "Sutures" and "Lamb"). "Structure" sounds like PRIMUS gone sour; "The Poet Bear" is a doleful litany. My favorite track is the first, "Puerile," which has the slightest hint of romanticism (he'll hate me for this) and sounds strangely moving but I don't know why. This is not a merry CD but you'll love it if you are not merry listeners. It grows on you like grass on the floor of an old, abandoned factory.
(HHETHH via Scotellaro 71, 10155 Torino Italy) Paola Sorrentino

WAYNE BUTANE PAY BEFORE YOU PUMP
This tape fucking rules! Actually, it more than rules it just completely rocked my entire existence. I loved it. I shall bow down and worship its all mighty coolness. In fact, I want to BE Wayne Butane...or at least hang out with him. Get the picture? "Pay Before Pumping" was just so damn righteous that I don't even feel worthy enough to justify its insanely rad creativity with my lame ass review. All I know is WAYNE BUTANE is my hero.
(Flaming Canine 603 N Orange St, Mesa AZ 85201-4807 USA) Chrissy Taylor

NEIL CAMPBELL
Smashing stuff, this. Some of the best I've heard by his majesty. The drone just don't stop on side one, which is constituted solely by one piece, "Boomerang Is Love", hanging there as serenely and motionless as NEIL always suggests he would like his music to. No stretching, no flexing, just sound draped over a long thin wire of dripping tap-like droplets. Marvelous. I like all NEIL's stuff, but this probably comes closest of all I've heard to what I expected and hoped for. Side two's "Asteroid Taproom" takes a little time to climb to its pinnacle, thru almost TANGERINE DREAMy blips and gliding keyboard tinkles, progressing chords, etc, but it has much the same complacent sound of "Boomerang Is Love". Quietness done right (a hard thing to do), especially as it unexpectedly dies away before the peak or drone can lock in properly. Just an interlude. I have to say that the tape is a little marred by the final track. It would be fine on most
CAMPBELL outings, but kicks in too loud here and insists on changing the mood, whilst of course keeping with drones. It seems as if the louder, more abrasive sound which NEIL has certainly perfected & made his own fills plenty of his tapes whilst we can't quite squeeze out of him a full tape of laidback poop. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it leaves the tape a little uneven. Nevertheless, top of its ilk, the tune hits a great level towards its end and bizarrely mixed in with my firealarm inexplicably going off the first time I heard it. Wrapped in spraypainted slippage & highly recommended, trade him some European deathmetal today.
(20 Highbury Place, Leeds, LS6 4PW, UK) Phil Smith

CANDI NOOK QUEEN OF THE SWIRLY-EYED ANT MONKEYS
Mrs EXPOSE YOUR EYES provides an hour of noise that unsurprisingly wouldn't sound out of place on an EXPOSE YOUR EYES tape....similar equipment and noises for sure, but I've no problem with that when its all pure quality. Best cut is clearly the one that sounds like no other: the final track on side one-- "I Want To Get Away", in which our heroine intones that and several other disturbing phrases, changing their speeds and suchlike to provide some pretty harrowing late night listening. Surely worth getting this for alone. The rest is purely topnotch noise jizz, which this tapelabel (Mr EXPOSE YOUR EYES' very own) is well-known for. Erm, buy one today.
(Fiend Tapes 19 Victor Road, Bradford, BD9 4QN UK) Phil Smith

EUGENE CHADBOURNE COUNTRY MUSIC OF SOUTHEASTERN AUSTRALIA CD
More weirdness from the guy who made it cool to use yard tools as musical instruments. COUNTRY MUSIC OF SOUTHEASTERN AUSTRALIA is presented as a travelogue of inner Australia, where
"thousands of musicians and nonmusicians are held prisoner in country and western music camps," complete with photographs of the prisoners, which are actually caged clown puppets with buck teeth and pointy hats. The music itself is trademark CHADBOURNE—strange, echoey, sitting-around-the-campfire-country with lots of reverb, hysterical giggling, random electric guiar riffs and animal sounds all mixed in together. I don't know if you can put a label on the music here, or really on the bulk of CHADBOURNE's work—he seems to draw from a million sources at once in his compositions, and the final product is
something entirely different from what he started with.
(Entropy Stereo Recordings PO Box 4412 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-4412 USA) Holly Day
http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~khoury/uprising.html/
khourymi@pilot.msu.edu

THE CHERRY ORCHARD THE START OF OUR AFFAIR CD
Lemony fresh! THIS is what volume knobs were invented for. This is the ultimate BACHARACHian pop album. Mix in a sunny afternoon and you've got yourself one hell of a combination. Thankfully THE CHERRY ORCHARD is not named after the CELTIC FROST song that spawned a generation of attemtped suicides. The songwriting rules, it's catchy as hell, the production rules and the performances kick every part of the anatomy! I do believe we have a weiner here, folks. "That Summer Feeling" opens with an uncharacteristic droney guitar chord, which is soon joined by a xylo-melody and the happiest fucking tune you're likely to hear all summer. Reminds me of THE FARM in that the verses are generally kinda okay, not bad, sort of mild, but the choruses are absurdly great. And the singer also kinda sounds like the guy from THE FARM a little. "Mmm Delicious" is a brilliantly loungey love song that makes the best use of programmed rhythms this side of MAGNETIC FIELDS! Co-ed vocals on the chorus... aw yeah. And on it goes. Judicious use of the xylophone and tambourine and acoustic guitar...choruses that are not a lifetime removed from LORD BURT BACHARACH. It never stops, this fucking album. Just when you think it sounds as summery and sunshiney as it possibly can (as on "Listening To Nancy,"), the chorus saunters in WITH A HORN SECTION!!! You have got to be fucking kidding! The best horn section since WINGS! Words don't exist to describe the giddy brilliance of THE CHERRY ORCHARD, one is reduced to screeching and giggling and jumping around. Work this into the rotation next time you do a DJ set in your living room--plop it in between BURT, THE VENTURES, TIJUANA BRASS and no one will bat an eye. Everyone else can go home now, we've got THE ALBUM OF THE YEAR here. Easily.
(Cavalcade 45 av Charles de Gaulle, 33520 Bruges, France) Ian C Stewart

KEN CLINGER K COLLAB.10 / K COLLAB .11
I think I am either going to puke or put a shotgun to my head if I have to listen to one more drawn out instrumental on this tape. I don't get it at all. Most of it sounded like a broken jack-in-the-box. It also reminded me of the background music they use for those cheesed out educational movies you'd get stuck watching in school. Oh yeah, about that MONKEES "Daydream Believer" cover: Never liked the MONKEES much before. I HATE them now. I tried. I really, really tried. I was hoping that KCOLLAB.11 would be better or at least improve but I was SO wrong. I didn't think it could get much worse but it does. My skin is crawling, my head hurts and I think I am infertile now from the torture I endured by this "collaboration." Someone really needs to tell these people to put the Casios down and just walk away. Time to surrender the fantasy of being a musician here guys, this stuff blows.
(Bovine Productions 311 Stratford Ave #2, Pittsburgh PA 15232-1108 USA) Chrissy Taylor

COCK ESP MENASHA RED LIGHT DISTRICT
I'm not saying this to be funny, but I think I just shit myself. The howling, growling feedback rolls of "Veruca Salt Lick" did me in, after I toughed it out for the previous four and one half tracks. "Pain And Humiliation" features bits of a radio interview with the COCK suckers where they describe the Noise Audience: "Anybody that says they can listen to noise all day, and all they listen to is harsh noise...either there's something wrong with them or they're not telling the truth," and later "A lot of people who get into noise are total losers...they have too much time on their hands." Hmmmmmmm. It's difficult to not have a sense of humor about a group that calls itself COCK ESP and has "songs" with names like "Smells Like Teen Quim" and "Pornography Makes Life Worth Living," which feature no end of screeching feedback and nothing even remotely like music. You can practically hear the audience's eyes glazing over on the live tracks, before they erupt into a confused smattering of applause and people yelling "break more equipment!" And then they rag on their audience for being losers, which will probably never offend them to the degree that it should. There you have it: a searing indictment of Noise fans inbetween a bunch of Noise tracks. My chair never knew what hit it.
(Sunship PO Box 580218, Minneapolis MN 55458.0218 USA) Ian C Stewart
http://home.earthlink.net/~humiliation/cockindex.html

CYSTEM A SEVERED HEAD (SINGLE)
"Jesus Christ, there's a severed head on the TV!" It's about fucking time somebody in this "vast" "network" started putting out some serious-ass techno! Hell Yeah! CYSTEM may or may not be a side project of one of this country's best-kept underground-electronica secrets. This single is carried by an undercurrent of crunchy guitar, the likes of which we've not heard in a while. Mostly it's the bouncy techno bass sound that gets my testes in a twist though, and the frenetic (and crystal-clear!) beat clips along nicely. Fans of more recent SKINNY PUPPY side projects might be interested, as will most of the electronica crowd (whoever that might be). Blip bomb bump thump. Sweeter than Dr Pepper for breakfast!!!
(1819 N 5th St #G-116, Niles MI 49120 USA) Ian C Stewart

DARLENE "D" SAFARI HUNTER CD
Ooo, this was painful. It's like being sucked back in time to the early Madonna days, when cheesy synthesizers powered by ponytailed girls with big hoop earrings and spandex outfits were a staple in the corporate music world. God, the flashbacks to being fourteen and having to aerobicize to this kind of music in gym! Press-on nails! Big hair! Augh!
(J-Bird Records Wilton CT) Holly Day
http://www.j-birdrecords.com

DAS FROHLICHE WOHNZIMMER EVERYDAY LIFE
From the beautiful town of Vienna comes a very weird tape (it's probably all that Sachertorte...). This is actually an anthology of the band from 1986 to 1996. Weird. Much use and abuse of classical instruments. The tracks (I couldn't call them songs...) with a male voice sound like early, deranged EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN. Those with female vocals are RASPUTINA on acid, if you can imagine that. Best song title: "I've Got A Longing For Lechery." What a strange party goes on in The Happy Living Room - and I'm not sure I want to be invited.
(Fuhrmannsgasse 1A/7, 1080 Wien, Austria) Paola Sorrentino

DEAD INFECTION HUMAN SLAUGHTER...TILL REMAINS CD
Straight-ahead grindcore with gore lyrics. Since these tracks date back to 1991 and 1992, I'll cut them a whole lot of slack. For the time, they were very good, incorporating grind elements into their heavy riffing. The vomit-laced vocals are audible but you can't make out any words. The explicit/graphic/icky CD cover art (dissected humans, body parts, and those hockey-player haircuts!) and titles like "Tribe Of The Glutinous Tissue," "In The Name Of Gore" and "Peritonitis" indicate an early obsession with CARCASS! The recording job isn't terribly engaging and after two songs I was ready to hit eject and play DUKE NUKEM. "A Wild Stench"! "Let Me Vomit"! Good titles anyway. Damn that cover art! I just ate dinner, damn it! Those haircuts nearly ruined my evening!
(Morbid Records Postfach 3, 03114 Drebkau Germany) Ian C Stewart
http://www.morbidrecords.de/

DEAD VOICES ON AIR ABRADER
Appropriate title. Abrasive, rolling loops of dense racket. Sound like having your head chewed off by an industrial scrap mincer over and over again for an hour while enormous flocks of birds tear each other to shreds over your remains.
(G.R.O.S.S. c/o Akifumi Nakajima 412 Higashinekoujicho Sanjo-Agaru, Furukawacho Higashiyama-Ku, Kyoto 605 Japan) C Reider

DEATH PENALTY BITTER CD
Flatly recorded BIOHAZARD/slow PANTERA style grunt-metal. The jk-jk-jk-jk guitars are prominent in the mix, along with the vocals which sound like a cross between CROWBAR and, again, PANTERA. Overall the production is decent, except for the bass which sounds like it missed the EQ boat and got left on the shore. The band is tight and the songwriting ain't bad, but I bet anything at least one of the guys in this band has a tattoo across his stomach that says "not confined" or "not infested" or some shit.
(Wild Rags 2207 W Whittier Blvd, PO Box 3302 Montbello CA 90640-8602 USA) Ian C Stewart

DEATHSQUAD DEMO 97
This here tape is Exhibit A on why Rule #1 of review-writing in AUTO is "disregard the cover." No matter what it looks like, it never ever accurately represents the sounds therein. Case in point---the rather plain anti-cover of DEATHSQUAD's tape which features two rather generic "goopy" fonts that spell out "DEATHSQUAD DEMO 97." Then when you see songtitles like "The House Where Evil Dwells," the deck is already stacked against these guys before they even get to burp out one chord. The simple fact remains that the blandly-named DEATHSQUAD rocks like a housefull of bitches. On the previously-mentioned "The House Where Evil Dwells," the tempos are slow and the vocals are growled rather than crooned, placing the song squarely in the middle of the Double Ds (Death and Doom, remember?). However, the next track "Terminal Takeover" chucks that shit right out the window and a major-league thrash tempo is explored with some technical-ass old school riffing. The harmonizer on the guy's vocals makes it sound like he has one of those tracheotomy box things in his throat. I like the ping-high snare sound too. Holy "Traiskaidekaphobia"! Talk about a vast riff! This track forces me to play air-guitar and whip my air-hair around in the air-air. Crushing. "DS" thrashes like crazy in spots, then slows down.. this is some deathly shit! Lesson to all: fuck the cover, it's the insides that count.
(290 Collins Ave #3B, Mt Vernon NY 10552 USA) Ian C Stewart

DEVILYN ANGER CD
Well recorded, well played but slightly generic thrash/grind. DEVILYN is very technically proficient but song titles like "Black Mask Of Death" and "The Burial Ground Of God" pretty much tell the whole story. The bass player slaps and plucks strings now and then, but that's as near as they come to innovation. I hate to say "been there done that," but, uh...
(Listenable 554 Warburton Ave, Yonkers NY 10701 USA) Ian C Stewart

THE DIVINER IMPOSTER VAGRANTS
Teenage angst is the theme of this concept tape, and it reveals the artist as quite a talent. With a few exceptions, the whole thing was recorded with a low-budget Yamaha organ, complete with the cheesy pre-programmed drum sounds. Most people would attempt to disguise this awkward instrument, but this tape revels in it, using the bouncy sound as a brilliant counterpoint to the melancholy lyrics. Half of the songs are short instrumentals, and the other half have well-written and painfully self-conscious vocals about unrequited love (There's extensive notes which explain the plot of the tape as it unfolds so you always know what's going on). "Ant Swanson" is a great acoustic guitar song with intelligent lyrics, and "Boys too Good For Me" draws upon PEANUTS (the comic strip) for literary analogies. "The Abstinent Swing" is a jazzy tune about love vs. sex that's only vocals and a cheesy hi-hat beat. "Dying Alone" is a funny song about love vs. dying alone. "Down in the Valley" is a catchy rap song mocking the valley girl stereotype. The last part of the tape is a collection of "Divine Imposture samples" which are actually covers of various songs. This tape has a unique sound, and great lyrics that make it worth a listen.
(Divine Imposture, Michelle Cross 920 Pine St, Lamloops BC V2C 3A2 Canada) Ken Miller

DREAM GLOP
DAVE FUGLEWICZ tries again with eight exercises in ambient-electronica. Well done (though some sound effects I clearly remember from my DURAN DURAN days, and this is NOT a compliment for ANY musician), but not really immensely interesting. The sound of the rave parties thrown by the fish in your aquarium, while you're sleeping.
(360 Sheringham Ct Roswell, GA 30076 USA) Paola Sorrentino
e-mail davefugle@mindspring.com

DREAM INTO DUST NO MAN'S LAND CD
nine inch nails wannabe? tortured poet?

nevertheless, i like this. perhaps it's the rain. or the "do not
disturb" sign tacked so painfully on richard's door. perhaps life
really is like a marilyn manson video.
the beginning of gas mask culture.
the end of happy springtime days.
vague sounds, orchestra, a buddy holly cricket here or there, nuclear
sunrise in the background.
trent reznor, eat your pig's heart out.
apocalyptic tarot card (nails screeching across a chalkboard).

i think i'm going to be sick.
(Chthonic Streams PO BOX 7003 NY NY 10116-7003 USA) Windi

DREKKA WINDOWFRAME EP / EQUAS
You wait a moment, and across the street is the factory noise. Things get so confused, and simplicity is really hectic, and you aren't sure which hand is which. Somewhere a bird is singing, and a neighbor is trying to play the piano. There's a song stuck in your head, and your brain sounds like a machine. When you think about it, you may be talking to yourself, or you may not be talking at all. And you feel like you're repeating yourself, but it feels better each time. And you feel like you're repeating yourself, but no one minds. You wait a moment, and there's a little boy with a runny nose on the front steps; lost, lonely, and scared, playing with matches. Not everything is explanatory. A boy with his thoughts and some noise, and these are the things that stop people being separated from each other. Things get so complicated. I think the important thing is to use your discretion.
(BlueSanct Musak 4345 N Hermitage #1, Chicago, IL 60613 USA) Lynn M.

EEL O OUTTA SPACE
Well, to start, this is a nice tape to look at. Full color sleeve and full color printed tape labels.
Electronica sampling stuff. He uses a sawtar and theremin among other things. Other than some of the
content of some samples (i.e. "Ganja Ganja" etc) this was really enjoyable. Wonder how/if they play
live.
(ECTO TAPES 5912 NW 62 Terr, OKC OK 73122 USA) Chris Gregory

ELECTRONIC SKUNK FIRE
Exercises in drum machine and computer programming, varying from 1:44 to 8:10. Unfortunately, the rhythms, although well-executed and malevolent enough, never seem to go anywhere and never build up a real groove. Sort of a very watered-down Big Beat. The Chemical Second Cousins? A case of too much skunk and not enough fire. DAVE, listen to APHEX TWIN and then try again.
(Dave Fuglewicz, 360 Sheringham Ct, Roswell GA 30076 USA) Paola Sorrentino
e-mail davefugle@mindspring.com

ELTRO INFORMATION CHANGER CD
Brilliant ambient pop with co-ed vocals. "Storm Cloud Of The Century" has some delayed synth action and steady drum programming. Digital-delayed guitar arpeggiation too. The girlsinger's voice is perfectly suited for this post-STEREOLAB stuff. "Grand Canyon" has invisible hooks---you can't see 'em, but I guarantee they'll be stuck in your head. You'll be reaching for your shampoo in the morning and you'll find yourself humming "grand can-yeh-hen" and you'll say "damn it all, Ian is right again." And don't make me fucking say SEEFEEL again, okay? Because I'm apparently the only one who remembers them. Apart, perhaps, from ELTRO, who appreciate repetition almost as much as the blissed-out masters of the genre. The (relatively) uptempo "Elements Of Style" has the smoothest groove yet, and the girlyvox were run through a phaser! Howly wowly! "To The Side" adds live drums (sounds like the mics were all intentionally pointed at the ride cymbal, which is interesting). Again, you won't think of it as being "catchy" the first time you hear it, but it is. Trust the Big Daddy on this one. "Orangina" adds phonebox-boyvocals to the mix and instrumentally speaking, sounds like a ROBIN GUTHRIE guest spot on a late-period RIDE track. This is known in AUTOreverse as A VERY GOOD THING. "I Begin To Believe" is 13:59 of reverby 4AD rock, which makes my bits go all twiddly. This is the CD you put in the shuffle between SLOWDIVE and old COCTEAU TWINS fer gettin' it on... I thought I saw this record on MTV's "Week In Rock" new release blurb, which caused me great disappointment because then I wouldn't have been able to write about it in SNOTTOreserve. But I was wrong, it was a different record. Sorry, ELTRO, you're still all mine. All the time.
(Miner Street 232 Krams Ave, Philadelphia PA 19127 USA) Ian "The Bliss-ster" Stewart

DAVID EMMETS DOES THE WORD LOVE MEAN FOREVER CD
Okay, when I read the title (and saw the cover photo) I cringed, but it isn't nearly as dreadful as I feared. The music often reminds me of 80's Europop (one song even ends with the line "Brian Eno, you're like a god to me"), with a slightly snotty vocal delivery. Nothing particularly ground breaking, but some of the tunes are kinda catchy. The real problem is that 20 songs is too much, here, and there are a few plodding clinkers that just drain the momentum out of the album as a whole. A passable pop album if you edit it with your CD player.
(PO Box 178 Ridgefield Park NJ 07660 USA) Colin Wales
demmets@hotmail com

THE ERRATICS CD
This band is fronted by another one of those guys that used to really piss my father and his musician friends off--fresh-faced, young, with a voice that sounds as gritty and weathered as the hardest-living blues player out there. The band's pretty cool too, flowing seamlessly from reggae to punk to country-rock. The lyrics are strange--lots of stuff about religion and pain and being crazy (not in the fun-fun-silly-willy sense, either), musical poetry about lovers exchanging grains of sand to remember each other by and drifters with Christ complexes.
(Touchwood Records LLC, 1650 Broadway #1210 New York NY 10019 USA) Holly Day

ESP ALLSTARS TINY LIGHTS CD
You should see their pic: four oh-so-nice guys, exactly the kind that Mom wants you to marry (if you're a girlie) or Mom wants you to become (if you're a little boy). And they make, of course, oh-so-nice music. Five oh-so-nice guitar-pop songs, the first of which I can't really appreciate because it has EXACTLY the same tune of fUCKINGg ELTON JOHN's ''Rocket Man'' (urgh). I can't say anything bad about this CD. Still, I can't say anything incredibly good about it either. But they will forgive me because they are oh-so-nice.
(1326 Lakecrest Drive Norman OK 73071 USA) Paola Sorrentino
http://www.espallstars.com/
e115@webtv.net

ESQUAY KOKO TUCKS YOU IN
Frazzled Records wins the award for the coolest name for a bedroom 'studio'... Check it out, it's called The Rug Is Brown. Genius. This came with a comic book to accompany the two bedtime stories... unfortunately, I lost mine. So I'll just lie back and imagine. Cousin Billy couldn't take it anymore. The hustle and the bustle and the t-train squeal.... the city was too much! Goes to the woods... happy! Sun goes away... 'to do what it should'. 'All things end, my friend, good-bye.' said the sun, much as Billy pleaded. THE END. The singing hammer coerced Nathan that he could save the village... if only he...I fall asleep... Esquay Koko tucks me in, but it is strange echoed dreams that receive me, the drums of the apocalypse beat out their ending march as Cthulu laughs soundlessly... the Fenris Wolf devours the sun...RAGNAROK has come. THE END
(Frazzled 19a Asticou Road, Jamaica Plain MA 02130) Michael Anderson

EXPOSE YOUR EYES / SON OF TILLEN'S AND QUAIL ON THE WHEY / WAIL ON THE KEY
EXPOSE YOUR EYES and SON OF TILLEN'S AND appear to be two "bands" sharing some common members. QUAIL ON THE WAY was recorded as a mail art piece for an environmental exhibition. It is a jarring collage of various bits of looped vocal material, long sections of droning noises, some bass and analog synthesizer and a number of concrete recordings treated with sound
effects. WAIL ON THE KEY contains many of the same sound sources found in QUAIL but follows a more rhythmic course. Both pieces are aggressively noisy but flow well and avoid miring themselves in cacophonic monotony. A frightening environmental gist is expressed throughout; the repeated quotation "hundreds of people dying each day" serves as the tape's dark coda.
(Paul Harrison Flat 3, 19 Victor Road, Bradford BD9 4QN UK) Swami Loopynanda

EXPOSE YOUR EYES SCRAPBOOK OF CRAP
EYE triumph again, in much the same way as you'd expect by now....except not entirely. The pace is more relaxed than often, the noise more often than not laying off to allow extensive plinking & plonking (beginning of Side A) or pissing sounds + distorted TV voices (side B). There's an odd bit sounding like a muffled poetry reading on Side A as well (wonder where that came from?!), plus the usual EYE quota of brief voice samples usually used to launch off into noise blart or nattering repetitions (the "moist vagina" interlude is my favourite here). The bits that are full-on noise are much the cranking & rumbling you'd expect from EYE, but hell, thats what you came here for. Still one of the UK's best, & this scrapbook serves as a nice barrel-scraper before we launch into a new wave of proto-dance-noise EYE material, now spluttering your way on lathe-cut records.
(Kylie 22 Ellenborough Place, London SW15 5LZ UK) Phil Smith

FARCES WANNA MO UNROYAL NONAGONS
DEVO has been resurrected and they live in Cincinnati and eat Gold Star Chili! These guys should be on the Chamber of Commerce for Porkopolis AKA Cincinnati, they must've gotten a kick back from every place they sang about Or they're just really bored...driving around writing songs. Having lived in Cincinnati for years years in another life, I know where all the stuff they sang about is so it's kinda cool... but not really. The song "Shampoo-Rinse-Repeat" is somewhat on the edge, raow raow raow, yes raow raow raow. I can handle that but what is a "Tuckleberry Bear"? This is one of those tapes that helps to define what has gone wrong with the education of our youth... Wow, grind that axe, little man. If you have tons of free time and want to sit around your house all day and want something to be mad about and are easily influenced by others then track this one down. No credits were given on the case, so no names can be given shameless "credit" for this one.
(3230 Bishop Street Cincinnati OH 45220 USA) Howard Cowell
meldave@travelin.com

FAUTE DE MIEUX comp
Well, for a start, all of this noise/improv comp sounds pretty much the same. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, and I'm sure better ears could discern cavernous differences between the acts, but that's the way it seems. Even the legendary COCK-ESP's usual Aural Assault (TM) seems to have become a tamed, noodly (or in this case ham-fisted!) bit of improv. This similarity of material could either serve to irritate or just keep the quality levels high. I reckon it does the latter. However, this is hardly a tape that you would be likely to play day in, day out. I guess it merely does best what any local sampler does: illustrate the day-to-day arsing about of a small group of local types doing what they do best, under a variety of seemingly interchangeable band names. EMIL will kill me for that! In terms of feasible highlights, the NEGATIVE EMBRYO tune brings in the outside assistance of the UK's NEIL CAMPBELL & JOHN & GRETCHEN from American Tapes. MATTHEW ST GERMAIN is shipped in for NEW PORT's number and it's good to hear REXOR at last, but I kinda wish there was something a bit more surprising on here, like maybe a STEWART WALDEN song or some COCK-ESP-associated sleazy listening muzak. Just summat to break up the plinking, twanging, droning & falling apart. Nevertheless, very reliable stuff.
(EF Tapes, PO Box 580218 Minneapolis MN 55458-0218 USA) Phil Smith
http://freenoise.simplenet.com

KEVIN FERGUSON STRAD TO STRAT CD
KEVIN FERGUSON is a very busy man. You can tell he is by the inside jacket photo of him talking on a telephone, a concerned, important-person look on his face. He also must have pure caffeine running through his veins to be able to play the music on this disc—on a '74 Stratocaster and a cheesy synthesizer, he manages to match RIMSKY-KORSAKOV's "Flight of the Bumblee" and WIENIAWSKI's "Caprice in A Minor," note for note, for speed. Very much like the stuff in "A Clockwork Orange," including the quality of the 1980's recording technology available during the time the movie came out. In fact, the only real flaw in this disc is the flat quality of the recording, which, according to the liner notes, is meant to convey the feel of a true live performance by the artist, but really just comes off as flat and doesn't do justice to the obvious skill involved in the performance.
(DeBone Music PO Box 1646 Beaverton OR 97005 USA) Holly Day

FIFTEEN MINUTES WITH YOU comp
For starters, SATYRIASIS rolls by like a wasted afternoon trapped in a dorm room with CALVIN JOHNSON and his guitar. And what's up with that annoying girl rampling on about snacks? CECIL SURREAL travels along similar bedroom veins and almost glides into indie-rock territory with "Black Forest," but doesn't quite lift off. SYNTHESIZED LIVESTOCK is a nice jolly romp down the autobahn of New Romantic yesteryear, recalling pastures of JOHN FOXX, KRAFTWERK and other analogue-friendly faves. No fair. But understandably, JARBABY wins his fifteen minutes of fame here, with gut-wrenchingly honest acoustic psychosis. Within the first few strains of "Why do I even bother?" and the JAD FAIRish pop of "I Like You Dammit!" I was hooked. Worth checking out more from this lad.
(Right On! 710 W Orlando #3A, Normal IL 61761-1158 USA) D Blood

DAVE FISCHOFF
Very emotive ambience wrap melancholic vocal/guitar songs... long phrasing and lazy word enunciation is very powerfully set against the changing tempos and melodic tension of the guitar... reminds me at times
of Nico's best stuff, though his voice is a bit higher. Hard to tell where (if?) songs stop/start... the result is a continuity which is very cinematic... claustrophobic static shots of bedroom disparity and parkland (parking lot?) strolls... lots of colour and slow motion thought sequences... like one night's sleeping split
into six distinct, yet unified, thought sequences merging the now/ the then/ the soon... a moment of clarity buckles under panic-filled utter confusion and bewilderment... and then it's morning. I awake and find it vitally important to call you and tell you something, but get sidetracked crossing the room... out the window a little girl is singing a song she heard on the radio in the grocery store; she doesn't know any of the words, but can hum the chorus a bit and just makes up the rest.
(Secretly Canadian Records, 1703 North Maple Street, Bloomington, IN 47404 USA) Michael Anderson

FLAG FEST comp
A bunch of kids having contagious fun in the Cunningham Lakehouse in Huntsville, Texas on Flag Day, 1997. This is far and away my favorite of the tapes Ian sent me for review recently. MICHELLE GLAW's "Disease," Fist Song" and "I'm Gonna Live" provide the high points: she's got a great voice and a soulful style. The rest of the album tends to the frivolous. ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT provides some fastfastfast garageband sounds; BOXBOY has an appealing sort of NEIL YOUNGish quality. ED GRAY doesn't always hit all the notes he tries for on "Small Consolations," but it's okay otherwise. I could do without the jokes; "Impatient Cow'' and "Tickle Me Elmo'' are at least over quickly, but "Panda Bear'' is long enough to deter repeated listening. Even more annoying is the ghastly tuneless shrieking instrumental that precedes "Elmo'' and the busy signal at the end in particular -- a sound designed by experts to be annoying. Jesus Limping Christ, folks: give us a break.
(PO Box 8253 The Woodlands TX 77387 USA) Indy Ana Jones

BILL FOREMAN THE BATHROOM MIRROR CD-R
Thirty seconds into this album I knew I was listening to the work of a genius. Most of the album sounds like it was recorded with one microphone, but it doesn't matter. No amount of studio wizardry could ever equal the heart and soul MR FOREMAN possesses au natural. Quite simply put, BILL FOREMAN is everything music should be. Sure, his voice wavers in and out of tune. Sure, his guitar stutters outside of any known time signature. It doesn't matter. FOREMAN turns his eccentricities into strengths. 10 of the 11 songs are simple guitar and voice arrangements. On the first song, "You," FOREMAN sings cryptic lyrics in a sort of BOWIE croak over a strangely intoxicating guitar drone. BOB DYLAN's shadow hangs over most of the proceedings, But FOREMAN is an innovator, not an imitator. True, he covers the traditional folk song "Delia" which many of us heard for the first time on DYLAN's WORLD GONE WRONG, but FOREMAN makes the song his own to such an extent that after hearing his interpretation, one can't imagine anyone else singing it. On "Delia," the guitar crawls along at a snail's pace while the vocals invoke a feeling that goes beyond heartbreak. The CD also contains an admirable cover of RICHARD THOMPSON's "Beat the Retreat," but it is the originals that really stand out here. The lyrics deal with a myriad of emotions: desperation, loneliness, madness, and love. Although this terrain has been mined before, FOREMAN puts a unique spin on things with his subversive sense of humor. Indeed, the listener is introduced to so many unorthodox characters and odd situations that by the time FOREMAN sings, in the title track, "You're still a part of me / you left your beating heart in me," one is tempted to take those lyrics literally. (this reviewer was reminded of the movie ANGEL HEART in which the main character, in an effort to extend the lifetime of his soul, eats the still beating heart of a young soldier! FOREMAN is, no doubt, speaking metaphorically about lost love, but the listener may be so unnerved by this point that such images begin to spring to mind.) "Where The Wind Blows" is another interesting song. The subject is, once again, a love that has gone cold, but the lyrics end abruptly with no real sense of resolution. This makes the song chillingly lifelike. In real life, things seldom end in a neat and tidy fashion, and BILL FOREMAN instinctively understands this. I would not be surprised to find out that he has read a fair share of RAYMOND CARVER. These songs remind me of CARVER's well-crafted, often open-ended short stories. To give some other musical reference points, I will say I am hearing touches of TOM WAITS, LEONARD COHEN, and even SYD BARRETT on this CD. The album ends with the experimental "Flute Tune," which, interestingly enough, is both the only instrumental on the CD and the only song to utilize multi-track recording. FOREMAN plays a heavily-reverbed flute along with a minimalist guitar accompaniment. The notes float around the room like ghosts and then evaporate, and the effect is haunting. If this is any indication of things to come, then I eagerly await FOREMAN's next release, which promises to take FOREMAN's talents in new, experimental directions. At any rate, "The Bathroom Mirror" is a classic, not only within the singer/songwriter genre, but within all genres.
(600 Central Ave #297 Riverside CA 92507 USA) Robert Lurie
https://members.tripod.com/~GeneralLudd/

FLOUNDER BAD POET 1996-1997
What the hell is this? OK, I understand that this is all do-it-yourself so quality is not a big issue but being in tune is! One of the songs sounds remotely like an old 70's psychedelic tune from a band long since committed to their local drug rehab program--but...Hey! We need to be able to hear it so we can review it! I think the same riff was in almost every song! That one riff sounded decent but does it need to be in every song!?! What's the deal with the home organ from Sears holding the final note like it's broke!?!? Valiant effort guys, but the only highlight of the whole project is the very attractive young vixen on the cover, she is well worth the effort to track this one down!
(Old Gold Commiseration PO Box 8776 Atlanta GA 31106 USA) Howard Cowell

FOUR / THE EIGHT BUCKS BLOOD, SWEAT & BEERS split 7"
Up up uptempo punk pop action. Shouted verses, sung choruses. FOUR drips spunk on "La-Mar," which has a snotty old spiteful lyric. "United Pansies" is fast but "Poop Boots" is faster, and has a "whoa oh oh" chorus. It's fast. And it's punk. Pass the Geritol. As for THE EIGHT BUCKS..."Red Line" at least has a decent groove to it. And some fine drum set action. Apparently this band is named for how much it spent in the recording studio for this record. Not a bad thing, mind you, because all the elements are present. Just sounds like it was mastered from a flexi disc or something. The music? Oh yeah. "Train Wreck" is straightforward thrash until the chorus, which is something like a mosh part. The bits where the guitars drop out are my favorites. This record (hell, the whole BLUE MOON label) is punkpop as fuck!
(Blue Moon 2075 S University Blvd #264, Denver CO 80210 USA) Ian C Stewart

FOUR EYES FOUR EYES CD
KIM ROHRBACH returns with a full band. "The Owl Of Minerva" (hey, I used to live near Minerva Park in Columbus!) opens the album with a slow, loping, proto-dirge feel. The guitar line is like THE CURE's "Killing An Arab." ROHRBACH's meandering vocals are mixed to prominence. "Lighthouse Tune" opens like an accordion-driven sea shanty or something, but the chorus almost rocks! Almost. And "rock" is a relative term here. "The Reasons Of The Heart" comes on like a big bright pop hit. The vocals sound like (and I know I'm going to some form of hell for saying this) LISA LOEB a bit---wordy, wandering. Too wordy, I'm afraid, it sounds like she's reading down a shopping list here. The tune is nice and the playing is very fine. She's gotten herself a very good band (RED HOUSE PAINTERS drummer ANTHONY KOUTSOS is again onboard), and the recording is very good, except for the vocals being about fifty times louder than everything else! Second stage LILLITH FAIR stuff in many cases. Get KIM ROHRBACH a producer and I think we're on the right track.
(Hairy Records PO Box 170301 SF CA 94117 USA) Ian C Stewart

THE FRESHMAKERS LIKE HELL
With that name, THE FRESHMAKERS can pretty much write their own ticket as far as I'm concerned. Nice one. LIKE HELL is a pro-recorded collection of six songs which remind me of BUSH, GREEN DAY, NIRVANA and FOO FIGHTERS to varying degrees, especially in the vocals. These songs wouldn't be out of place on any modern rock radio stations in the country right now, with the notable exception of the tragic "Moonlight 35," which is the only track on the tape I couldn't even listen to once all the way through. It's just those icky vocals, and the sappy-ass guitar lines. Yecch. I hate to piss on anyone's big moment or anything, but DAMN. The other 5 tracks on LIKE HELL are textbook 1998 alternative rock. For better or worse. Great production, good songwriting, good playing.
(Stupid Gaijin 2303 Albans St, Houston TX 77055 USA) Ian C Stewart
http://www.ghg.net/gaijin/
gaijin@ghg.net

FUGITIVE KIND GLORY ROAD CD
What role does traditional music play in a society characterized by innovation? This is the central question of FUGITIVE KIND's GLORY ROAD. The songs, uniformly original by guitarist/singers EDDIE BOSTER, JAMES KAMP and NATHAN STAMMEYER, are populated by images drawn from American folk. The title track evokes an endless highway."Train Song," the album's uptempo beginning, concerns a train, as did so many JIMMIE RODGERS (who of course wrestled with tradition is his own way) numbers. It is clear, however, that we are not listening to traditional music--or at least the music we remember today as traditional (e.g.THE HARRY SMITH ANTHOLOGY). FUGITIVE KIND is a band in the rock 'n' roll sense. We have electric guitars and drum kits. The instrumentation is merely a cosmetic question when considering the relation of today's music with that of the past. More critical is the sound, in an almost abstract sense. GLORY ROAD sounds modern. It is well-produced, quite well, but it is produced. The instruments are balanced, but balanced because of a mixing board, not the sensitivity of musicians in a room together adjusting themselves to fit with their fellows (think the ELLINGTON orchestra of 1940). Nothing wrong, of course, with modern recording techniques. We must remember, however, that modern techniques are not the only ones available to a musician, and that while they have benefits (clarity of sound, the ability to post-produce), modern techniques have their drawbacks. Most importantly, the isolation of each microphone demanded by engineers disrupts the community of sound. How to put it plainly? There is an old picture on the cover of the disc, 1920's or '30's to my eyes: a group of people, men, women, seated and standing, crown around three kegs--barrels to be exact. Some hold their instruments, guitars and fiddles, as if playing them for the camera (and of course, all portaits in those days were poses). Next to the fiddle player, seated next to the keg, is a man with a beer in one hand and a pistol in the other. Behind him are men with rifles. If a Lomax stuck a microphone in front of these people and they recorded GLORY ROAD, we would have a thoroughly dangerous album.
(Faye Records [708] 332-1767) Bill Foreman

DAVE FUGLEWICZ ORANGE MIST SUNRISE + ORANGE MIST SUNSET
This is an ambient two-tape set which features nearly 2 hours of sonic textures and "sound sculptures" created by processing synthesized melodies through layers of effects. After the opening title track, "Orange Mist Sunrise" which features some amazingly processed guitar sounds along with frantic synth drums, the sound mellows into beautiful shifting, shimmering walls of sound. Simple melodies are looped over and over with echo and flange effects. Waves of sound rise and fall. Be warned, though- if you're not into ambient (some would say "new age") music, you may find it kind of boring. Imagine a cross between JEAN-MICHAEL JARRE (without the classical training) and THROBBING GRISTLE (without vocals). The high point of the set for me is the epic length "Dancing Bear" which is completely built on a simple stereo rhythm effect and a digital delay melody. It's not really music, but the sounds are entrancing.
(360 Sheringham Ct, Roswell GA 30076 USA) Ken Miller

FUSCILIAGE PHYSICAL PLANTING
IAN reviewed this tape in AUTO5, but, to me, he appeared to dismiss it. I quite enjoyed this tape's unassuming songs. "Guitar and girlie singing" sez IAN, then he says the singing is out of tune... compared to what??? The out of tune guitar? What kind of asshole is this IAN C STEWART anyway? K10 JOY's charming, cool, breathy voice ambles in a spaced-out, disconnected, unapproachable dream-girly way: like the skater girl in high school who was so zoned out in her own world that she never had a clue you had such a chubby for her. Simple, honest and melancholy music with the highlights being "Shy Away" and "Wider Sky." My girlfriend caerie sez it sounds like WEEN + SUZANNE VEGA. I'd like to hear them with a full-on band (I guess that means with an out of tune guitar and some out of tune drums, maybe with an out of tune flute if possible), but I'd also pay to see 'em live in a coffeeshop somewheres.
(Day 2 Records 2073 SW Park Ave #118, Portland OR 97201 USA) C Reider

FUSCILLAGE CERTAIN SHIFT
One of the strangest things about taking psychedelic drugs is that they make everything seem really interesting. If I were to listen to this tape while on, say, magic mushrooms, here would be my review:
"This tape is in tune with all of the cosmos and speaks directly to my pineal gland. It is a truly universal
human sound of one single point of consciousness that is the all. Om." As it is, however, I'd have to say that I found the tape pretty boring. In principle, I'm all for audio experimentation and varied instrumentation, as well as improvisation, but in this case it doesn't quite gel. The vocals are pretty good, and somewhat eerie with tons of reverb and other effects (reminiscent of MY BLOODY VALENTINE at times), but the music consists of sparse out-of-tune guitar improvisation, pitch-bend-crazy keyboards and clangy percussion. There are some innovative ideas here, and sometimes it comes together and works, "Deep Water" and "Pay Attention" for instance, but for the most part it seems to go nowhere. On a brighter note, however, the J-card is excellent- a color copied collage with the cutest picture of someone holding a keyboard on the inside. The music, on the other hand, seems to need a little more work.
(Day 2 Records 2073 SW Park Ave #118, Portland OR 97201 USA) Ken Miller

GAPESEED
Lo Cell
CD

Silver Girl Records
P.O. Box 161024
SAN DIEGO, CA 92176
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Loud and clangy and angry and crude, I like this and you should, too. Kind of along the lines of MODEST MOUSE and BIL DING, this kind of music sounds deceptively easy to play in your own little garage band but is actually really hard to pull off. Is it emo-rock? These subdivisions of rock are driving me crazy-I had a hard enough time distinguishing between "thrash" and "punk" and "oi" when I was a kid, dammit. I'm beginning to think we should just assign colors to genres-I can deal with colors. Oh, but then there's the whole Blue subspectrum we'd have to deal with. I just can't win. Oh, PS, there's a topless guy with really pink nipples on the inside jacket you should check out. They're tiny, the picture's tiny, but they stab out from the photo like Liz Taylor's eyes do in the old stills (Weddings number 1 and 2, specifically).

Holly Day
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GARDENIAN
Two Feet Stand
CD

Listenable
554 Warburton Avenue
YONKERS, NY 10701
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

It says "RAGING METAL GALORE" down the inner spine of this CD's cover, and for once I'm inclined to agree. GARDENIAN play very melodic, technical thrash metal. I'm not sure what country they hail from, but they say "STAY METAL IN THE NIGHT" in the booklet, so they rule. The riffs are vast and tighter than the lid on a new jar of pickles. The vocals are all screamed and growled. The guitars supply all the melodies...which is weird, thrash metal ain't usually this damn, uh.."pleasant." I mean, it's easy on the ears. Every song has a thousand parts, and the whole disc pretty much rules from beginning to end. "Do Me Now" is about...heroin! And has nothing to do with Robert Downey Jr's bit in "Back To School" (the party scene, on the floor: "Oh! Do me! Do me! Do me!"), unfortunately. Oh well. It's still great. All of it.

Ian C Stewart
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THE GATHERING
Nighttime Birds
CD

Century Media Records
1453-A 14th Street #324
SANTA MONICA, CA 90404
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.centurymedia.com/
mail@centurymedia.com

These guys are really trying hard. There's no info about the band, but they sound very professional and determined. Even the cover art screams "we mean it". Big, slow guitars, big drums and a beautiful, powerful 4AD-style female voice. Imagine The Cranberries but with a nice vocalist for a change. A hint of a melancholy Gothic feel. A bit overlong (6:52, 6:30, 6:06, 6:55...) and all the songs sound pretty much the same. But it's probably the only band I ever reviewed up to this moment that I can actually clearly imagine becoming famous. Although if they were on the radio I'd change the station.

Paola Sorrentino
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GERBIL BLISS
Marx And The New Toy
cassette

Gerbil Bliss
1203 New Jersey Street
LAWRENCE, KS 66044
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This tape of instrumental music starts off really good- the first track,"Noise Groove," is kind of a moody funk-inspired piece which sort of reminds me of STEVIE WONDER's "Superstition." It's almost a great song, but it starts dragging as it goes on and finally lapses into plinky keyboard improvisation. Repetitive keyboard motifs dominate the rest of the first side with "Film When Living" and "Standard Adjacencies". The difference being that former features samples about school films and the latter features arhythmic guitar and keyboard inprovisation. "Drifting Cosmotion" opens the second side with meandering guitars over a drum machine beat that makes me think of the beach for some reason. Next it's "Little Yellow Truck/Mom '68" which sounds like a children's song with its plinky keyboards and grandiose, yet simple melodies. It also includes old tapes of the artist's mom talking about all sorts of things, which is a really great touch. Aside from some mind-numbing repetition, there are some really great moments in this tape.

Ken Miller
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GHOST WORLD
utitled
7"

Manta Ray Fleet
8580 Hendrie
HUNTINGTON WOODS, MI 48070
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

"Thirsty" and I think I have a new favorite band! Slow guitar jangle rock with squalling feedback in the background and vocals that teeter on the out-of-tune. Sounds like it could all degenerate into bleah very very easily. But it doesn't. Ever. "Let's make a lot of noise tonight..." "Porcelain Hands" is a great title (fuck off, I'm serious) and the song opens with even more jangling and more squalling guitar action. A groove that pretends to be scary (like CONCRETE BLONDE) and makes the most of a minor chord sequence yields to tremolo-ed vocals at the end. Oooh, trippy! Good stuff.

Ian C Stewart
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MICHELLE GLAW
Thin Rod Of Humanity
cassette

Doormat
P.O. Box 8253
THE WOODLANDS, TX 77387
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Lo-fi acoustic folk— not lo-fi for recording quality, but for execution: minimal sloppy percussion, the occasional flubbed note. MICHELLE adds to this a quiet, drugged-sounding, sometimes mumbled vocal delivery that sucks every ounce of energy out of her songs. She obviously has some demons that need working out—songs about whores and pimps and family members killing each other—but her vocal delivery really isn't up to the task. When she tries to emulate the evil chuckle of a pimp, it comes out pure girl-teen and the effect falls on its face. This needs a hefty dose of grit and should lay off the valium.

Colin Wales

THE HAIRY THINGS
Sidewinder EP
CD

Stereo Heaven Records
P.O. Box 122
FLEET
HAMPS GU13 8FP
UK

Shakin' wah-clickin' British guitar/organ/drums groove-rock songs. I hate to say CHARLATANS, OASIS, INSPIRAL CARPETS this early in any review, but let's get 'em out of the way right now. Let me reiterate that part about CHARLATANS. Wah-wah guitar solo. Skitty organ solo. The singer is very good. "Cruisin'" features some wah-wah organ! And another singable chorus..."Comedown" cops a slight BECK groove on the intro and by the chorus you'll be swearing you've heard the song before. And, as the master BURT BACHARACH said the last time he was in Columbus, "THAT is the mark of a great fucking song, god damn it. You motherfuckers should be all up in my nuts right about now, you all owe me your lives." And then he put his keyboardist in the camel clutch and counted off "Bond Street." I was there! THE HAIRY THINGS, fuck yeah.

Ian "Shakermaker" Stewart
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THE HAL LOVEJOY CIRCUS
American Made
CD

Fish of Death
P.O. Box 93206
LOS ANGELES, CA 90093
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.fishofdeath.com/
fod@earthlink.net

If the track "Hot Pants," or really just this disc in general, doesn't make this band a household name, then something is wrong with the bleepin' listening public (or just me, take your pick). Bizarre, funky jazzy stuff that's a lot like something a funny BECK would put out, with songs about leering at girls and shoes and cities and food. There's even a Warholian photo series of urinals on the back cover that should make you want to pick this disc up sans listening—but giving this disc a spin'll make you want to steal it even more.

Holly Day
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MARK HANLEY
The Ring
CD

Kx4
355 West Liberty Street
HUBBARD, OH 44425
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Snazzy-ass pseudo ethno vibe on the intro "Intro." Sounds like the instrumentals on the first DEAD CAN DANCE album. Same for "Palms," until the distorted guitar shows up and kinda kills the mood...Hey! is that a real harmonium? I guess it doesn't matter what it is—it sounds excellent. Overall, we're talking guitars, drum machine and maybe a sampler playing some very nice instrumental music. And some (fretless?) bass guitar. I like the floaty drifty vibe despite the somewhat overbearing guitar solos. I could've done with a whole hour of the more textural background tracks, which are very very good. "Circle" closes with a sort of sitar-ish passage that's rather unfortunately slathered in cheap distorted guitar...Hey! Lose the Gorilla amp and the world is yours! I do seriously enjoy all the other elements here.

Ian C Stewart
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DOUG HARRISON
Live October 23, 1997
cassette

Doug Harrison
P.O. Box 5501
RICHMOND, VA 23220
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This tape is a stripped down hint of the Neubauten-esque crashing distorted guitar sludge that the notorious Mr H has employed in the recent past. The piece goes from a slow and plodding percussive riff -reminiscent of maybe Dead Voices On Air- to pure, overdriven, distorted noise, and then to a buzzing quieter sector of bass feedback and builds again to another climax / denouement cycle. Each slow section seems quieter and slower and longer than the last, while each loud bit is more furious, more bombastic. Rounding out side one is an altered restating of the opening theme. Doug seems to be working a primal-rage tip here. Meanwhile, the sonics show shades of the previously-mentioned DVOA and Einstrudzende Neubauten as well as shades of Broadrick (that'd be Justin, not Matthew). The straightforward, live approach is the perfect counterpoint to the rigidly structured SOLITUDE vs COMPANY.

C Reider
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DOUG HARRISON
Solitude vs. Company
cassette

Doug Harrison
P.O. Box 5501
RICHMOND, VA 23220
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

NOISE!!! Doug's new fascination. All of this mayhem was edited together on a laptop computer, which makes the edits and changes a bit more interesting, but, unfortunately, it also cuts down on the sound quality considerably. It sounds like he mic'd those cheezy little computer speakers with a pair of $5 stereo Radio Shack mics. That aside, Doug is quickly showing himself to be a prolific and quirkily creative guy, with a vision. This time the material is hums & rumbles & bleeps & drums. Good noise, actually, if abrasive, but I imagine that's the point. Everchanging rhythmic textures. This is Doug's coldest, most impersonal work to date, so I must hesitate to recommend it to Harrison-virgins, but I do recommend him as a contact.

C Reider
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DAVID HELENIAK
Pearl River
CD

Little Man Records
445 North Avenue
DUNELLEN, NJ 08812
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

AUTO's own RIVER PEARL (yeah, that's her damn NAME, okay?) shoulda gotten this disc to review, but I got it instead. So I say: Painful acoustic guitar rock with some of the most of affected vocals this side of Nashville. I could say something wicked like "HOOTIE minus the soul" but that wouldn't be very nice of me. The songs are well played and the production is decent. The songwriting isn't memorable in the slightest, I'm afraid to say. Lyrics like "remember when/you were my friend" don't exactly make a compelling argument to the contrary either. When I say "the last thing the world needs is another white guy with an acoustic guitar and a story to tell," this is Exhibit A. It doesn't rock, it's not moving and it's no fun to listen to. Man.

Ian C Stewart
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HERD OF THE ETHER SPACE
Short Wayner
cassette

Taped Rugs Productions
P.O. Box 146
LAWRENCE, KS 66044-0146
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Two 15 minute long "free jazz" noodlin' tracks which would make okay two-minute filler tracks on a tape, but as long improv peices they are unendurable. Admittedly, I don't know anything about jazz, much less "free jazz," but I know noodling when I hear it. And that is what this is, and bad noodling at that. Sounds like an outtake even the STUFFINGS would have left off in most listless phase. What's most confusing is that it was recorded in 1993 and only released this year, why bother releasing it half a decade later when it's not really...I'll stop. They should, too.

Michael Anderson
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"HOME GROWN NUMBER 2 - SMOKIN' JAMS"
compilation
CD

Leeway Productions
P.O. Box 635
BELL ARTHUR, NC 27811
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.versanet.com/homegrown/

This has got really some cool seventies-type white groove music on it, along the styles of early CLAPTON and BAD COMPANY and oh, God, where's my dad when I need him? The whole time I was listening to this, I could easily picture sweaty guys with long hair and beards jamming on a home-made stage set up in the middle of a field with a keg set up where the bands could easily refill their plastic cup between sets. Funny enough, most of the bands pictured in the inside jacket looked just like that, so I wasn't too far off base in that regard. Stereotypes aside, I did enjoy this disc it's got some great guitar solos on it and is bustin' with soul.

Holly Day
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HOOO VEIL
Static
CD

Pfrenz-C
P.O. Box 23042
SEATTLE, WA 98102
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

JEEZIZ!!! Out from rock's damp, wormy underside slithers Hooo, to take over, with smoky, hypnotic, aural poison any soul unfortunate enough to sail too closely. Spooky and creepy Hooo are the Addams Family's cousins. The ones who weren't harmless enough to make it to the TV show, so they huffed out to the rickety back porch to play their guitars with straightjackets on (try THAT Houdini, muh-fuckah!). Simple, waltzy singalong type music with catchy-as-hell hooks, like Danny Elfman if he had some balls. Acoustic guitars, pie-tin percussion, violin and an ultrawhispery female voice offset by a creepy, nasal, male voice. This gets eleven stars out of five. "We Let The Ghost Lie In Bed With Us" is the shit.

C Reider
AUTO6

Zzaj Productions
308 65th Avenue SE
LACEY, WA 98513
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I might've thought this type of improv wanking was weird if I was eight years old and my only exposure to experimental music was Yanni and the theme to the TV series STREET HAWK. This is embarassing, and to think this session was heard live on the radio? Bad spontaneous poetry that dares to rhyme "immense," "intense," and "reticence" all in one go. You tend to wonder if the "strangeness" of this band is all in their heads.

D Blood
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THE IMPLICIT ORDER
They Live In The Sky
cassette

HC
65 Box 595
SMILAX, KY 41764
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A collage of resourceful paranormal moodswings that really dominates room sound inside and outside the head. Well-crafted use minimalism. Helps one travel through the subtle ambient landscapes it builds. Adds warmth to those introspective rainy days. Breathe. Listen.

D Blood
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INCA EYEBALL
Quattro Symbolos
CD

Spirit Of Orr
186 Lincoln Street
2nd floor
BOSTON, MA 02111
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Why this? 99 songs; yes, obviously it means they are nearly all about thirty seconds long, except a 20-minute one; but still, they are TOO long. Imagine. The typical "click-clack" of the old tape recorders links together 99 irritating little ditties, mostly done with plinky banjo-like guitar and a very grating voice bawling nonsense. Why this?

Paola Sorrentino
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INDEPENDENT'S DAY: TRIBUTE TO EXPERIMENTAL
compilation
cassette

Zzaj Productions
308 65th Avenue SE
LACEY, WA 98513
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

At first glance I didn't know how to categorize this tape. The liner notes make it sound like it's a recording of a live performance of the "Third Annual Olympia Strange Music Society's Experimental Music Festival" but the label on the the cassette only indicates ZZAJ, THE KRAMTONES and TOMSHANY. So I'm not sure whether this is a various artists tape or whether it's all the artists playing together (but read below for the answer to this mystery). Oh well, I guess it's not really that important. Side one opens with what I would call a modern jazz piece called "Freedom's Theme," with various Oriental-sounding keyboard lines comping over a sustained bass line. "Weepsuite" is next in the same jazzy vein. A bit more out there as to harmonic structures, etc. but not exactly what I would consider to be "strange" in any way. Maybe about forty years ago it would be strange, but considering the musical output of JOHN COLTRANE, MILES DAVIS, or SUN RA, it's not even that much out there. But if they're playing for the general public this could be very well considered strange music. Don't get me wrong, the playing is competent, but does it deserve the "strange" label? I think these players should get out a bit more and maybe listen to most of the experimental music made in the underground in the last twenty years or so if they're going to bandy this label around. Track #3 is entitled "OlyWa Strange Piano," a, you guessed it, electronic piano piece of jazz improv accompanied by drums (electronic again?). Track 4 is "Well Oriented." (This must be the KRAMTONES, eh?) Here's an interesting combination: spacey effects accompanying a very oriental (pentatonic scale anyone?) tune. Now we're getting strange. That's what I like, somebody surprise me once in awhile! The last track on this side is "Inkblots In A Hailstorm," a frantic keyboard/electronic drums piece punctuated by bird sounds and sound effects that cut of suddenly for no apparent reason other than the tape running out. Way to go, guys! You get me interested then cut the thing off! If you couldn't put the whole piece on the side, why bother putting it on there in the first place? And spare me the avant-garde theorizing, you just wanted to fill up the whole side, didn't you. Not funny. I don't hink I even want to listen to the other side now. But since Ian is paying me thousands of Yen for writing this (and considering the recent activity on the Asian stock market, what is that—42 cents maybe?) I guess I will. Side two opens with "(R)evolutions," more jazzy noodlings but with the added bonus of an electric guitar played effectively by Peter Tomshany (the Tomshany mentioned on the label!), doing some jazz-rock improvs, probably with ZZAJ and the boys as a backup. Next up is "A Sense Of Balance," a bit of minimalist improv accentuated by the addition of various sources producing a pleasant drony effect (closer to STEVE REICH or TERRY RILEY than PHILLIP GLASS: in other words, a bit hipper). A highlight! "Dark Star Eyes" completes the side and the tape. Is that a trumpet I hear? No! It's a freakin' guitar! This last piece is a moody bit of experimental fun that builds the intensity nicely as it progresses, featuring scrapings, scratching and other guitar noise over a subdued but still incessant jungle beat. If this is live there's also someone else in there strangling a parrot, but the credits don't say who...Another high point on the tape.

John Gore
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"THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION"
compilation
cassette

Carpeet Tapes
c/o Jan Gallhuber
Fanzlgasse 35/39
A-1140 VIENNA
AUSTRIA

This cassette of mostly German artists is split between the "sound" and the "noise" sides. The "Sound" side gives us various selections by MR MOTO+ETAT DES STOCKS and RAUTAVAARA, two artists I've heard of but never heard, so here's my chance. MR MOTO & co. give us six short selections of sequencer-driven analogue electronic pieces, with some incorporating drum machine beats to fill the empty spaces. A bit dark at times and very reminiscent of '70s Krautrock stuff on the Brain label, if that means anything to anyone but me. These pieces can get very noisy at times, a bit gnawed around the edges, so we're not exactly talking KRAFTWERK here. RAUTAVAARA's tracks, on the other hand, are on the other side of the Krautrock spectrum, on the CABARET VOLTAIRE side of things. Primitive repetetive drumming, cheesy organ sounds and loud proclaiming by the vocalist about "Fraction Disease Control" in broken English. Selection #2 by RAUTAVAARA, "Voodoo Cocktail," comes off like a low-rent copy of TOM WAITS' recent releases, not that that's necessarily a criticism since I happen to like TOM WAITS. Simplistic drumming, Fender Telecaster with a whammy bar kind of lounge atmosphere all accompanying what sounds like a recording of a conversation over a telephone. Exactly what I'd expect from the title: someone trying to talk on the phone over the noise of the band. Cool and right on the mark. The final selection by this band, "Terminal Beach," rounds off the side with the return of the good primitive drumming and cheesy organ sounds of the first selection, this time adding a hypnotic bassline played over and over again, and the tinny guitar from the above track strumming away happily over the top of everything, slowly working its way into your cerebellum and forcing you to sway with the beat and tap your feet. Great stuff. End of side one. (Yikes! Warning! Do not listen to this side on headphones, or at least not until you've adjusted the volum. Man, I think I just burned out a transistor or two in my head thing.) Side "Noise" gives us selections from three artists: HERMIT, YGGDRASIL, and ZELBZTMORD. HERMIT regales us with a bit of noise entitled "koc-moc" that starts loud and then mercifully reduces the onslaught for a few seconds and then starts it all over again. Not to say the sounds aren't interesting. There's lots of changes here from pure white noise bursts to crazed robot ejecta to less sensory-overload sections of squawking saxophone noises. Reminds me of some of those early Japanese sci-fi soundtracks at times. YGGDRASIL is next with three tracks of in-your-face sonic overload that everybody loves. Sort of an observation of a nervous breakdown on a neuronic level. Not a pretty sight to say the least. The final piece by this artist should be on the list of all noiseloving pinheads. This one is much more minimalistic in presentation, just one long highpitched squeal, twisted and tortured in and out of existence through various processors and then added to other nasty sounds. Just the stuff to make your ears bleed, if that's your idea of fun. The last selection, by ZELBSTMORD, (roughly translated: "self-murder") lives up to its name with SKINNY PUPPYish distorted vocals, noise and a bass line. But the best part of this track is the sample of very polite applause at the end. Hee hee! All in all, a pretty good tape.

John Gore
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"INSTANT SHOGGOTH"
compilation
cassette

Instant Shoggoth
P.O. Box 64545
TUCSON, AZ 85728
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Bonus points for the clever, arty packaging (coming in a gauze sachet, too) and the general tongue-in-cheek attitude ( "a non-stop melding of many like-minded legions of the abyss - namely the United States..."). You have to like a comp with this name. The players: DOGSTAR COMMUNICATIONS, LIFEGARDEN, NEVER, NOT BREATHING, CRAWL UNIT, ILLUSION OF SAFETY, TRANCE, TEKACHI, THEN TINGARI, BLAZEN Y SHARP, GRAVITAR, AMALTHEA, AA23, BLOOM, PIRATE AUDIO. Unfortunately, it all boils down to the usual indistinguishable, monotonous, colorless ambient-atmospheric dwindling.

Paola Sorrentino
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THE INSUFFERABLE EGOMANIACS
Seminal As Fuck
cassette

Presitigious
P.O. Box 284
EASTPOINTE, MI 48021
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This is a concept album of sorts, in which the IE take on the roles of rock stars with bloated egos. Given that premise, we are supposed to listen to this drivel as though it is godlike, because the "godlike" Egomaniacs made it. Whatever. This is so absurdly immature and stupid that it is actually kind of funny, and even, urm..."good" in a way. Bits of pause-edit, lo-fi, collage mayhem, dubbed on a normal-bias Radio Shack tape no less. Little interviews asking "the man on the street," let me rephrase that: "pre-pube on the street" what they think of the Insufferable Egomaniacs. The part where the androgynous voice intones "Our origins are shrouded in mystery. We are destined to go down in hist-o-ry" is so unsettlingly irritating that it's funny. Sounds like Margaret Thatcher in masturbatory bliss. The "Yeehaw" interlude should be the soundtrack to a gay spanking porn.

C Reider
AUTO6

Secretly Canadian Records
1703 North Maple Street
BLOOMINGTON, IN 47404
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This is a strange little collection of acoustic arrangements utilizing the standards plus a banjo, a sax, a glockenspiel, a mandolin, and a lot of fiddle. The finished product sounds like Turkish spice merchants on uppers playing the polka, their Middle Eastern upbringing infringing on the patently European sound on every other downbeat. Pithy, full of little jewels of wisdom like, "If you think that life is a bowl of cherries/wait til you get those dingleberries" and "Candy corns still influence the snow", there's sure to be a song here that holds the key to understanding your own life, as it did for me.

Holly Day
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JERRY JERRY
The Sound And The Jerry
CD

Aquarius Records
1445 Lambert-Closse #200
MONTREAL QC H3H 1Z5
CANADA

This is an amazing disc on so many levels—for one thing, JERRY JERRY has no shame. I mean it—he even has a bizarre, funny song about being drunk titled, "Talking About My Dick." In "Not Too Hard," he states, "You've got a lot to learn/but I don't," while in "Venus," he compares his intended to the gaseous explosions and crusty, yellow surface of the planet Venus. The whole thing can be dismissed as just some drunk guy and his guitar rambling about everything under the sun, with no real connection between the separate tracks or even the verses on each song themselves-except that somehow the songs make sense, and they are so personal and bold and fucking true they can't have been spawned by anyone but a true poet, and a very angry, bitter, sarcastic one at that. JERRY JERRY is one man I would not want to piss off-even if he was too messed up to actually hit me, I'm sure he could come up with some insult so devastating that I'd go home and beat myself up.

Holly Day
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JHNO
KWNO
CD

Delicate Ear
964 Natoma
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.sirius.com/~ear/

Anything that can reduce my two-year-old from a screaming, fist-throwing monster to a near-comatose state in less than three minutes has got my vote. This is a soothing, groovin' set of instrumental ambient tunes, not too hard to perform brain surgery to as well as other similarly difficult tasks. Not even Raffi works this quick.

Holly Day
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JUNE PANIC
The Fall Of Atom: A Thesis On Entropy
CD

Secretly Canadian Records
1703 North Maple Street
BLOOMINGTON, IN 47404
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Sweet, melancholy pop packaged as a science theorum, THE FALL OF ATOM is loaded with sad songs about and the pursuit of freedom, backed by mostly guitar and a minimal rhythm section. While I did not pick up any true scientific message from this recording (and I have been assured by the liner notes that it's there), I did enjoy the music very much, even though it left me sort of melancholy and empty feeling.

Holly Day
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JUNIOR VARSITY KM
You're Fabulous!
CD EP

Darla Records
625 Scott Street #301
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.darla.com/

Usually, EP CDs give me a problem, just because they usually contain four or five versions of the same song over and over, and they all sound exactly the same except one version has bad words on it while another has an extended dance beat tacked on, and so on. This EP, however, contains such a variety of remixes of the title song that each version sounds completely different than the last. I found myself pleasantly inundated by a series of soft and delectable synth and vocal mixes on some tracks, pure ambient noise on others. There is also a sweet picture of an albino penguin on the cover-my son carried the empty disc box around for a whole afternoon and squawked angrily at me every time I tried to put it up.

Holly Day
AUTO6

Kinky Savage
59 Crabtree Avenue
Waterfoot, Rossendale
LANCS BB4 9TD
UK

Wow! BIS babies! Already! Dig that fuckin' Dr Rhythm! All the BIS elements are in place: drum machine, guitar, bass and tacky keyboards, and a boysinger. There's a song called "Discobiskits" even. Man.

That said, it's still a fairly entertaining, if not wholly derivitave affair. The distorted boyvox are a trifle monotonous, in a MARK E SMITH kind of way, especially on the otherwise promising "Faceless Superstar." My pick is "Jack," from the LIVE bit (by "live," I assume they mean "not overdubbed" because I can't pick out any audience noises. "MAIDEN JAPAN" this is not!), with its hoopy portamento keyboard bit. It's little touches like that that give me hope for these KINKY SAUSAGES, especially if any of them are still younger than 20. Otherwise...pfeh, BIS babies.

Ian C Stewart
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KIRCHENKAMPF
Lazarus Rising
CD

Cohort Records
1302 Cincinnati Street
LAFAYETTE, IN 47904-2544
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A new, mammoth recording of excellent digital synth ambient / space-industrial music from AUTO's own John Gore. On this, his first CD, his avant garde tendencies show a bit more, as on the nice opening track, where a polyphonic series of minimal percussive themes collide and converge. "Halo Of Birds" has a fast, repetetive, percussive phrase complimented by fizzing high notes and electronic spasms. At points this is new-minimalist with slow, bare phrases repeating over and under each other, interacting regardless of each other, solidifying into one, changes in timbre giving the pieces a tension and release...sort of a Steve Reich on peyote maybe? At other points it's as if Brian Eno went back in time to give Waters and Gilmour a helping hand and a Saucerful Of Oblique Technological Secrets at the height of Pink Floyd's experimentation. "Three-In-One" and "Forty Days In The Desert" are two of the few pieces that allow for a trance-out. Although Kirchenkampf is on the quiet and spacey side, the music is too thematic and involved to be background or outright ambient. Gore is a brilliant anomaly among ambient composers and I'm proud to be a fan.

C Reider
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OWEN KNIGHT
Songs From The Midnight Snow
CD

Black Moon
9447 SR 664 North
LOGAN, OH 43138
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Owen Knight is some sort of druid wannabe who dreams of medieval days to come again rather than living in the twenty-first century that is all around us. Come on Owen, why attempt to re-live centuries past when you could spend the same amount of energy living in the same century as the rest of us? I could be mistaken about that. Owen Knight could be an aging cult leader spreading the word of his new-age ramblings via bad spoken-word poetry and hippie rhetoric. Some of the music on this CD is okay, tolerable, but Owen's words are purely ridiculous, trite and melodramatic, laughably surreal in a negative way. One word review from Faruq: awful.

Faruq Al-Qahira
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KRABATHOR
Orthodox
CD

Morbid Records
Postfach 3
03114 DREBKAU
GERMANY
http://www.morbidrecords.de/

Precise, wonderfully destructive thrash grind! Excellent production, very good songwriting and riffs that are tighter than Martha Stewart (no relation)'s a-hole. The singer has the death-growl thing in effect, which caused the neighbor's dog to start barking when "Orthodox" came rumbling out of the speakers. I didn't even know I had a neighbor with a dog! Maybe they used some of those "dog-only" frequencies allegedly employed by THE BEATLES? The guitar bits thrash like insanity and the drummer must be an octopus. I'm not so impressed by "Shit Comes Brown," but the flangey bass intro to "Parasites" makes up for it! And "About Death"'s synth intro! Sweet. The rest of that track kinda rocks like BLACK ALBUM-era METALLICA with maybe the dude from SEPULTURA "singing." Old school thrash grind! Aw yeah...

Ian "no relation" Stewart
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Frazzled #6
19A Asticon Road
JAMAICA PLAIN, MA 02130
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

From its hand-drawn cover to its stylistically unclassifiable compositions, this recording takes full advantage of the home-tape format. Noise and dissonance are combined with elements, of jazz, rock and even folk to produce seven unique pieces of "music." The lyrical content is also quite unusual: one piece tells the twisted tale of a purchased "thing" that doesn't work properly. Another piece makes announcements about the dangers of opening one's eyes. The musicianship and recording quality on this tape are intriguingly crude. The whole effect reminds me of early Twentieth Century Expressionism in a 1990s format. I'd like to hear more from these artists.

Swami Loopynanda
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LABRADOR
Labrador
Mississippi Mud
Insinuate The Interogatees
cassette

Frazzled #6
19A Asticon Road
JAMAICA PLAIN, MA 02130
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

These three tapes (from Oct/Nov 96, May 97, and Oct/Nov 97) represent a year at The Rug Is Brown Studios. In which time LABRADOR have gotten very good indeed. LABRADOR is an obscure directionist warning against paranoia and mass control, presented through good, though a bit meandering, songs using trumpet, guitar, drums, bass to create jazzy, surf-angst grooves that maintain a consistant level of good slow composition and lazy minor-key melodies. Kind of like SONORA PINE or IDA...The vocals are a bitter machine ("Show me the switch, so I can shut you off") that warns us to be advised that we should not drink the water, breathe the air, open our eyes, or wake up in the morning...people who have done these have been known to die later that day.

There is a very real fear of society and technology here. Is $25 dollars worth the price of venerability? It only tries to draw you in with its credit cards and rules...just walk away. Did I say meandering? Mustn't we remember that, like life, things don't need (or desire) to follow in the Hollywood narrative rules of flow and length? Isn't that why we make tapes/labels ourselves...LABRADOR is definitely onto something.

Unfortunately, MISSISSIPPI MUD kind of loses its momentum. Hello and welcome to my life story...it proclaims. A concept album filled with pretty inane psuedo-blues and strange stories about hard labor, mental collapse, fear of heights, lack of privacy in a claustrophibic society and the pressure to rock...and whatever, you do, DO NOT eat the chocolate patch, it's a bad trip, man! Look for these signs. Be sure to know the difference between a lovable, playful dolphin and a 15 foot, 4 thousand-pound 'man-eater':

Shower cap
Toothpaste tube
looks like the lead singer of the DESCENDANTS.
"On this side of the fence, you can see that the world is full of disease and sickness...every day." OK, LABRADOR is back on track. "Insinuate..." is in my top 10 pick for 1997. It sees LABRADOR jump into a three-piece and toward well-crafted cyclical sing-song pop delights without sacrificing any of its bitter hope that just trying and going on will make the difference. And it will. To wallow is not going to do us any good, to wallow with a smile and a song will at least make it fun. Carefully-built intricate instrumentation really compliments Keller's great (and much more focused and powerful) lyrical simplicity and melodies. One part compostition and two parts happenstance really work for LABRADOR..."When the rain comes does it make you want to cry or does it make you feel like things are coming to an end? When the rain comes I know I will be outside. Take your sunshine away so I can thnk today" The singing ends and the rain begins...a swell of flanger like a downpour. Gorgeous. "I don't want to say that I will always feel this way about you" repeats over and over and then ends abruptly...I got pissed and would have liked to let it rise for another ten minutes plus...WOW! All good things must end, and to be taken by force unsettling makes you remember it most vividly. Of course, the glory of tape is I can rewind it...and rewind and rewind and rewind...

Michael Anderson
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LEFTHANDDECISION
In Excess
NACHT UND NEBEL
Discharge
split (respectively)
cassette

LHD
2124 Parker Street #205
BERKELEY, CA 94704
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
tenebrae@jps.net

What in the hell is this shit?! Yeah, "shit"! The whole tape is nothing but resonating static which makes no sense. Unless our wonderful US Postal System has inadvertently passed this over a magnet then it's a bummer, and I would sincerely hope that you guys will send AUTOreverse a replacement copy to receive a real review of your work. Please tell me this isn't what you wanted to have us listen to.

Howard Cowell
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(THE LEGENDARY) BOILERMAKERS
God Guns & Guts
CD

Rumble Kulture Recordings
P.O. Box 67691
CULVER CITY, CA 90067
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Kick-ass redneck punk rock from Southern California, natch. Lots of surf guitar sprinkled in for good measuresorry, I know this ain't a cooking classwith lyrics about shooting bosses and welfare mothers and crack addicts and bowling. There is also one of the coolest covers of Ozzy's "Paranoid" I have ever heard on this disc.

Holly Day
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"LET IT ROT: BLACK APPLE WINTER COMPILATION 1997"
compilation
cassette

Black Apple
51 Parkvale Avenue #3
ALLSTON, MA 02134
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Reviewing a comp is hard: do you review each band individually? 29 tracks by 21 bands, mostly from the Boston area, give a good continuous mix of home-recording ditties in varying stages of "FI", from answering machine to 4-track...Though it starts with a rather tedious family docu-drama by the always-challenging STUFFINGS, press on...it gets great. Indie-pop-rock by GIRAFFE BOY, BLINKING LIGHTS and FUSCILLAGE; psyche-pop wizardry by TINY REPTILES; girl twee with APPLE CORE and INKLING; voice of 13-year-old girls KITTY POWER; lounge maleness with THALES, and loung Frenchness from SPELUNKER; atmospheric folk bliss via K10 JOY; even butchere PIXIES and RESIDENTS covers by EATING CANADA and RINGWORM SIDESHOW...somewhat perverted bedroom rap MC JEREMY HARRIS...even a STUFFINGS cover set to the mellow piano accompaniment of TILTMASTER. Oh, and the STUFFINGS reclaim themselves with a great new one called "Pie Alamode." Seldom does a comp ride along so bumpless and satisfying...

Dan Fleming
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LIQUID ERNIE
Ghostwritten
CD EP

Liquid Ernie
c/o Steven R. Hall Productions
P.O. Box 44366
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55344
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.liquidernie.com/

A six-song EP. This'll take more than one listen before it'll grow on you—the relaxed sorta alterna-blues-rock mood is offset by the occasionally progressive-style rhythm breaks and difficult chord changes. You'll probably have to work at it a bit to get into it. Myself, I find I can't stop humming along with the plaintive little "Sieze the Man Below". Not an instant win, but there's potential here...

Colin Wales
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"LIVING IN A WORLD FULL OF DRONES"
compilation
CD

Galatron Mining Corporation
P.O. Box 11097
YARDVILLE, NJ 08620
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This is a pretty good ten-song compilation made up of likeminded folks who play mainly electronic music. Most of this CD is minimalistic, simple drone action with a few dark tones tossed into the mix. I like a good droning song so I enjoyed most of the tracks. PUDDLE OF PEOPLE start things off on a good note with a slow song full of classic synth sounds called "The Two Headed Worm." Alaskan group EMBRYOPTIC's "Synapse IV" is another standout. It has a slow beginning that turns into an expressive instrumental of manipulated sounds. I think what makes a good drone is a slow melody that takes its own sweet time drawing you into the spell. That's why a good drone song to me has to be kind of long, it takes a while to get to where you want the listener to go. A perfect example of this quality is "Waveguide" by Swedish group LYKAION ECLIPSE. They take a good backbone loop and do not overdo it with too many layers, the sounds just barely overlap each other into a pleasant aural collage. TIME MERCHANT closes the CD with a long, pretty, yet a little unsettling) track that makes me think of water and the loneliness of my childhood. "...World Full of Drones" is a nice group of songs that succeeds in collecting a group of similar electronic based songs.

Faruq Al-Qahira
AUTO6

MAESTRO TRYTONY
Enoptronia
CD

Mozg Production
ul.Gdanska 10
85-006
POLAND

Funny, the other day my father and I were just talking about what kind of musical secrets Poland might be hiding. MAESTRO TRYTONY is a really cool old school jazz quintet that sounds like something CHARLES MINGUS might have released if he had been kidnapped by aliens and then deposited back on earth with a bunch of futuristic instruments. Very groovy and strange. This CD also blows wide open my theory that people in foreign countries only speak in different languages to confuse Americansall the liner notes and accompanying promotional material are written entirely in Polish.

Holly Day
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MARVEL KIND
Mini
CD

Throwrug Records
P.O. Box 579100
CHICAGO, IL 60657-9100
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.throwrug.com/

These Chicago guys have everything it takes to end up right there on MTV: they look cute (especially the first one on the left, whoever he his), they have the attitude, the nice and not-really-catchy-but-cute-anyway songs, even the cool artwork. So, when you see them strutting their stuff in some grainy blurred arty video, singing "Nobody Ever Gets Away" or maybe "Pride" or "There Are No Accidents" (more suitable for a first single), remember you've read it here first. With some luck and good promotion they MAY become a big thing and after some years devoted and slightly fetishist fans will look for this first, obscure CD everywhere.

Paola Sorrentino
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ARNOLD MATHES
NYC97
cassette

Arnold Mathes
2750 Homecrest Avenue
BROOKLYN, NY 11235
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Wow! This is some fantastic stuff!! If you like ambient, house, or mellow techno then this is the tape for you. Impress all your friends by tracking this one down and keeping it in the car like I did. This is like a PATRICK O'HEARN, or a TANGERINE DREAM kind of feeling, very cool. Bagpipes? Okay...a little off the beaten track but they kinda work with the whole siren song on "Ruitor 2." This is one of those tapes you keep around for when you just want to chill out and be silent. Haunting melodies and a whole floating thing works well throughout this whole tape. Great background stuff to have on when you're concentrating on whether or not to play another game of DOOM. This is a tape to run out and get—or if I haven't been obvious enough: GO GET THIS TAPE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It never hurt to persuade the general public...or the 28 readers of this zine.

Howard Cowell
AUTO6

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M&B
City
cassette

Empty View Rrekerds
P.O. Box 2644
SAN JOSE, CA 95109
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A winner from Brian Scaramuzzo and Michael Coscia, both aged either 7 or 8. No song titles, but mentions writing away for 'M&B Book' with lyrics and pictures. This tape rules. Inbetween trying to keep Michael's big cousin, Space Jockey, from stealing their Hot Wheels, Brian sings and plays drums while Michael plays an assortment of instruments incl. guitar solos, organ and flute...with occasional backing vocals and lyrical coaxing. And I quote: 'this music is 100% pure chooky canarina'...? Brian sings (in a gum choked thick Massachusetts accent) about all the essentials: motorcycles, Halloween ("We had to buy another pumpkin, because a pumpkin smasher came."), the BoogieMan, plane tickets to New York, candy (esp. gum), being up past midnight, cars ("A lot of cars crash, even a Volvo"), houses on fire, blood, and home (Brian: "Massachusetts is a city," Michael: "No it isn't!")...it's all here!

Michael Anderson
AUTO6

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THE MARINERNINE
A Little Something From The Weathervane's Perspective
CD

Miner Street Recordings
232 Krams Avenue
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19127
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Starts out with a kind of sped-up voice collage heard on many of the other tapes I've been reviewing, but, in a startlingly Bush Of Ghosts turn, this ends up being a backing track for a jam of mammoth proportions. A big, thick, meaty, well-recorded BAND! After the kick-ass first track, one can allow them to go off into interstellar overdrive with the hope that they'll come back together to knock yr booty off later on down the line. When the beat finally kicks in on the first "Palindromic I" you say "Oh yes!" but this still ends up being a bit of a tease. Altogether this is laid back and weird in a Fuxa kind of way. Cool stuff, packaged handsomely with varying shades of green. Mmmm.

C Reider
AUTO6

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MARMOSET
Hiddenforbidden
CD

Secretly Canadian Records
1703 North Maple Street
BLOOMINGTON, IN 47404
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The only, only problem I have with this disc is it's too damned short. It's got a really cool early SONIC YOUTH sound to itthe lead singer's got a voice that just screams "fuck you and this cheap-ass whiskey I've been gargling with" without actually screaming at all. The guitars and drums sound all echoey, like they were recorded in a barely-insulated basement studio in a warehouse downtown.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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"MEIN COMPF #3"
compilation
CD

Empty View Rrekerds
P.O. Box 2644
SAN JOSE, CA 95109
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Compilation tape with over a dozen songs on it. Like all of these comp tapes, it's hit or miss with the material. SMIRKWORTHY do a nice, short guitar pop song. DARLENE OFFER do a song called "Fucked Up (in a sexy way)" that I liked, just wished the vocals were a wee bit louder. "Magnetic Promenade" by THE STUNT DOUBLES is a quiet, soothing acoustic song about love that's gone. Other songs that hit the mark for me are those by ASHLEY HOLT and GRAUSTARK.

Faruq Al-Qahira
AUTO6

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"MERCYFUL FATE TRIBUTE"
compilation
CD

Listenable
554 Warburton Avenue
YONKERS, NY 10701
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

On the surface this looks like just another (blandly-titled) tribute album. But let us not forget that the instantly-recognizable (for better or worse) vocals of KING DIAMOND are a real bitch to sing along to. And anyone who's willing to mangle their voicebox for the sake of "paying tribute" to the KING is all right in my book. Because, irrespective of their current status as a bunch of fat old has-beens, MERCYFUL FATE really was something else back in the day. I recall as a lad, when I found the 1980s incarnation of KISS no longer heavy nor evil enough for my liking, along came MERCYFUL FATE's "Melissa" via a third-generation dub acquired from a fellow 8th grader in science class. FATE had everything I loved in those days: long riffs that were heavy and technical as hell, but still melodic enough to be memorable; and of course, KING DIAMOND on the mic. The man sent shivers up my pubescent spine for all of 1985 with his truly unique singing. FATE was like IRON MAIDEN, but with BRUCE DICKINSON wearing GENE SIMMONS makeup and a having a major obsession with Satan.

So FATE certainly merits a tribute album on those points alone. LUCIFERION does "Black Funeral" very by-the-book, their singer does a respectable job of sticking to the KING's original parts. SACRAMENTUM, however, dispenses with the question of how well their singer will imitate KING DIAMOND altogether, since he growls all the lyrics. Can't say I blame him, but the song loses most of its charm and most of its melody that way. GARDENIAN thrash out on a de-tuned, grubby version of "A Dangerous Meeting", again dispensing with the vocal melodies in favor of deathly growls. EMPEROR does "Gypsy" so faithfully that it sounds like an old FATE outtake with a slightly different singer. The production sounds very very early 80s, very NWOBHM (that includes the synths, which were often used by metal bands in ye olde dayse). MISANTHROPE goes completely BUCKETHEAD / PAINKILLER / ZORN on their "Doomed By The Living Dead", which thrashes and grinds and slaps around way more than the original. The screaming vocals are more CANNIBAL CORPSE than early FATE, which is interesting. IMMOLATION fuck with "Satan's Fall" way more than I ever cared to hear. This song is incredible in its original form, and these apes just growl and sound constipated all over it. Too bad. DECEASED take the song I would've picked if *I* were doing a FATE cover: "Nuns Have No Fun." The production isn't very amazing but they at least stick to the original arrangement enough that it's enjoyable to listen to. "You're a nun, you never have no fun, living the life of a virgin queen..." Come ON, give it up! NOTRE DAME's "Into The Coven" is the most adventurous version here, with their modern black metal interpretation. Beginning with some light female vocals that give way to the puked misery of a sicko singer dude vomiting the line "my soul belongs to Satan..." which yields to an ugly grind mess before breaking down to a technical bit of riffing that fades into a veritable gregorian chant with no drums or guitars but just an organ for backing that soaks into more ugly grinding with mock-goth vocals. Awesome. NOTRE DAME wins! Where's my damn make-up and bone-microphone...

Ian "Grabber" Stewart
AUTO6

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MJB
C'mon Slacker
cassette

MJB
11 Orchard Street
COLD SPRINGS, NY 10516
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mjbowman/

This batch of Mike Bowman's songs picks up right where the last one left off—in the land of basement pop-rock. The songwriting is very good, as usual, with MJB playing and singing and recording everything himself. Acoustic guitars strum happily in time with some damn fine drumming and an occasional Casio. I'd like to hear him sing in a lower register just once though. Side one includes the rocking title track and the absurdly uptempo "Suck My Clouds." Inquisitive souls (or lazy tape-flippers) will find a bonus bit of music at the end of each side. Side two opens with "Post Cold War Expat Chic" which features the f-word more than once, which is the easy ticket to victory. Pop songs with swearing, it always works for me. Side two features several instrumentals which display Bowman's mad songsmithing skillz and a few bits of backwards guitar. MJB=DIY POP. Simple.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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MLEHST
untitled
cassette

Kylie
22 Ellenborough Place
LONDON SW15 5LZ
UK

Electronic noise pastiches with musical elements. The sections have just the right mix of repetition and change, noisy and yet musical. The structure almost seems symphonic, with bending and restructuring of themes. A constant flux between quite melodious & pleasant collages, total (implied) silence, and loud, harsh moments, which are either built up to a climax, or suddenly catapult upwards from a more docile moment. The mix is clear and clean and the color cover is a nice collage, which fits well with the music.

C Reider
AUTO6

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"MONUMENTALLY RETARDED: THE BURPING TURDS RETROSPECTIVE"
compilation
CD

Burping Turds Musick
P.O. Box 282
LANCASTER, NH 03584
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A 58-track compilation that annoyed the heck out of me within the first minute. Wow, some seventy-odd of them left to go. Collage bits including phone pranks, relaxation tapes and talk shows, and then a slew of bad joke bands playing into their ghettoblasters on the floors of their grandfolks' garages while the old folks are out shopping in the Red Apple Sale. The background hiss is profound, a total, purposeful abuse of the CD medium. How did these 13-year-olds afford to press this? Oh, I guess since there's about 40 bands involved here they gathered all the members and contributed ten bucks each. Dang, there goes one week's allowance! One of the bands is named TITTYFUCK A VOLKSWAGEN. "Huh huh. Is that a nipple on your head?" Another band is named HEMMORHOY ROGERS. This has been a test, if you laughed out loud at any of the last three sentences, immediately stuff ten bucks into an envelope along with a Polaroid of your butt and mail off for your copy today.

C Reider
AUTO6

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MOONROCKET
I Don't Know How To Be Drunk
cassette

Moonrocket
2303 Albans Street
HOUSTON, TX 77005
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.tenagra.com/~jhart/

JEREMY HART sings five of his own songs (plus the BILLY BRAGG song "The Warmest Room"), accompanied by competent if uninspired guitar playing. I'd almost certainly like this better if it were easier to hear the singing. On my favorite cuts, "Waterproof" and "Naked With The Lights On," it's pretty clear, but on most of the rest the guitar drowns out the singing more or less completely. Too bad. What I can hear sounds pretty heartfelt. His day job has something to do with web page design, so his site is pretty well done.

Indy Ana Jones
AUTO6

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MUCUS MEMBRANE
Shallow Existence
CD

Wild Rags
2207 West Whittier Boulevard
P.O. Box 3302
MONTBELLO, CA 90640-8602
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Drum machine metal bands are suddenly a million times more prevalent than they were even two years ago. Of which MUCUS MEMBRANE is one. I like the slow-grind feel of "Ascension Into The Divine." The mosh part effect (for lack of a better term) of most of the verse bits. The chorus (or whatever the hell that is) is pure mechanized blast! The guitars sound damn good, and the fact that I don't detect any bass guitar doesn't even detract from the overall POWER of this disc. Fuck yeah it rocks. And it's a little evil. "Aborticide" is just fucking heavy. Purely. Slow at the front, straight-up thrash in the middle and mo' grind on the chorus. "Mind Warp" is hyperspeed thrash...and hey! There's the bass! The riffing is good, the yelling and screaming is better and the production ROCKS.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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THE MULCHMEN
Louder Than Dirt, Thicker Than Mud!
CD

Big Beef Records
P.O. Box 303 WBB
DAYTON, OH 45409
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.bigbeef.com/

Cool surf guitar coming from a place about a thousand miles away from any beach, with songs appropriately titled "Mudslide" and "Bustin' Golfclubs" and (my favorite) "A Man With No Reverb is No Man At All." Sounds like DICK DALE on slow dope, not the kind of surf music you twist and shout to but the kind you sit around and snap your fingers and shake your head to.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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"MUTE ANT COMP"
compilation
cassette

Mute Ant Sounds
P.O. Box 1144
WILLIAMSTOWN, NJ 08094
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

"All of us have enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. Now we are fed up with them. This is why we get infinitely more pleasure imagining combinations of the sounds of trolleys, autos, and loud crowds, than listening once more to the heroic or pastoral symphonies". There follows a comp of industrial acts which are not half bad, actually! Great work! Although I fear they will trolley me to death if I say I find them very Trent. Really good if you like the genre (I do). But excuse me, now I'm off to listen to PUCCINI.

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

Neo Pseudo
23 South Princeton Avenue
SWARTHMORE, PA 19081
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This sucks. You'd think that a band with song titles like "The Night Patti Smith Dreamed of Elizabeth Cotton" and "You Move Me Like Maureen Tucker Does" would rock. Wrong. They've also got songs called "Thinking About The Air," "Too Much Money," and my personal favorite "Only Animals": "Only Animals, only animals, aint nothin' special oh we're only animals." I mean, check out the liner notes: "Thanks to - Tricia Keegan, Paula Ziegenhagen Slick and Andrea Littlewood - the beautiful women who inspire us to have all the fun we have. We acknowledge them as our muses, the angels for whom we produce our musical adventures and everything else." Come on, guys. The band sounds like "Owner of a Lonely Heart"-era YES on a really bad day. Fist-pumping anthems infused with earnest vocals and stupid lyrics. For starters they could lose ED NARDI, the guy who is credited with playing "midi mallet keyboard, djimbe," and "talking drum", yeah that may sound exotic, but the mallet keyboard, which is featured in almost every song, sure sounds dorky. These guys are simply too silly and too happy to be any good. They need to be dumped by their girlfriends or something. The only reason I'm being so nice is that they sound like they know how to play their instruments.

Robert Lurie
AUTO6

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NEXT RADIO
Marxist? Bowl.Shrine
cassette

Next Radio
8701 Crocus Lane Street
ST. LOUIS, MO 63114
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I should state up front that this tape is just some guys making a bunch of directionless noise. Still, there is much to be said about a bunch of guys making directionless noise, especially when the "guys" are the fine folks from NEXT RADIO and the "noise" veers in exceedingly avant garde directions. MARXIST? BOWL. SHRINE consists entirely of "Live improvisations performed in the late summer of 1996 at Barefoot Studios, St. Louis, Missouri." The listener is subjected to lengthy passages of abrasive atonal guitar and radio static which occasionally mutates into melodic e-bow meanderings. It feels as if the BURROUGHS cut-up technique was applied to this tape, except it was apparently done live. Somehow the transitions don't seem choppy. After about 15 minutes of listening to the chirping and squawking gadgetry, you pretty much get the feel of what the rest of the tape sounds like. That being said, I would hesitate to dismiss this kind of noodling. It is this kind of studio experimentation that is essential to making real sonic breakthroughs. These guys sound like they are on their way to making a real masterpiece, and they simply decided to release their jam sessions, which give us a fascinating glimpse of the creative process at work. While there is much on this tape that maybe should have been left on the cutting room floor, the spontaneity also allows for moments of true brilliance which bubble up to the surface of the chaotic sonic stew. STARBUCK's Dadaist vocals emerge when least expected, and every now and then the noises coalesce and something truly spiritual occurs. It is these inspired moments which make this tape worth wading through for the serious music enthusiast. If and when the members of this collective apply their talents to a more focused, concrete work, it just might change the face of music as we know it. I'm not kidding. So keep up the noodling, guys. You never know what might grow out of it.

Robert Lurie
AUTO6

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THE NIGHTINGALES
Nostalgia For The Reptiles
CD EP

Hiljaiset Levyt
P.O. Box 211
33201 TAMPERE
FINLAND
http://www.hiljaiset.sci.fi/

Cooler than shit schmoozy lounge/swing/BEATLEsque (Sgt. Pepper phase) rock from Finland, of all places. Science fictiony lyrics without coming off as filk, this disc hops nonstop with a short ballad break in the middle. My only, only complaint about this is that it's way too short-I keep wanting to hit the replay button over and over just to make it last as long as everything else I've got in the stacks for today.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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"NOISES IN THE NIGHT"
compilation
cassette

Tinty Music
P.O. Box 85363
SEATTLE, WA 98145-1363
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.halcyon.com/tntmusic/home.htm
tntmusic@halcyon.com

Four song tape by Seattle people TINTY MUSIC, INTERFERENCE PATTERNS, BILL HORIST and RANDY YAU. Song 1 is 1:47 of noisy static and sound manipulation. I just do not "get" or "like" the noisy explorations of wavelength after wavelength of static bursts. Song 2 is a lot better. It is a long track that is quiet drone at the start and then turns into a smooth dance song that is kind of harsh and funky at the same time. Song 3 is more found sound manipulation and static sampling and resampling that did not do it for me for the same reasons I did not like song 1. There is only so much of static bolts Faruq can listen to before it begins to sound like three or four televisions have gone haywire! Song 2 was my favorite of these by far and the only one with any sort of melodic content whatsoever. If you like static and electrical current run through various machines you might like the other songs more than I did.

Faruq Al-Qahira
AUTO6

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NOT BREATHING
Time Music Of Quazars
CD

Visible Records
2443 Fillmore Street
Suite 336
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
visible@calon.com

Silk-smooth atmospheric ambient-electronica. Not really gripping, but perfect background music for your life, overall. This CD is impeccable, and there is EVEN a track called 'Darth Vader Disco Luv". Like BROCA'S AREA, but as good as BROCA'S AREA or not? Well, ex aequo, I'd say. Ambient rules!

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

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THE NOW NOISE!
Raging Mad Insanity
CD

Morbid Records
Postfach 3
03114 DREBKAU
GERMANY
http://www.morbidrecords.de/

Excellent! This disc opens with a highly satisfying bit of grind-thrash-grunt-kill-metal. Growly deathmetal vocals, riffs that could open wounds from 20 yards and some catchy songwriting combine to make this the best metal I've heard all week. Judging from the entirely-too-consistent drum sounds, I'd say there's a drum machine on TNN's payroll, but just like GODFLESH uses theirs to do things humans aren't able to do, these guys program theirs to rock like fucking DAVE LOMBARDO with an extra arm. Why don't more metal bands do that? There's no questioning the precision of a machine! This is most of my favorite metal acts from ten years ago morphed into one: SLAYER, KREATOR, NAPALM DEATH...Needless to say, the whole disc rocks like fucking madness and the title couldn't be more appropriate.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

Morbid Records
Postfach 3
03114 DREBKAU
GERMANY
http://www.morbidrecords.de/

At the dawn of my lyric writing career (ca. 1985, 8th grade, age 13) I wrote a song called "Human Barbecue," which was about cannibalism. At the dawn of my middle age (ca 1998, age 26) comes OBSCENITY with a song and album with the same name. Hmm. I'm from Ohio, they're from Germany. Hmmm. Coincidence? You wish! OBSCENITY uses more or less the same sonic formula as the other MORBID RECORDS bands: insansely intricate dual-guitar riffing, guttural grunty vocals and bludgeoning double-bass drum action. OBSCENITY's guitar riffs occasionally include a few uncharacteristically melodic passages, which is strange considering the utter monotone of the low-barked vocals. The opening track, "Eaten From Inside" sets the tone for the whole record: punishing thrash death grind. And I like "Human Barbecue" too, even though they clearly ganked the idea from one poofy-haired teenage rocker from the Midwest in the 80s. Actually one riff sounds almost identical to the DEICIDE song "Suicide Sacrifice." Okay. OBSCENITY KILLS! And the last track is a note-perfect cover of SLAYER's godlike "Raining Blood"! Cool.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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"OBVIOUS"
compilation
CD

25 Records
P.O. Box 3006
POOLE
BH12 2HU
UK
markbr@lds.co.uk

Not bad really! A comp of not-yet-famous Brit bands. Sure, you could play a game with friends with this CD - "Match each band with the famous British act they sound like - OASIS, BLUR, BUSH, early reggae-style POLICE, THE MISSION..."..but really, I LIKE this comp. There are even two dance tracks which sound exactly like the latest MADONNA. And there's a cha cha cha. Very well done. Wait, I'll name all the bands: HONEYGUN, THE HOLSTEINS, FLAMING JUNE, SOFT COTTON COUNTY, CERULEAN BLUE, RED ASH AND THE LOVE COMMANDOS, BOY CALLED BETTY, INDIAN RUNNER, CONTROL Z, THE WEDGE, THE ORIGINAL MIND, FASTER, SPINDRIFT, MICHAEL ERIC DOWEY, PHAROS, DAVE SEXY, MOTH CONSPIRACY (ain't this a cute band name). I kid you not, this CD is good.

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

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JAMES RICHARD OLIVER
Lo Fi
cassette

James Richard Oliver
P.O. Box 924
BLUE RIDGE, GA 30513-0924
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Sparse, punkabilly guitar songs are what this tape is all about, with the occasional drum machine beat thrown in for good measure. The songs are pretty catchy and MR OLIVER repeatedly shows off his ability to wail out a great lead guitar riff and come up with a great hook. "Kiss Destroyer" is a witty, nostalgic trip down memory lane for 30-somethings with references from Evil Knevil to Farrah Fawcett to Hot Wheels cars. I'm a sucker for a blues tune, and "T.V.D.T.s" is a really funny one about missing women with "big sets". The title of the tape is actually inaccurate because it's really well recorded. There's even a bonus track!

Ken Miller
AUTO6

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JAMES RICHARD OLIVER
Psycho Billy Joe Bob
cassette

James Richard Oliver
P.O. Box 924
BLUE RIDGE, GA 30513-0924
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Go daddy O !! Well, my little skat cats we have us here yet another one of those rockabilly/swing type deals. Not that it is a bad thing mind you. I am just getting kind of bored of it already. This tape reminded me of a cross between THE CRAMPS and the music you hear when a Ren & Stimpy cartoon is starting. I really dug this for the most part. I just feel like I have to go home and watch "Swingers" now.

Chrissy Taylor
AUTO6

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ONE LAST FLING
Carol For Savages
cassette

Andy Savage
35 Kearsley Road
SHEFFIELD
S2 4TE
UK

Is this a joke? A folky tape of songs for Christmas played by someone who can hardly sing accompanied by a guitar playing in a different key, in a different room, playing a different song. If it was meant to be funny, it is, especially when we don't get the cultural references (who the heck is "Footie" anyway? I'm guessing it's some British kiddie show character). Seven songs in the key of Christmas. This is purely a novelty item and should be sought out if you're into that sort of thing.

John Gore
AUTO6

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OPPOSED TO VIOLENCE
Come Sweet Death
CD

House Audio
Postfach 1306
76689 KARLSDORF
GERMANY
http://members.aol.com/OTViolence/welcome.htm

Progressive (ie-they use keyboards) doom metal with deathly shouting and growling. A lot of the riffs and atmosphere of these tracks is pure 1980s NWOBHM, and not always in a good way. The riffs are fairly melodic and the playing is generally decent, but the tuneless vocals are kind of bland. The tracks are epic and interesting enough until the Cookie Monster vocals start up. "Horror Vacui" starts with a funkless slap-bass intro, which eventually yields to an offtime riff and more damn growling. Woooooarggggghhhh!!!

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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"ORCHESTRE MECCANICHE ITALIANE"
compilation
CD

Snowdonia
c/o Cinzia La Fauci
via Cherubini, 84
98124 MESSINA
ITALY
Pustiana@cisi.unito.it

Curiouser and curiouser! A 22-track comp of Italian underground and generally weird acts, done with flair and humour. Lots of strange experimental weird jazz-noise-dub delirium (GI-NAPAJO, FSX, BZ BZ UEU, SPRUT, PUSTIANAZ/SCOTTI, STOVES, JACOPO ANDREINI, BIANCA BELMONT, JEALOUSY PARTY, S BIASIN). PANGOLINORCHESTRA sounds a bit like AMON TOBIN. Noise-gloom guy DANIELE BRUSHASCHETTO, a favorite with this reviewer, offers some more of his trademark sophisticated sadness with "Movements". Best of all and worth the entire price of this CD is MAISIE, a female-fronted band in perfect early-Eighties-electro style, like DEVO or vintage B-52s, which kicks some VERY serious ass on their three tracks, especially in the deliciously named "I Am A Compacter of Rubbish" (great dancefloor material). Start putting money in your piggy bank for the moment when MAISIE make their own full-length CD.

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

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ORLOCK
Ambulance
7"

Monstro Records
RR6
Box 6070
MOSCOW, PA 18444
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This record is harder than trying to shit a BMW. The riffs are slow and terrifying and the screamed vocals don't exactly soothe either. "Ambulance" is slower'n'SABBATH and features a bit of unrelated soundfuckage (ie-samples) inserted into the middle. Unsettlingly sweet. The riff is so big I must kill you now. "Spanking" speeds things up considerably and features ALICIA screaming and screeching and generally just going out of her fucking mind. Technical riffs and a big old nasty offtime groove in the middle. I fondly recall the initial rush of SUB P.O.P groups in the late 80s I felt. ALICIA sings (damn good voice too) on "Seizure," which actually does sound something like a seizure. The erratic tempo changes and haunting vocals...oh yeah, I feel it now. I'm on ORLOCK's tip, huge-time.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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ORLOCK
Impostor / Maidenhead
7"

Fall
7121 Quail Woods Road
WILMINGTON, NC 28405-7027
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Fuck THE MISFITS, this here is the truly scary shizzat! "Imposter" opens with half a minute of noodling and sound effects so quiet you think they're coming from the other room. Then the song kicks in, and oh lordy is it hotttt. tttt. It's doomy and scary and ethereal and fabulous beyond words. "Maidenhead" is pure gloom sludge dirge with screaming and feedback and yelling and it's slower than glue. Emoting, plain and simple. It's heavy and scary. And it fucking rules.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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OUTER AND EVENT HORIZON
Robot Friend
cassette

Empty View Rrekerds
P.O. Box 2644
SAN JOSE, CA 95109
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

In between designing t-shirts, drawing comics, and rocking out in PIE/JUST CAUSE, SPACE JOCKEY Dave Coscia experiments in home recorded acoustic love songs and noisy freakout turntable collages. Supposedly he records only using two tape decks and ping-pongs between them?! The quality is...unique...but not nearly as 'lo-fi' as you'd expect. The volume and mix between tracks of perfect, and I commend him for superior knowledge to anything I could have done in my pre-multi-track days. Lyrically very realist and honest, "I start work for the first day tomorrow. I feel it's a waste of time. I'm just doing it for the money. I'd rather stay up late and draw, or do some songs. It's frustrating." It is, for sure, but don't let it get to you. A great tape and there's even an M+B cover (see M+B review in this issue) called "Dirty and Rusty"..."If a person comes next to me he'll say 'PA-YOOP-a-DEE-DOO." If you write to him, he sends you tons of cool stickers. And if you send him HotWheels! cars...oh, boy, his world is your oyster.

Michael Anderson
AUTO6

KAW
2 Carmuir
LANARKSHIRE
ML11 8AR
UK

I wish I knew Frank Peck 'cause whether or not he is sincere makes all the difference with this. I think he is. Cover includes a warning that the tape "...contains lo-fidelity material which may cause offense to some listeners." Mostly bedroom pop. Seems like it could be recorded a little better. But that is part of the charm. B-side is a KAW sampler which was rather torturous. TIMO was good for a chuckle. Singer was a twelve (?) year old imitating his favorite rock star.

Chris Gregory
AUTO6

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PENNILESS
Avalanche
CD

West Side Fabrication
Box 183
SE-931 22 SKELLEFTEA
SWEDEN

Apparently, "grunge" has hit Sweden and its neighboring countries in full force. Nearly everything I've been getting from the area reeks of COBAIN's guitar riffs and growly-voiced wanna-be VEDDERs. Not that that's necessarily bad or anything, it's just kind of funny seeing the scene being played out again on the other side of the planet. PENNILESS does a decent job of being the new reps of Sweden's alternative scene, especially if this single is any indication of the rest of their material. Let's just hope they don't discover heroin or prescription painkillers.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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PHOTON BAND
All Young In The Soul
CD

Darla Records
625 Scott Street #301
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.darla.com/

Reminds me a lot of the BEATLES' early vinyl recordings, both in the scratchy, fuzzy recording quality and the general all-over sixties pop sound. There are occasional forays into psychedelia on this disc, but most of it sticks to the pop format. What I can hear of the lyrics on this are fairly depressing and dark, not quite so dark that I'd use this as a soundtrack for slitting my wrists to, but more like something some teenage girl'd have in her head a few days after the guy she'd had sex with for the first time dumped her.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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THE PITKINS
Over And Out
7"

Jawbone
c/o Unit
10 St. Mary's Works
St. Mary's Plain
NORWICH
UK

Guitar pop with co-ed vocals and a bit of a grunge chorus. And a violin? The singing on "Over And Out" is somewhat out of tune but when it all comes together (complete with the violin) on the last chorus, it's very not bad. On the flip...now, silly me, when I hear a violin coming in like this with an otherwise clean-rockin' English guitar-rock thing (HOUSEMARTINS, SMITHS etc) I think "P.O.GUES!" But enough about me. This track is a nice, propulsive swing number making excellent use of said violin. Here the co-ed vocals are pure, uncut PREFAB SPROUT. And I fucking love old PREFAB SPROUT. "What You've Done (acoustic version)" opens with a shout of "fuck off piss off!" and then the song starts and it's all nice and acoustic. Contrast is a lovely thing. "What You've Done" is actually a damn fine song; better, I'm afraid, than the A-side! Still a very strong and solid single. But can they deliver the goods on a whole album?????

Ian C Stewart
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"POP! PRODUCTIONS 1987-1997"
compilation
cassette

Pop! Productions
http://members.aol.com/raycarmen/rc.html

This comp is a 10 year retrospective cassette, celebrating w/ a 'Best of..' label sampler. Label head Ray Carmen, puts his 'greatest hits, if I were to have any', on side 2, while side A collects some of his favourite tracks by other bands he's released. Side 1 opens with an ambient track of tones and melodic loops by ATMOSFEAR, which refreshingly ends just shy of boredom. Restraint seldom found on 'ambient' tracks. From there the tape grows into an amazing collection of uncompromisingly cool underground pop. Hard to come by these days, it obtains the very cool accompishment of harkening everything from BRIAN ENO's vocal pop (GHOST ROCKETS-'Try to Believe'), TUXEDOMOON's suave lounge intensity (KEN CLINGER's 'Radio' is certainly the smoothest new wave I've heard since 1983, worth the price of admission alone!), to SOFT BOYS and even a honky tonk play on GARY NUMAN (LAWRENCE SALVATORE- 'Parts for Fast Cars') with authentic old-school stereo seperation. Very nice indeed. And the side ends with another experimental piece looping the Bulgarian State Choir I love so much with a kind of anthemic grandeur only an SK-1 can attain!

Side 1's strength made me very excited to see what RAY CARMEN could do himself. Surrounded by such a great entourage, how could he go wrong? BYRDS-esque pop, occasionally affecting an humourous slight British accent, and a very nice production quality. His originals hold up very well in the company of two great covers; MIKE NESMITH's 'You Just May Be The One' is always a good one to cover, and, though it can be a somewhat dubious task to cover NICK DRAKE, Ray handles it very well with a great version of 'Fly' which features KEN CLINGER substituting the original cello part for a woodwind (cor anglais?). A nice touch. My favourite tracks however, are two of Ray's originals. 'Monster' shimmers in dreamy reverb and a gorgeous acoustic melody...a bit like FLYING SAUCER ATTACK or MAGNETIC FIELDS, and 'One Day' (which ends the tape) again has KEN CLINGER on board for another round of Crammed Disc/Tuxedomoon pop smoothness...The first tape in a long while to totally catch me off guard and get me off my jaded butt to flip the tape over and over again. Thanks.

Michael Anderson
AUTO6

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POST PRANDIALS
Jamaica
CD

Keith Nicolay
1953 65th Street #2E
BROOKLYN, NY 11204
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Free-form improv jazz at its purest and most chaotic. A 60 minute CD with 3 looong tracks— instruments blurt and squirble all over the landscape—you'll never know where one track ends and another begins if you're not looking at the player. You'll either love this for its extremely challenging nature or hate it because there is virtually no rhythm or melody structure to hook you with—or like me, do both depending on what sort of day you've had...

Colin Wales
AUTO6

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PRINCESS SUPERSTAR
Ceo
CD

A Big Rich Major Label
151 First Avenue
Suite 239
NEW YORK, NY 10003
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

There is an unavoidable comparison between PRINCESS SUPERSTAR and MADONNA. Both are strong blond women that make their sexuality the focal point of their music. PRINCESS SUPERSTAR is like a gritty, sarcastic version of MADONNA, a MADONNA that grew up in a trailer park and had to get a real job after dropping out of high school, clawing her way through the music business to achieve a level of security and comfort, unabashedly using her sleazy sexuality to get where and what she wants. CEO is about that climb, revealing a disturbingly unglamorous side of the music industry and the business world in general. And even though I have too many qualms and reservations about real jobs and the corporate world to be comfortable listening to this disc for too long, CEO rocks, jumping from hiphop to house music to balls-out power pop and what's more, the band sounds like they're actually enjoying themselves while they're doing it.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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PROZAK FOR LOVERS
untitled
CD

Bruce Lash
161 East Grand
CHICAGO, IL 60611
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://home.att.net/~bblash/page6.html
blash@qmail.com

Hee hee, pass the olives. Ten songs we all know and love getting the lounge-exotica treatment, a la MIKE FLOWERS. Not exactly the latest music fad - it went out last year, I guess, together with the faux-cool early-Sixties booklet graphics (all in fetching nuances of snot-green); nevertheless, who could resist to the pleasure of hearing (amongst many others) BOWIE's "Rebel Rebel", THE CLASH's "London Calling" (yeah, imagine...), THE RAMONES' " I Wanna Be Sedated" and my personal favorite, JOY DIVISION's "Love Will Tear Us Apart", done in such a charming style? This guy BRUCE LASH and his sultry chanteuse sound so velvety and suave that I can't wait to irritate the hell out of my punk-goth friends with this CD. Get this for a laugh. (to Bruce: please please please, can you cover BAUHAUS' "Bela Lugosi Is Dead" or anything by DIAMANDA GALAS and EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN? Thanks...)

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

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PSYCHO DELICATE
Love Songs For The Dysfunctional
CD

Psycho Delicate
5401 Ridgeview Drive
HARRISBURG, PA 17112
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://members.aol.com/psychodlct/index.html

This is a fun bunch of happy-sounding pop songs about S&M and weird girlfriends and B-movie characters. Reminds me a lot of the music Elvira used to pick for her show and seasonal compilation albums, along the lines of the CRAMPS and The GHOULIES.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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THE PURE PLASTIC TREE
The Action Poets vs. George The King Of Swing
CD

Big Beef Records
P.O. Box 303 WBB
DAYTON, OH 45409
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.bigbeef.com/

THE PURE PLASTIC TREE is a lot like the STONE TEMPLE PILOTS doing acoustic music the vocalist sounds that close to that long-haired STP guy. The instruments come off as au natural which is impossible in reality, I know, but they really don't sound like they've been miked. There's this jamming-in-the-living-room feel to this which is really great, especially since the band can actually play their instruments. They've got some good banjo music on this, and the guy on the upright bass really knows how to rock YEE-HAW! (ahem, sorry there's a picture of a tractor on the box, couldn't help myself). And I know almost every band out there has a violin player at this point, but I still love to hear it.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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PURPLE IVY SHADOWS
No Less The Trees Than The Stars
CD

Slow River Records
Shetland Park
27 Congress Street
SALEM, MA 01970
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Spacey, country-influenced slow rock that sounds a lot like old NEIL YOUNG in places (in fact, I found myself checking liner notes a couple times, sure they were covering one of his songs). Even though I couldn't find anything particularly wrong with this disc, I'm finding it strangely unmemorable, even though I've listened to it three or four times now. The artwork on the cover is pretty cool...
Holly Day
AUTO6

LoveUgly
P.O. Box 4116
ARCHDALE, NC 27263-2860
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

One man band QUESTION kicks off his tape with some ChittyChittyBangBang turntable scratching and then the song "Without" starts and is too muddy with samples from the beginning. Some of the samples should have been cleaned away because they made the song way too dense to wade through. "Heart Attack" shows that Alex can not sing! Most of the songs have a fuzz guitar and too many layers of samples. The samples just distracted me from listening to other elements of the songs. That is pretty much this entire tape in a nutshell. I would have enjoyed it more with less fuzz on the guitar and less needless samples. QUESTION are trying and that I applaud and I hope Alex keeps on trying, but this tape just did not work for Faruq.

Faruq Al-Qahira
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QUESTION
Slow
cassette

LoveUgly
P.O. Box 4116
ARCHDALE, NC 27263-2860
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

An interesting and somewhat diverse 'one-guy in his bedroom' combinination of weird, quite well-produced aggresive pop songs and even weirder sound collages via an unending barrage of turntable abuse. Unfortunately, for much of the tape, the samples and collages greatly outshine the songwriting. Many of the songs suffer from out-of-key 'my first batch of songs' syndrome, which is not bad in itself, but maybe he should try distortion or reverb to soften the flatter parts. And drop the love (lust?) songs altogether (ie. 'True') nteresting intro to tape, I thought I was listening to a live JOURNEY album inbetween songs...or was I? Some of the songs on side one were pretty strong; like the relentless, tense, early BIG BLACK fierceness of the first track ('Lock the Flow'), and the old school greebo of 'Ruca' with its POP WILL EAT ITSELF head bobbing and vocals mixed a bit lower (hint, hint)...No frontin' yo! Side two is really diverse, with new wave, disco, and even bossa nova hits. Favourites being 'You and Me' or maybe 'So big and so strong'...Ladies and Gentlemen he is floating in space. Samples and general mayhem harkens to a less organized STUFFINGS. 'Puff' is cool...sounds like a bunch of horny termites or groundhogs having a field day at the mall, until the CARS come in and I get creeped out when his parents start banging on the door wanting in...Fave quote: 'That kitten looked extremely queer with bunnies ears instead'.

Michael Anderson
AUTO6

Stone Premonitions
271 Park Road
SOUTH MOOR
STANLEY CO DH9 7AP
UK

This is a lot like the early GENESIS, when PHIL COLLINS sat in the background and played drums like a good little boy and PETER GABRIEL ran the show. Intelligent, surreal lyrics dominate the songs, with prog-rock instrumentals backing them up. Most of the songs deal with happy subjects like crowds being bombed by political groups, war, government's universal policy of hypocrisy. You get the picture.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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FRANK RAWLINSON
Cowpoke's Lament
cassette

Frank Rawlinson
6 Fieldway
Medls
WIRRAL
L47 9SD
UK

This one-song cassette regurgitates every old-west cliche and invents a few of its own ("head back for chowder and coffee and pie that's from the chuck wagon"). Images of prairies, beer-hungry cattle rustlers, dust, um...poverty, you name it. The song is a putrid pastiche of old-west country + western stereotypes performed about as convincingly as PAUL SIMON does African music. The music bed was performed all on synths, which is interesting in a way—the bendy "harmonica" and "fiddle" patches sound hysterically bogus. C+W ain't really all that great a thing to be a-hankerin' after no how, so I can't figger why these limeys want to get in on the "action." This is the kind of thing that gets you run out of Nashville with a pair of red leather chaps up your ass. Either that or they make you the next TRAVIS TRITT and just hand you the keys to the whole damn city. Bottom line: If they ever do Rennaisance Fayres that change the theme to the Old West, the wandering minstrels can use this song to warm up with. Fuck this shit.

Ian "The Anti-Tritt" Stewart
AUTO6

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C REIDER
Man Hours
cassette

Vuzh Music
P.O. Box 1204
LYONS, CO 80540-1204
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Two selections flushed full of dark atmosphere make up MAN HOURS. The liner notes indicate that "musical instruments, tools, voice and site recordings" were all mixed up at "Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park" to create these spooky compositions. In an eerie way, all the sounds have been treated so that none of them are particularly recognizable. The entire recording projects a vacuousness that makes it sound like it was recorded way at the back of Yogi and Boo Boo's cave. I would classify MAN HOURS as hypnotic hauntings for droning leizure.

Swami Loopynanda
AUTO6

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REMORA
Anaaron
cassette

Silber Records
P.O. Box 18062
RALEIGH, NC 27619
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Meandering lo-tech noise-song works. Tinny guitar strumming sometimes accompanied by cutting veils of feedback shrieks and gnarling lower rumbles. The mood goes from clawing, terrified alley cat to something considerably more docile with more metallic strumming (perhaps this is a steel guitar?) and some soft, unsure singing... "Shallow peace of a slave, la la la..." At times quaint, usually tense and dry, strangely naive.

C Reider
AUTO6

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REMORA
The Clockwork Ammonite Shells
CD

Worry
c/o 17 Fishers Green
Bridge of Allan
STIRLINGSHIRE
SCOTLAND
FK9 4PU

53 excruciating minutes of noises, noises, noises, drones, noises, drones, noises, noises and more noises. I don't understand. Awesome cover art though, designed by the guys themselves. Remora: quit music and become illustrators.

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

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REQUIEM
Grave
CD

Requiem
1200 North Lamb #36
LAS VEGAS, NV 89110
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Unimpressively recorded, sloppily played and with the dorky-ass vocals too far out front in the mix, REQUIEM isn't the heaviest thing I've heard all year. Nor the tightest. The main riff of "Victims Rise" almost sounds like FUDGE TUNNEL on an off night but the production renders the whole thing useless. A wall of open hi-hat and lead guitar overdubs. I was hoping the lyrics to "Racial War" would at least raise my blood pressure a little, but I nodded off a couple of times during the song and woke up in the middle of track six, "War." Turns out these guys have heard MEGADETH too! Yawn. "Uncertain Destiny," and hey! Now we're a listless HOOTIE! This bullshit is why I stopped listening to metal altogether. Exactly.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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"RESURGENCE"
compilation
2 CD Set

Doppler Effect Records
P.O. Box 6417
BEAVERTON, OR 97007-0417
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.sonic-boom.com/resurgence/
dfx@sonic-boom.com

Oh wow! I adore this. Been playing it VERY loud over and over while doing household chores. Two CDs of bands coming from mostly Seattle or Portland, doing electronic, industrial, some EBM, wave and some goth. You can't believe how cool this CD set is. I can't find fault with it. I won't even start mentioning all the 29 bands in this, suffice to say that they are all good for a reason or another. Best song title: "PentaCrowley - The Short Attention Span Remix" (by Uglysyn). My personal favourite is the evil and very danceable litany of "Hypnagogue" by NUMANTRA, but it's a totally personal thing. The ubiquitous TINTY MUSIC are in too. Goth-wave-industrial readers (IF there are any): this is unmissable. Other readers: this comp is damn good. TRENT and MARILYN should really start trembling in their fishnets - sooner or later some of these guys will take over.

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

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THE REVELERS
Silver Ship
7"

Break-Up!
91 East Patterson Avenue
COLUMBUS, OH 43202
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

These guys are synonymous with incredibly well done underground pop rock. Unt this record does not disappoint the Pop Beast Within. "Silver Ship" leads off on Side Two with everything but handclaps and tambourine, really: vocal harmonies you'll be singing in your sleep, cheesy keyboards, and a fun set of chords. Side B opens with a "Strawberry Fields" rip called "Meet Me At The Station," which will have the MJB/Scott Brookman/Don Campau/underground pop set climbing the walls in fits of REVELERmania. Hey, if it worked for OASIS...

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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RHESUS
untitled
cassette

Suzie Zuzek
17A Shoobra Street
3185 Eisternwick
MELBOURNE
AUSTRALIA

Tape label says "Revolt, revolt, resolve, resolve, revolt, revolt" but I don't think that's the title. The guitaring/instrumenting here is interesting in that it is not completely punk-method stuff, but the vocals are too jarring for me. I'm sure it's meant to be. This all is obviously important to RHESUS. Easy to tell by the six-page lyric book included.

Chris Gregory
AUTO6

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RIBEYE
Obscurity Sings!
cassette

Doormat
P.O. Box 8253
THE WOODLANDS, TX 77387
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Two tapes worth of songs from RIBEYE on this release. Double albums, double cds, double tapes. Tape one is mainly acoustic music with very similar perrcussion on most tracks. In fact, the acoustic guitar chords start to sound familiar and are used too repeatedly. The electric "Rumplestiltskin" uses Wal-Mart in its lyrics and that is a good thing because it reminds me of home and oh how I hate Wal-Mart. This is one of the better songs on tape one. A lot of the songs turn me off because they try to be too jokey-jokey. Case in point, "Butterfly Knife," with its overly obsessive lyrics and vocals ala Mr.Vic Chesnutt. "Hammer On" is a story-song that is kind of catchy with a simple melody. Tape two starts off with the more serious "Oh Sheridan, Pascagoula." I like RIBEYE more when they are less tongue-in-cheek and trying to write funny-style lyrics. "Scorpio Sitting Still" really sounds like Mr. Vic, too similar. Tape two is in the same vein as tape one: acoustic guitars and whimsical lyrics that never quite won me over to the side of RIBEYE. There is some good here but also some bad.

Faruq Al-Qahira
AUTO6

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THE ROCK STARS OF LOVE
The Last Temptation Of Charlie Manson
7"

Hobart Arms Records
P.O. Box 8104
BELLFLOWER, CA 90706
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The title track is the MISFITS timewarped back into the mid-1960s! The lyrics recast Manson alternately as a bad neighbor, a lost truck driver and stern parent. Hmmm. The song is long and hookless, except for the chorus which has fewer hooks than the back of a door in a nudist colony (sorry, "naturalist resort."). "Artistic Drops Of Blood" opens with a promising noise bit, then degenerates into a pseudo MINISTRY thrash bit (minus the aggro and layers of guitars). One of the songs with CHRIS CONNELLY singing (ie- the boring ones). The playing is wildly erratic and sounds like a jam session hopped-up on that new Surge shit. The vocals are double-tracked, and ROBERT COFFMAN's voice could pass for an unwarbly JELLO BIAFRA in a pinch. I liked the last ROCK STARS OF LOVE single I heard much better: "Why Do Porno Teens Go Bad" + "Don't You Fucking Darling Me." Who knows.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

Weird Dreams
Imatrantie 13 A 5
53100 LAPPEENRANTA
FINLAND
weirds@hotmail.com

(not "Smooth Operator" Sade, these guys have an umlaut over their A which I can't seem to make on my keyboard.) AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!!! 12 minutes (too short) of lo-fi drum+bass! "duplicating cell [epithelio]" opens with some space-noodling..."huvipuisto [ninja]" features a melody crafted from highspeed snare sounds, followed by a crafty and sexy d+b loop. The orchestra samples on this record are insanely high-quality and make it all sound so damn good. Side B opens with "contractile vacuole forming." The lost-girl singing and orchestra hits over the reverby drum loop add up to SNEAKER PIMPS any other day of the week, but this is better. "hypothetical ancestral mollusk" opens with the ambient ass-shaking groove that will one day save the world. SADE (with an umlaut) ain't no SADE (without), but they are definitely rulers of this universe. Brilliant.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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SANITY ASSASSINS
Speed Of Death
cassette

Dagger
P.O. Box 380152
EAST HARTFORD, CT 06138-0152
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Man, this is the band I wanted to be in when I was in high school. An energetic, uptempo, spooky punk band that writes good songs and scary riffs. SAN-ASS ain't as scary as the MISFITS (duh, who is), they're more like the CRAMPS in that regard. The recording is garagey and gloriously (and appropriately) trashy, but still clear enough that you can hear the entire drum kit and the guitar solos. They cover DIE KREUZEN's "Hate Me," which sounds good to me. "My Last Laugh" is another frightpoppy thrasher with lyrics about...uh...revenge and digging graves and stuff. I woulda loved this shit in the late 80s. I'm always 10 years late.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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THE SARNOS
self-titled
CD

Hairy Records
P.O. Box 170301
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE SARNOS' self-titled CD is a catchy batch of twelve pop songs. I love the simplicity of guitar-based pop songs. It seems so easy to succeed but to combine lyrics with melody and intertwine that with electric guitar is harder to do than it seems. THE SARNOS' songwriter is Sam Koritz and his songs are short, jangly and likeable. Just what pop songs should be. "Boise" has a detached sadness to it. Koritz's voice has that quality too, a pleasant aloofness that makes the song endearing. The CD ends with "Another Girl, Another Planet" and it is a very catchy love/pop song. I like this a lot and recommend it for anyone who likes short, guitar songs.

Faruq Al-Qahira
AUTO6

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SCARIES
Stab It And Steer
cassette

Springbox
P.O. Box 1063
BENICIA, CA 94510
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Three-man group SCARIES perform seven straightforward rock n roll songs on this EP. The music is supposed to inspire the stripping off of clothes according to the liner notes and there is a raw quality to the songs, although I stayed completely clothed during listening. "Moonlight Drive" is a noirish slow-burn of a song. "The Cage" has a nice twangy guitar in it and good vocals that make me think of some small, dusty, empty and dark stage in Nevada. I really liked "The Cage" until it gets "hard" in the second half. It's still my favorite song on this EP but I loved the slower, twangfulls of pain at the beginning. If you like solid, no-frills rock n roll, SCARIES are in this world for you.

Faruq Al-Qahira
AUTO6

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K.D. SCHMITZ
Arf-Niks Volume Three
cassette

K.D. Schmitz
P.O. Box 1806
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY 12601
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Starts off with a sort of ENO-pop stab at the BEATLES' "Tomorrow Never Knows," which gives one certain assumptions on what to expect for the rest; assumptions both justified and dismissed in equal measure. (Excuse me, the mailman just came...grrr, no mail AGAIN) I cannot tell if this is a collection made BY or FOR Schmitz, but this diverse tape is mostly pulled from four sources. Most are acoustic tracks come from 1992; many are also from a 1996 project, sighted as "Words In Our Mouths." These are rockers, juxtaposing weird cheesy-good casio beats and melodies with heavy guitars and tight reverb/chorus vocals (with a faint British accent that, if not real, is endearing nonetheless)...Very BEVIS FROND or WHO...and very effective. There are also a couple great ones from 1974. These are really interesting and funny in a way. I have a few early tapes like this, and it's cool to hear other peoples'...complete with silly role playing of voices telling each other to shut up. Lastly there is a sequence of psyche/delay experiments interspersed throughout (seven total), which, as a whole piece, would have been unlistenable. But, true with the tape as a whole, K.D. Schmitz has a knack for continuity and he tastefully sprinkles them throughout the tape as nice interludes between songs. And this makes for a good listen...more people should take heed.

Michael Anderson
AUTO6

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SECOND SKIN
Choir Invisible
CD

Second Skin
P.O. Box E
SCOTTSDALE, AZ 85252-8004
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A mostly flat and unimpressive production job—including the most yawnfully un-dynamic use of a drum machine this side of your local cheesy-listening station—hinder what could possibly pass for modern industrial goth. The overwrought vocals and the strictly-by-the-numbers lyrics could actually work in SECOND SKIN's favor if the rest of the music weren't so god-damn down-the-hall sounding. The songs are certainly epic and there's no shortage of vision behind the songwriting, it's just the execution that blows dog pee-pee. If they ever make Casios with a "goth" preset, it'll sound exactly like this.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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SLANT COMMANDER
Songs Of The Tiltmaster
cassette

BlueSanct Musak
4345 North Hermitage #1
CHICAGO, IL 60613
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This seems to be a one-off project by CHRIS GREGORY of Day2 (STUFFINGS/FUSCILLAGE). A half-hour of covers, presented as a birthday "offering"...Someone has a thesaurus handy: SLANT COMMANDER = TILTMASTER...my, aren't we clever. Gregory is helped here by guest producer 4K, who adds his usual dense levels of effects and analogue keyboard driven drones to the STUFFINGS-esque treatments of TILTMASTER songs mostly taken from recent EPs on his new Black Apple label. Being a fan of TILTMASTER and the STUFFINGS, this is a great tape. The result is a passionate kind of grace that so perfectly lends itself to the sparse and tragic melodies and lyrics of TM that it becomes hard to remember who is covering who...Along with the three newest STUFFINGS tapes, 1997 definitely showed Chris reaching a stride equal or surpassing the early STUFFINGS majesty, with an added maturity that will certainly carry him to even greater works as the millennium comes to an end...the 21st century may be his, mark my words. The tape seems to be interspersed with subliminal positive thinking lectures. "The purpose of this tape is to teach you the basic mechanics and theories of self-hypnosis...to work in a positive manner." I don't doubt it for a second, and 4K's tonal drifting will calm you and open you up to all suggestion. Sometimes I wonder if CHRIS GREGORY is a psychologist, using the STUFFINGS as a sort of case study for a thesis paper on music and the psyche...? Side B offers the pre-4K'd version of the EP, which stands up on its own, but perhaps it is 4K that will make the therapy penetrate. A desperate plea for the world to just slow down and control itself mixes with self-knowledge that this is just not feasible anymore...that things have just gone too far...Check out "Playing To The Cats Because There's No One Else Around," or the JESUS AND MARY CHAIN take on "What Are You Waiting For?" and take a long look around you.

David Linsson
AUTO6

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SLEPT / DOOSIES
untitled
split
7"

SLEPT play some energetic and quirky pop-type stuff on "The Map" and "Sugarcube." JAWBOX minus the angst. The playing is great and the songwriting is damn fine as well. The songs rule, basically. NORTONS ORCHESTRAVILLE where are you? MOMMYHEADS? Something like that. Catchy as fuck and novel too. DOOSIES rock a bit hardier and a little weirder too. "Amateur Night"'s intro is almost heavy metal but the bit after that is some damn fine Rock Moderne. YAZBEK recast as the new frontman for FAITH NO MORE? That doesn't seem like a very nice mix, but this shit is FINE. Fine. And fine. Bonus points for the gameboard record sleeve—do these guys know about XTC's "Making Plans For Nigel" holy-grail collectors' item? Me like.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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KEVIN ZIEGENHAGEN SLICK
The Traveler
cassette

Nu Vu Du
23 South Princeton Avenue
SWARTHMORE, PA 19081
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Zslick@aol.com

You know those lite-music stations that usually have names like "the Wave"or "the Breeze" or some such? This is that music— soft rock stylings to ease you through your day. It isn't my bag at all, but it's pleasantly and competently played, melodic and soothing, the guy has a pleasing voice—This music is on an equal level with anything being played on those lite stations, and there's no reason this shouldn't be there too.

Colin Wales
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SMALLMOUTH
All Ports In Frequent Seas
CD

Teenage USA
P.O. Box 689
Queen Street
WEST TORONTO ON M6J 1E6
CANADA

First of all, I've gotta say that Teenage USA consistently puts together some of the coolest packaging for their CDs that I've ever seen. Cut-out lithographs and gold-stamps on the covers, hand-drawn accents on the insidesit's just so "indie" that I can hardly stand it. Really, seriously, though, they've really made presenting their material into an art form, and if they care enough to put so much effort into the packaging of the music they represent, then I almost automatically want to as well. ALL PORTS IN FREQUENT SEAS is a collection of hard-edged, driving instrumentals and really beautiful, throaty vocals, broken up by a few shouting and screaming parts. A lot like early '80s 100 FLOWERS stuff, more contemporary example would be BILL DING (I'm really having a hard time categorizing exactly what it is this band sounds like, there aren't a lot of people out there that sound like these guys.). There's this background noise on a couple of the tracks that sounds a lot like an old propeller fan slowly turning, and the whole thing sounds like it was recorded in a cement bunker deep underground.

Holly Day
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SMIRKWORTHY
Wakerobinsdale / Deadline Schmeadline
cassette

Doormat
P.O. Box 8253
THE WOODLANDS, TX 77387
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This tape opens with some promise with a full sound of punky noise, but quickly disintegrates into the tortured artist effect presenting us with an annoying selection of songs delivered in angst-ridden MARILYN MANSON decadence. What happened to the band, man? Oh, there it is...After three solo pieces of questionable taste we get the full band again on track 4, although they could use a sound engineer. The bass is way too heavy, almost drowning out the vocals and everything else as well. The playing is competent and would fit in anywhere on the present popular music spectrum. Oh boy, more punky stuff opens side two. This I like. I have to say about this tape: the songwriting is fairly strong, with lots of interesting chord progressions and rhythmic variety. I get the impression these guys are more fun live than on memorex considering the quality of these recordings. Oh no, he's at it again with the solo stuff. Hopefully there will be a respite after he gets it out of his system with this. Nope, well, not completely anyway. There's the addition of more pronounced drums in this track but still the pompous posturings. Hey Al, bring back the band, man! Track 4 is a very short, layered-guitar instrumental that could have been very interesting if there had been any sort of development. Track 5 is back to the drums, acoustic guitar, bass, with the addition of percussion. Is that a tympani I hear or just a large tom tom? Interesting idea. This song is actually growing on me. Hard to believe, isn't it? But really, "Piece Of Me, Piece Of Meat"? Work on the titles, Al. What the blazes is this? This is getting ridiculous. You can't be decrying the darkness of existence for most of the tape and then do the playful musician thing in the next breath. People aren't going to take you seriously. After a quick, diverting bit of sonic cut-up we get another solo piece with guitar, and a Casio (and I mean a CHEAP Casio, you know the ones I mean, small plastic keys and three presets and cheezy percussion settings, about the size and color of a Subway sub sandwich and just as tasty). Okay, okay, high marks for trying something different. And then we have a very good song with above-average production values. And then we have a solo with guitar accompaniment, but I've had enought of this by now. Next please. Oh, the tape's over! Whew. Lots of ups and downs here. Contact at your own risk.

John Gore
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JOE SMITH
Your Personal Envoy Of Good Taste
CD

Nevermore Records
P.O. Box 2645
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94126-2645
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Well, after listening to this undecidedly about fifty times, I think I have to say I like this. I say "undecidedly" because each time I've listened to it, I really haven't been able to tell whether the disc is good or not, then I find myself humming or singing along with the songs or even having bits and pieces of the disc stick with me during my few quiet periods. This is mostly just JOE (if that is his real name) singing along with an acoustic guitar, doing original music as well as covers of the STOOGES' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and the "Speed Racer" theme song. I got sort of lost during his tribute to PHILIP K DICK, just because so little was said in the song and I'm a sensitive fan of the late MR DICK, but otherwise, the songs are well-written and sincere, or at least as sincere as a man can be (oops, did I just say that?).

Holly Day
AUTO6

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"SOFT PIG #1 LMNF COMPILATION OF LUNACY"
compilation
cassette

Little Mikey's Noise Factory
332 West Ninth Street
SALEM, OH 44460
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

This tape starts off with a couple of songs that fans of NAPALM DEATH or CARCASS may dig. Then there's the track by a band called SHAMAN SPIES. Now, I usually give home tapers a lot of slack in terms of sound quality, but this track is the worst recording I've ever heard. The volume level drops to nothing, and it actually sounds like someone used a toy tape recorder hidden inside of a box of pillows to record this band. From there, the whole tape is all over the place in terms of recording quality and volume level, alternating between semi-loud and nearly silent, ocassionally broken up by short spoken word pieces (prepare to reach for the volume control a lot). The editing also has no rhyme or reason, with some pieces going on for way too long and others cut off after 1 minute. For me, the musical high points are ROGUE ELEPHANT's track "Dive", which starts off great but ends abruptly after the first chorus, and "Bloody Murder" by JASON BUTLER, which fades out in the middle of a verse. ASBESTOS PLAYGROUND does a great song called "Tired" that reminds me of STEVE ALBINI, and the last song on the tape is an inexplicable acoustic folk song sung by AMY FUSSELMAN. Somewhere inbetween, there's some haunted house sounds and the sound of coffee brewing. Overall, I'd say this tape's content with its depressing lyrics, squealing noise and loud guitars, and its grumbly processed vocals will appeal to most disaffected youth or people who like to wear a lot of leather products, as long as they're not picky about sound quality.

Ken Miller
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SONNY SIXKILLER
I'm In The Band
CD

Vital Cog Records
P.O. Box 270
KENDALL PARK, NJ 08824-0270
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.vitalcog.com/

This is really cool, from the band's name to the cover and interior cartoon illustrations to the frikkin' music itself. Kind of like a cross between BIZ and SONIC YOUTH, they're all punky and full of angst and pain, but still manage to maintain an (albeit twisted) sense of humor. Their depressing songs are really depressing and identifiable, and their fun songs just make me want to jump up and down on all the furniture and throw pillows at unsuspecting passersby.

Holly Day
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SPAGHETTI DOLLAR
An Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
CD

One Million Dollar Records
Kiefernweg 5
25462 RELLINGEN
GERMANY

This is pretty much what you'd expect—lots of textured instrumentals that conjure pictures of dusty streets lined with run-down wooden storefronts with all sorts of shady characters hanging out in front. Oh, and tumbleweeds-don't forget the tumbleweeds. There are a couple of surf-music-inspired tunes in here, too-notably from my faves, P.O.LLO DEL MAR. This is really cool to sit and think crazy gangster thoughts to.

Holly Day
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SPECTRE
The Second Coming
CD

WordSound
129 North 11th Street
BROOKLYN, NY 11211
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

68 minutes of ill-ambient rap! Opening movie sample: Christopher Walken asks "Do you wanna go someplace dark?" The octave-down harmonized vocal sound is kinda mushy to the point of being psychedelic, which makes the rap more textural and onomatopeic. "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" opens with a murky synth line and a noodly low-xylo figure. Minimalistic drum machine action. It's like a funkier SCORN in a way. "Bandar" sounds a whole lot like SCORN: effected drum samples which are overtaken by a drum-kit beat loop. Ass-rumbling dub bass too. "Purple Dusk" features live cello, which is effected to hell for a beautifully haunted vibe. "Vampyr Killa" has some very nice samples from BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA and is relatively upbeat. Probably the best chance of being a "hit single," whatever that means anymore. The r+b girl-vocalist sings "you put a stake through my heart, baby/ you kill me, you kill me." "Crooked Knights" sounds faintly Arabic, with finger-cymbal samples and flute action. "Accidental Terrorist" features a pissed-off white guy rapping very admirably. Overall: Low, rumbly basslines with reverby, distant drum loops and scary movie samples. And it's vaguely funky, which is the one factor which makes this not a SCORN disc. And I LIKE it.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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THE SQUIRES OF THE SUBTERRAIN
Scrapbook
cassette

Rocket Racket Records
17 West Main Street
CORFU, NY 14036
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Quite a Beatles-ish cassette, you might even think these are cover songs. "Small Town Girl" and "Happy Birthday (Mother Dear)" to name two. The whole tape sounds rather familiar after only two listens. Is this good or bad? Production and musicianships, needless to say, are very good.

Chris Gregory
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STAN
untitled
cassette

Stan
Flat 2A
King Street
QUAYSIDE NE1 3UQ
UK

Holy BON JOVI! Where have I heard this before?! This seriously sounds like some of the most recent BON JOVI stuff I've heard. The singer fully sounds like Jon Bon, which in itself will determine your opinion of STAN. If you're looking for pro-sounding, slick, well-produced, melodic rock with soulful singing that sounds like you've heard it all a couple million times before, here you go. I mean, some people would love this, anyone who likes listening to top 40 radio, for example. Really more commercial than the majority of the stuff circulating through the underground. For better or worse...

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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STATIC INSECT
Purging The Drain
cassette

Mutant Cactus Recordings
274 Arthur Street
ACTON ON L7J 1M3
CANADA

Tuneless purcussion-heavy noodling "using drums, guitar, found sound, tape manipulation, voice, feedback, keyboard, toy flute, tape loops, cymbals, pick-up." Most of the way through Side A my player ate the damn thing and I wasn't the least bit sorry to see it go. The last track on the other side would have been "Cacophonia", and if it was any more cacophonous than the stuff I actually heard, it might have killed me.

Indy Ana Jones
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STATIC INSECT
Unconscious / Phalanx
cassette

Mutant Cactus Recordings
274 Arthur Street
ACTON ON L7J 1M3
CANADA

Pulsing, surging guitar sonics with a loose impravatory structure. Characteristically wet effects courtesy of the Zoom Corporation turn the already not-entirely-innocent stringwork into enormous plates of metal, infuriated hornets, teeming rats or puckered electronic blips. Occasional percussion parts compliment the rhythmic miasma. This harkens back to the days when "industrial music" was the stuff from the old Dry Lungs compilations and had nothing to do with Nine Inch Snails.

C Reider
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THE STUFFINGS
Easy To See
cassette

Day 2 Records
2073 SW Park Avenue #118
PORTLAND, OR 97201
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

One thing is easiest to see. CHRIS GREGORY is back on track. It's easy to see why THE STUFFINGS and DAY2 have become such cult figures in the tape world. And it's easy to see how, with their imminent jump into vinyl/CD formats that he may yet be the Beck of the 2-triple-0...represent. If I may continue an analogy made in Alternative Press a while back (refering to the admittedly dubious LUMBER tape), THE STUFFINGS as patient has moved past the nervous breakdown and incoherent muttering into dictophone disaster...through the disillusionment of youth spent...into a new crystaline clarity that has afforded him not only the benefit of hindsight, but the wonder of the Now and the tomorrows to become now...With the kind of resignment to the 'mono non aware', the ultimate 'sadness of things', that obsessed Japanese filmmaker Ozu, among other great artists of this century...the running thread that seems to join all the Day2 Alliance in a big cloud of sadness and celebration...with this resignation, CHRIS GREGORY finds in it a strength to go on and make it as best as he can...along with a supporting cast of 10 (though by now, I have figured out that any STUFFINGS album is bound to be at least 80% Chris and his secret weapon, Kjoy) he further examines the usual subjects...lost pets, new pets, animals, cats, pilot lights, answering machines, free beef?...If you haven't heard the STUFFINGS yet, it's about time. Act now, be the second to call him a genius and when he's huge you can tell all your friends that you know him first.

Michael Anderson
AUTO6

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SUBSANITY
Human Is Shit
7"

Subsanity
329 Terrace Drive
PAULS VALLEY, OK 73075
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Holy NAPALM DEATH babies! Right down to the damn record cover! Thrash grind death politico metal screeching with preachy lyrics that have been retold a thousand times. Yawn. But does it rock? "Dead Pigs On Parade" flew past without even making itself noticed. Ditto for "Human Is Shit." On Side Two, "Continuity Of Scum" would appear to pick up where NAPALM's SCUM album left off. Double bass thrash action with a guitar solo! "An End To The Bullshit" is at least true to its title. The intro is the heaviest thing displayed by this band. Unfortunately the song should've been called "An End To The Bullshit Followed By Some More Of The Same Bullshit We Were Doing Before." I quote: "Kill the world and fuck its corpse, do it now, end it all..." Is there more? I'm not sure, I fell asleep.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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"SUBSTANTIAL PENALTY FOR EARLY WITHDRAWL: M8BR COMPILATION #1"
compilation
cassette

M8BR
c/o Jason Erb
21 St Ann's Drive
HAZLETON, PA 18201
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Many of the bands on this tape are obviously are pretty serious about what they do. Great recordings, some of which sound like something slightly better than 4-track, and decent material make this tape good fun for "alternative" music fans of all ages. One of the high points is the first track, THE POP CANS' "Cops Suck," a snappy punk song complete with a great sing-along chorus. VELCRO MARY has a couple of great ones: "Home" with a great keyboard riff, and the frenetic "Backup Plan". JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS do "Carbonite," which appears to be a tribute to Han Solo with ALAN PARSONS PROJECT-inspired vocals. "NBC Song" by THE CLUB features the heartwarming chorus, "Kill that guy from Friends, oi oi oi!" Lots of this stuff sounds like what they play on the college radio station that I listen to sometimes, but they never say what they're playing so I can't name names. Unfortunately, like most compilations, there's a few dull spots and songs that seem to drag on forever, but for the most part, you'll dig these tunes.

Ken Miller
AUTO6

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"SUBTERRANEAN HITZ: VOLUME 2"
compilation
CD

WordSound
129 North 11th Street
BROOKLYN, NY 11211
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The ill-ambient sound has finally spread to hip hop circles. And AUTOreverse has here its first hip hop review! It's about damn time! This compilation is almost all instrumental, with lots of dub techniques happening. ROB SWIFT blah-blahs through a harmonizer (octave down) before he drops the first beats of the disc. To tell the truth, this track isn't much more than a beat. There's a two-note organ/harmonium/something figure and a one-note ping over the top. For four minutes! Definitely ill hip-hop fucking ambience. The distorted-mic intro to "One, Check, One" by GEARHEAD FEAT. PRINCE PAUL should not deter listeners from letting the track keep playing: it's a smooth instrumental with nice, medodic samples thrown in. Pity about the marble-mouth on the mic at the beginning! MISTER LAW rocks like fucking SCORN with the haunted dub of "Recipe." AFRIKA "BABY BAM" offers the only thing close to star power on this disc (except for PRINCE PAUL) with "NiteStalker," which features some decent live drumming and a 2-note xylo figure. And a flute solo! MR DEAD covers "Tears Of A Clown" and in the process rips it to shreds. Fine with me. M SAYYID's "October 10-16" offers the first rap of the disc. His flow is completely non-rhythm based. The backing track is typically icy. It's a very nice mix of elements. HAWD GANKSTUH RAPPUH EMSEES WID GHATZ is the obligatory tougher-than-you track. The beat sounds like it came from a cheap keyboard, but it works. The samples in the background are like WAYNE BUTANE but not as funny. Weird. SCOTTY HARD mixes from the same pool of jazz samples and big beats on "Ramp Heart." It's big. UNIPOD PARTICLES "Last Flight" really does sounds like SCORN until the beat comes in—MICK HARRIS has yet to turn in any beats this funky. But then again his drum machines almost always keep perfect time...unlike...this track. SPECTRE (who is the host of this whole party) rips "Dubs Of Smoke" at the end of the disc...trebly beat, some little-kid voice samples, some swirly shit in the background...then some finger-pecked drum machine action...the song has some nice eerieness to it but the inconsistent beat kinda takes away from the effect.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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THE SUNNYSIDE UPS
Candy Apple Red / Charlie Chan Sez
7"

Rocket Racket Records
17 West Main Street
CORFU, NY 14036
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Extremely lighthearted fun pop on keyboards and a drumset! "Candy Apple Red" has more damn harmonies than the EVERLY BROTHERS! Believe that. The chorus reminds me of a MARK ROBINSON (ex-UNREST / AIR MIAMI) track. Repetitious and fun. "Charlie Chan Sez" is like one of those 1960s novelty instrumentals which have wacky spoken bits thrown in. Completely disposable and brilliant summer fun!

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

Somewhere In Time Records
sitrec@easynet.fr

The tasteful pink-lilac-lavender-blue CD sleeve gave me an awful suspicion, and I was right: alas, New Age it was. Jean-Luc Herve Berthelot (with that name, he should be a Victor Hugo character) really, really wants to make us feel all peaceful and holistic, and tries his best to relax us with 52 minutes of pling-plong-tlink-tlonk instrumentals like "The Ganges," "Mount Fuji," "Yeti's Ballad," "Indonesia: Postcard One and Two," and so on. You can almost smell the incense. Yes, it's well done, and surely very appealing for those of you who dress only in natural fibres. But this humble reviewer yawned. Warning: excessive use will turn you into a dolphin.

Paola Sorrentino
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TALES
Stonehenge For Eternity
CD

Somewhere In Time Records
sitrec@easynet.fr

Here's an interesting CD by composer Jean-Luc Herve Berthelot of Paris, France, of big spaces and sounds in an attempt to capture the essence of a place and a time. Namely Stonehenge. It's all here: angelic choirs, big percussion sounds and a sense of mystery. Overall, I like this CD. Reminds me quite a bit of some VANGELIS recordings I have somewhere: melodic and peaceful at times, but then also foreboding as well, as the tradition of Druidic human sacrifice will attest. The CD is divided into nine selections, split between the themes of Sunrise and Moonrise. Like I said, it's all very mysterious. This isn't exactly what I like to hear in the electronic music genre but it isn't bad. The only major criticism I have is one that has come up more often than not when electronic musicians want to add drums to their pieces: on track #5 ("The Flight Of Merlin"), the composer should get a real drummer to program his drum fills. They sound like they were done with two fingers on a drum machine. Jean-Luc, if it was done with a real drummer, get a better one next time. Otherwise worth listening to more than once.

John Gore
AUTO6

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TANGER
untitled
7"

Springbox
P.O. Box 1063
BENICIA, CA 94510
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Tanger
http://www.619pro.com/tanger

"Gary, AZ" is pissed-off midtempo emo rock. And the drummer's name is Dirt! The chorus is fucking forceful, with a bit of shouting and some fairly huge riffing and chording. Huge is good. Very JAWBOX and a little PIXIES. "Balance" kicks in like KILLING JOKE, but what do I know? Very cock-rock in parts. With a different drummer you might have some sub-PANTERA riffing. Not the case here though. The guitar parts are atonal and energetic and the bass playing is all over the place. This is good. Rocks like fucking crazy.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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TERIYAKIS
Psychics To Sidekicks
CD

Terciopelo
P.O. Box 442188
LAWRENCE, KS 66044
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Jangly guitar pop which on second and third hearing I started to appreciate. I've heard a billion bands sounding like this, but these guys have a particularly rambling quality which is endearing. My favourite amongst the six tracks is "Defenestracao", which is merrily sung in Portuguese so I can't really understand much, but if it does speak of what the title promises, must be great fun.

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

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THIRD WORLD PLANET
Air Quality Warning
7"

Diminutive Records
P.O. Box 8183
VICTORIA BC V8W 3R8
CANADA

Two dudes making an unholy racket that sounds like at least three dudes! Screaming, post hardcore action. "Survival Of The Fittest" opens with some rhythmic headstock picking and minimal rimshot tittering which is slowly overtaken by a sludgy guitar riff and screaming. And thrash! Wheee! And grind! They cover all the tempo bases on this track. "I Hate This Place" on the flip goes thrash/shout mad, but not nearly as mad as "Decay Of Necessities"! These guys probably hate your fucking guts, human.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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THIRD WORLD PLANET
Old White Men
10" flexi

Diminutive Records
P.O. Box 8183
VICTORIA BC V8W 3R8
CANADA

Hey! A girl singer this time! By "singer" I mean "trachea shredder" because even my voice was sore at the end of this record and I was just listening. Damn. These songs feature more change-ups than the average major league baseball game and just so much god damn screaming. The sound quality is surprisingly good for a flexi. THIRD WORLD PLANET ain't exactly doing rocket science here, but the chick-screecher is certainly novel.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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THORAZINE
Vicious Cycle
CD

Hell Yeah
P.O. Box 1975
BURBANK, CA 91507
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Every time I think my musical tastes have matured as much as I'm supposed to have, I get something like this and I'm fourteen years old again, carving band names into my arm with broken glass and ready to hit the skateboard ramp after dark with the rest of my mohawked friends. This is the real stuff, the way the cool bands sounded before there was any money in skatepunk rock, like early AGENT ORANGE and MINOR THREAT and all those other bands that disappeared just before the scene was snagged by Corporate America. Or maybe I don't have a fucking clue what I'm talking about.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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THREE CORNERED SEASON
untitled
cassette

Three Cornered Season
116 Pulaski Road
KINGS PARK, NY 11754
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/8908/

Windswept arcs of delayed guitar and vocals cascade over drums and...is that another guitar under there? Side A sounds like the foreplay—one guy voice with maybe two layers of guitars going (it's hard to see through all that digital delay!), carrying on rather unremarkably. Side B is the sex, starting with "Sleep Near Realness," which is surely what a jam session between Galaxie 500 and the Cocteau Twins would've sounded like. When the action heats up (at the end of "Sleep Near Realness") it sounds like SEEFEEL jamming with LOOP. I'm not kidding. Ambient space pop with vocals.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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"THREEDOM ROCK LIVE"
compilation
cassette

Frazzled #6
19A Asticon Road
JAMAICA PLAIN, MA 02130
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The particulars: a live cassette recorded at Zeitgeist Gallery, Cambridge, MA June 7th, 1997. Participants = BLINKING LIGHTS, TILTMASTER, and TINY REPTILES performing 3-5 songs each; three bands, three people involved, rotation of vocals...THREEDOM ROCK. The show was the rock portion of the "Salinger Lewis Is Not Dead" lecture tour, which was a multi-media event that also presented the debut of puppeteer/illustrator Ivan's "The Pipe Which Would Not Light," featuring voices supplied by Salinger Lewis. Unfortunately, Mr Lewis himself was not able to attend, and sent a lecture entitled "Death Kit" (with accompanying slides) to be "executed" by a friend (who promptly forgot batteries for the tapedeck...but that is the focus of an ongoing investigation, and not the focus of this tape...) The three piece arrangements gave flushed out versions of what usually are solo performances, and the result is really amazing. BLINKING LIGHTS sound great, and, due to contractual obligation with the Day2 Alliance (which states that a STUFFINGS cover must be performed at any show featuring more that two STUFFINGS members), they did a really HUGE version of "Who To Love?" Next up was a suprisingly sloppy TILTMASTER set, but the looseness added rather than detracted.

Many debut versions of songs from the new EPs...The highlight, however, is a rare performance by the reclusive TINY REPTILES. Tracks from his then-unreleased tape on Black Apple: four songs of country tinged psyche pop, including a weird beatbox version of '"Charlemagne" and a bliss-driven massive take on "Drop City." He should play live more often. This show accented the strange balance of influences that marry psychedelia, pop, hip-hop and straight ahead rock...very good, most assuredly! I must admit that the sound quality, taken from a videotape of the event by Day2 East Coast archivist, Leech, is a bit dubious and mono heavy. But it's not one of those ones where you need to know the songs already to enjoy. It is very listenable, and in fact may be a perfect introduction to any of these three bands. All of which have numerous releases on various Day2 Alliance labels.

Michael Anderson
AUTO6

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THREE FINGER COWBOY
Kissed
CD

Daemon
P.O. Box 1207
DECATUR, GA 30031
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

JULIANA HATFIELD (minus the skewed sexuality) meets MOLLY HATCHET, and drawn from the same lyrical gene pool as the more popular KISS numbers of the 1970s (anything from ROCK AND ROLL OVER, basically). Which is to say: dominating female lead singer with a pronounced southern accent, straight-ahead alt-rock with painfully obvious (or "ironic," depending on your physical proximity to the band) lyrics. To wit: "Lemon & Lime"'s refrain "Everywhere you go, the kids wanna rock and roll." The production is good and this could probably sell to bored JULIANA fans, but it's nothing you haven't heard a million times before.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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TIAMAT
A Deeper Kind Of Slumber
CD

Century Media Records
1453-A 14th Street #324
SANTA MONICA, CA 90404
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.centurymedia.com/
mail@centurymedia.com

Just when you think, "uh oh, this is sounding kinda bordering on eighties," someone in TIAMAT will do something nice..pretty, even...like throw in a (dare i say it?) sweet guitar melody, a masculine ambient vocal, or just some noise behind the music, and then you realize, "oh, wait...this is good." TIAMAT have a very large fan base, from what i understand. even my roommate, who doesn't know a whole lot about music or bands at all, has heard of them. to be honest, i was skeptical at first. "A Deeper Kind of Slumber"? Was this "A Whiter Shade of Pale" gone goth? But i have discovered that i like it. really. let's jump right in here..."Trillion Zillion Centipedes" has a slow industrial groove going on, good to shake your head to. However, the contrived goth of "Atlantis as a Lover" is just wrong. A note to all bands: stay away from ballads. They're bad...Moving on, though, we have "Four Leary Biscuits" (a nod to Timothy?) with just enough hindu sitar moodswing coolness to cancel out the aforementioned watery ballad. more laid-back electronic groove from "Only in my Tears it Lasts". Don't listen to the lyrics, just dance along. You'll get it. There's a quite pretty, almost melancholy lilt to "Kite"—kinda like what Kenny G would play if he was a deep thinker, read Neitzche, and listened to Enigma. "Mount Marilyn" lasts for 10:33. What parts i listened to while fast-forwarding through it sounded really cool. (hey, i'm impatient, ok?) Rounding out the field, the very nicely ambient namesake, "A Deeper Kind of Slumber." Again, I don't pay much attention to those lyrics. It's the music that moved me. If I had had something to be miserable about, I would've cried. In the immortal words of Miss Tatjana Hookfin, "I like this shit.

Windi Sebren
AUTO6

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TIGER MOTH (AKA ORCHESTRA SUPER MOTH)
Mothballs
CD

DeSelby Productions
P.O. Box 7367
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55407
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.omnium.com/pub/omnium/

Hard-core polka from the bowels of London, TIGER MOTH pulls its punches with soukous-inspired fervour, ramming their music home with the occasional Jamaican dance beat and a wide variety of instruments including a hammered dulcimer, an accordion, and a banjozouki. There's even the occasional electric guitar riff and odd voice loop sample interspersed among the more traditional tracks, and some awfully risque song titles attached to some of the calmer-sounding instrumentals (what am I missing?): what does "Nail That Stoat" and "The Belfast Poker" mean to you?

Holly Day
AUTO6

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TILTMASTER
Full 360 Thrust
Aging Disenchantress
Fingerprints Of Gravity
cassette

Black Apple
51 Parkvale Avenue #3
ALLSTON, MA 02134
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

3 new cassette releases by TILTMASTER, aka Darryl Greene, getting his Black Apple label going after starting off with December's great 'Let it Rot' comp. Recorded between April 96 and Oct 97, these tapes show a progression in his always-refining lyrical structure which sets simple phrasing and wordplay against razor-sharp bitterness and unpretentious self-probing. At times brutally honest, "I don't think about anything else for a good two hours/ message on your machine, that I notice that you must have had a cold when you made it/ because itdoesn't seem like you" ("No Message") or '"We danced in fidelity/ We thought it was meant to be/ But I cheated a friend/ and it rotted me inside' ("J'aime Fatale"). And the instrumental "Spiral Bound" sings wordlessly in an inspired ease, free of academic posturing. There is a starkness to the production: primarily acoustic guitar and unadorned vocals, with subtle accents that give symphonic implication to the spaces between breaths. The latest tape (Full 360) occasionally blasts into the noisy abandon that defined the catharsis of TURKISH DELIGHT (his old defunct band) but without the insipid female vocal strangling. But whatever the arrangement, TILTMASTER's songs are always strong and worth frequent listens."Yes, I'm playing to the cats/ Cuz there's no one else around..."

Michael Anderson
AUTO6

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TINTY MUSIC
Live At Anomalous Records 5/31/97
cassette

Tinty Music
P.O. Box 85363
SEATTLE, WA 98145-1363
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.halcyon.com/tntmusic/home.htm
tntmusic@halcyon.com

With his TINTY MUSIC, composer Kevin O' Conner takes his listeners on an adventure in sound collage. Since he created the two compositions on this tape all by himself, the "live" aspect of this recording must be attributed to the date of its final mixdown. O' Conner lists several sources for his sounds, including a Tascam Portastudio, a "dumpster refugee" radio, a Korg synthesizer and various records and prerecorded tapes. Both compositions breathe noises which vary from click-and-clunk rhythms to windy keyboard drones to hissy water faucets to low-pitched groanings. The soundscapes evolve slowly, giving the careful listener a sense of exploration. The overall result is some good late-night headphone music.

Swami Loopynanda
AUTO6

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TMA-2
Tick Tock Lillies
CD

Diskatopia
1626 North Wilcox #324
HOLLYWOOD, CA 90028
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.glasshammer.com/

Glorious, a delicious choice of ambient tracks layered one upon two upon three et cetera to produce the genuine trance experience. The disc goes by all too quickly, sucking the listener in through track one and spitting said innocent out via track thirteen, leaving all the telltale marks of an alien encounter save probe rashes and unexplained scars. Think poppies. Think Oz. Hit repeat until your thumb falls off.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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TOP 40
5
cassette

Top 40
2401 Manor #233
AUSTIN, TX 78722
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

One-man pop mystery tour Jason Garcia has outdone himself on this batch of five songs. IDing the genre is simple enough: POP in big, bright shiny letters. The ingredients include guitar, bass, casio, drum machine and excellent singing (with great falsettos and backups, always the hallmark of Good Pop). And the songwriting is unusually good, not unlike our heroes XTC and PREFAB SPROUT. The lyrics are damn good as well, especially "The Jet Set" ("I'd see the world with you if you hadn't already seen it") and "One Of Two Things" ("she's thinking one of two things about me..."—reminds me of Paddy McAloon's "I've got six things on my mind, you're no longer one of them." Good company indeed). The recording and the mix are very good (don't be fooled by this hissy-ass Real Audio file) proving that this young Garcia is indeed a Pop Force To Not Be Fucked With Unless You Really Want To Get Your Punk Ass Kicked In.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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TUMBLE
Gravity
CD

PepperAlley Records
2319 North 45th Street
Suite 175
SEATTLE, WA 98103
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://pepperalley.com/

Decent rock with the occasional foray into the traditional world music tradition. Probably the only disc I've seen that has a song about watering plants on it—"Watering Mutes"—the strengths of this band are definitely in the lyrics and in the female lead vocalist. I think if this band sticks it out they'll be coming out with some really outstanding stuff in the near future.

Holly Day
AUTO6

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TURKEY MAKES ME SLEEPY
Swimming In The Sound Soup
cassette

Taped Rugs Productions
P.O. Box 146
LAWRENCE, KS 66044-0146
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TURKEY MAKES ME SLEEPY's music is almost as trippy and silly as its name. But not quite. Each member of the TURKEY triumvirate was responsible for one layer of this hazy calamity, though with Hoss Goff 3's pop spine to hang things from, you can guarantee it'll be engaging. The opening cut, "Sandman," is sung entirely in some bullshit fake language ("yulll yi yi yi, hee yull, na hi yulll hi" etc), with a drum program that's not a million miles removed from the ANDY PARTRIDGE demo "This Is The End" (who's with me here!?). "Edna Lena Loo" is a silly-ass bit of psychedelia...the vocal line sounds like a child's song, but lyrics such as "I heard a rumor you have a tumor, is it true Edna Loo," and "I know you've been out with a guy who works at the gas station..." make sure no children will ever sing this song. Though maybe they should. It's like a playground rhyme from a DAVID LYNCH film. I think. Later in the tape is "Inaugural Balls," which combines fucked-with samples of former presidents Bush and Reagan with grumbly sounds and a few bars of "Hail To The Chief." I'm not sure what it means, but I bet it annoys people who drive red pickup trucks with rebel flags in the back, which makes it punk rock in my book.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

Union City All Stars
P.O. Box 4345
WINCHESTER, KY 40392
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

You know, sometimes I'm amazed at the variety of stuff that Ian sends me to review for AUTOreverse. This is an excellent country/bluegrass flavored rock band from Kentucky, complete with fiddle, banjo and mandolin. The lyrics are fantastic on tunes like "Kentucky", "Memory" and "Mrs. Burnam", and the arrangements and recordings are of the caliber of most signed acts. Even the musicians are first rate, without being overproduced (which is my pet peeve of most country bands). There's a real down-home feel to this tape, kind of like when you stumble into a run-down bar to find the best band you've ever heard. Unfortunately, there's only five songs, so the fun ends much sooner than I'd like.

Ken Miller
AUTO6

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UPHOLLOW
Mission To The Moon
CD

Uphollow
7053 Arroyo Run
LITTLETON, CO 80125
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Unfortunately there's nothing all that original going on here but UPHOLLOW are pretty good at what they do (they're kinda cute too- I'm a girl, i can't help it) I like the CD a lot enough to where I will listen to it and tell my friends about them and stuff. I dig that "indie rock band" thing as much as the next guy. They should tour with WESTON. That would rule!

Chrissy Taylor
AUTO6

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UPHOLLOW / ED TEMPLE
Even The Sun Goes Down
split
7"

Blue Moon
2075 South University Boulevard #264
DENVER, CO 80210
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

UPHOLLOW: Sub-interesting LOOKOUT! Records yuck-o punk pop with harmonies. Light-hearted teen-angst lyrics. The sound of whiteboy puberty. ED TEMPLE fare only slightly better, with their uptempo/synco punk harmonizing. Teenage spunk. The shouting bits and the manic scree bit at the end of "Bullet Speed" are pretty good though. Highlight of the record.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

Velcro Mary
21 Saint Ann's Drive
HAZELTON, PA 18201
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Guitar/drums/vocals interstate collaboration action. "Home" is the jumpy opener. Modern rock songwriting. "Older Alone" loses the guitar in favor of keyboards. "West Virginia" rocks a little with distorted vocals and guitars. "Hurricane" has a nice programmed upswing drum beat to it, and harmonized vocals on the chorus. "Alright" gets by with some acoustic guitars and quiet/loud dynamics from the drum program. "Backup Plan" features a de-tuned guitar and that upswing drum beat again, in a quirkysludgypunkypop capacity. Sort of a no-tech DEVO in spots. "Mouthwash" has a fairly catchy chorus and swishes of distorted guitar. JASON ERB gotz the skillz.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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VERUM
Feuersturm
cassette

Verum
Veilchenweg 5
50999 KOLN
GERMANY

Four tracks of Teutonic Techno Thrash! Guitar, growling, drum machine with a hint of bass and an occasional female singer. The tracks are epic (ie- long) beyond reason. The title track opens Side One and features the previously-mentioned female vocalist on a clean bit in the middle of the song. Easily the highlight. She should be the singer on all the songs. "Amboss" on Side two adds a couple of LAIBACH-style orchestra-hits to the mechanical grind/thrash. The singer's voice recalls what's-his-name from the band SODOM, it's a monotonous, menacing growl. The riffs are heavy and the recording quality is good. It's a lot like some of the recent output on the WILD RAGS label. Just grittier than a bedfull of kitty litter.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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VRAXION
Delusions And Illusions
CD-R

Austentite Recordings
P.O. Box 26142
KITCHENER ON N2G 4V8
CANADA
austentite_recordings@yahoo.com

Digesting a stack of samples and then shitting them at a wall. There are rhythms, sure, and melodies as well. But not in any traditional sense. More in a SKINNY PUPPY sense, though even more out-there than them. Kinda sorta like the SP track "Download." Yeah. "Layer Of Determinism" hints at an exostructure. It's an overture of appropriated sound. With sudden blips and interjections of other sources. Looped. Okay, so maybe it is like SKINNY PUPPY after all. Easy listening for the hyper-spazz in your life! It's a unique and exotic journey inward, especially for fans of fractured industrial music, or just fucked noise in general.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

Warser Gate
41 Kenrick Road
Mapperley
NOTTINGHAM
N63 6HQ
UK

This ten song tape release from English band WARSER GATE is a semi-noisy affair of squalling guitars and screaming vocals. I did not understand two words that the vocalist shouted out raw-throated and indecipherable. He could have been squealing out about the quality of British fish and chips or the religious war crimes of the Crusades. Whatever the subject matter was, the guy was pretty dang intense about it, not a song in the ten is without some yelling. Some of the guitar work on this is nice: poker-hot sounds flaring outward from the depths of my speakers. Some of it is abrasive non-melodic squelches and bursts of guitarstring noise that I did not like as much. I think there is probably a group of people out there who would like this unhinged garage rock, it is not for me, but I am not the one to say it has no merits when listening to it. Also a nice cover of chaotic red/black lines and letters shooting every which way all over the page.

Faruq Al-Qahira
AUTO6

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THE WEAKENER
What Do You Know About It
CD

WordSound
129 North 11th Street
BROOKLYN, NY 11211
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

MICK (says here: "MICK 'FUCK LONDON' HARRIS) HARRIS (SCORN, NAPALM DEATH, PAINKILLER, LULL, PRAXIS, etc) has gone too far this time. Speaking as a massive HARRIS fan, I'm saddened to report that this disc blows. Observing HARRIS on a cheesy early-90s metal compilation video from when he was still with NAPALM, he explained a bit of his vocabulary to the interviewer: "weakened" meant he was pissed off at someone, that they were keeping him down. "Pinged" was the ultimate in anger. So jet forward seven years and HARRIS releases an album on WordSound under the name THE WEAKENER. Perhaps because he knows the album sucks? This album could've recorded itself, it sounds so mechanical. The same bag of tricks that sank the last few SCORN records is in play here: ambient loops and slow, off-time, overbearing beats. And enough repitition to make BRIAN ENO himself say "all RIGHT, that's fucking enough already." The ambient aspect of the recording has the potential to work very well on its own (which is what gets released as LULL by HARRIS), but the beats are a total distraction. Though not enough of a distraction that they're actually interesting, you know? Track four is called "Pinging." I couldn't tell you the difference between any of the individual cuts on this bullshit CD. Even the cover looks like an afterthought. HARRIS needs a quality-control sphincter to keep from putting out crap like this. I love the idea of WordSound releasing it, but I'm so completely underwhelmed by the album that it almost doesn't matter.

Ian "Fuck Harris" Stewart
AUTO6

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WOOZY
#20
CD + Zine

Woozy
P.O. Box 4434
Melbourne University
PARKVILLE VIC 3052
AUSTRALIA
choozy@alphalink.com.au

Anarcho-politico-socio-moaneyo zine packaged with a compilation CD. The zine was decent, a little more to read while the CD spins than the average liner notes, but not by much. The first two tracks on the disc are by FULL BONEY, a convincing-though-slightly-wobbly modern rock band. I like the singergirl's voice and the songs are both pretty damn fine by me. "Dignity" has the righteous fucking bass part, but "Boxher" has viola! Shit! Again, the singing is quite good, this track sounds like a cross between...ah, hell, GRENADINE and RASPUTINA. Actually, the more I play these two tracks back (in a continuing effort to describe them) the more I like 'em. At this rate I'll be smearing edible body paints on my speakers before I even hear the next band...Nah...ABRASIVE RELATIONS are from the Philipines, apparently, and they go early-80s grunge punk with an all-female vocal chorus! Very odd. I've never heard this language sung before. THE CANANES is a familiar-sounding name, and on the acoustic guitar and singing "Juliet's Song" I could swear I've heard this before. But then again I swear a lot anyway. "Creation" is a dreamy guitar/drumbox/vocal number that recalls HUGO LARGO's ambience. Sigh. CASINI grrrrroove like fuck with sampled drum loops and weird vocal edits. "New Season Reason Construction Dub" is a midtempo pimp jam. "Minikin" comes on like gamelan with those tuned bell things, guitar and bass drum. The last track on the disc is by WILL PRENTICE and it's called "Fly's Ears." Says here it was "made with a scratchy novelty silent record plus echo machines." Yep, that's what it sounds like. Man, WOOZY is all over the damn place. And I like it.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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WORMWOOD
untitled
cassette

Wormwood
P.O. Box 1957
LAWRENCE, KS 66044
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
lara@eagle.cc.ukans.edu

GOTH-CORE! Aw yeah. This shit is ANGRY! And spooky too. "Circus" starts with your standard "gothic organ" intro (and I'm not talking about saying hello to Rozz Williams' pecker either) and yields completely to a loud crush of distorted everything and hard drumming. Two dudes yell themselves bloody in old-school HC style for the vocal portion of the proceedings, both SLAYING their basses (no happy little six-strings in WORMWOOD, thank you very much) and basically scaring the shit out of me. With two bass players does that mean they sound like NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN? Shut the fuck up. WORMWOOD is LOUD, noisy, scary, spooky, angry, loud, loud, noisy, scary, pissed off and above all, unique. I don't know of any other bands that rock like this. HELMET on Cleopatra...or the CURE on SST. It could happen!

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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WROUGHT:IRONSMILE
Valentine's Day
7"

Diminutive Records
P.O. Box 8183
VICTORIA BC V8W 3R8
CANADA

This is fucking crazy. It's like THE OCEAN BLUE jamming with NAPALM DEATH, and boy don't I wish I was kidding because now I've got a boner that won't go away!! Greg (just Greg, okay?) was in my favorite undie band of 1997, LET'S PUT THE X IN SEX and now he's gotten all serious with W:I. Which ain't an entirely bad thing. This shit is truly unique, I've never heard blood-curdling screaming on such pleasant pop tracks before. And it's about damn time somebody did it! The songs are emo-pop, sad ass mopey but pleasant on their own. But the mad drumming and screaming bits change the feel considerably. Fans of FOR AGAINST (well, the one song of theirs I know: "Today Today," hands up anybody who's with me here?) may enjoy this. LPTXIS who? Fuck the past, this is the sound of tomorrow. And a snazzy bit of packaging to boot!

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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DOUG WYATT
Accidental Beauties
CD

Sonosphere
P.O. Box 4053
ITHACA, NY 14852-4053
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://www.sonosphere.com/
info@sonosphere.com

...Yeah, really accidental, considering that in his quest towards beauty, good old DOUG does stumble upon moments of great ugliness too (I refer especially to butt-ugly track 2, "Invisible People", which has become a great favourite with my "skip" button). The eleven tracks of dreamy, sugary ambient-atmospheric-Daniellanois-Patmetheny music are really interesting at times ("Acadia" is perfect, "Bricolage" is a thing of beauty in its first three minutes). In general, DOUG is a good guy, has some talent, surely put some painstaking effort in doing this music, and this CD may give you great atmospheric moments with an appropriate use of that skip button.

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

Break Even
2185 Amity Drive
SYDNEY BC V8L 1B2
CANADA

"This is the art of a subculture, not a cheap commodity," they write. That figures. It's a wrathful international split tape. XV PAROWEK from Poland are seriously pissed off, and make techno-noise tracks which could be the perfect soundtrack to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," or probably just to an average working day in their hometown Warsaw. XIPPERSTEIN from Canada (cute name!) are less classifiable; at times it's a Hanna-Barbera cartoon in hell, other times it's decadent German cabaret, and lots more. DANIELE BRUSASCHETTO (reviewed elsewhere in this issue with his far superior solo CD) uses a guitar and precious little else to conjure a whole rainy, dark world of sad noises. Me, I don't think I'll ever listen to this tape again.

Paola Sorrentino
AUTO6

Syncartz
179 Donaldson Avenue #2
RUTHERFORD, NJ 07070-2203
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
http://nis.net/~syncartz/ynz.htm

Man, these guys rock. From the apocalyptic funk of "Number 3" onward, they just rock and rock like mad. I call it a cross between the CHILI PEPPERS and SOUNDGARDEN, and maybe TAD just for good measure. It's not flat-out funk, and it's not heavy metal, nor is it straight rock. The singer has a mighty voice along the lines of CHRIS CORNELL or...hey, TROY PAYNE from THE WAKE! Hell yeah. The bass player slaps a bit and the drumming is pretty straightforward. The recording is excellent and the songwriting is pretty damn good. Dirgey and epic and slightly experimental. "Organs R Us" is the closest thing to gothic funk I've heard since IRRELIGION came out. I'm telling you, it rocks.

Ian C Stewart
AUTO6

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YGGDRASIL / PILLE ALLEIN
untitled
split
cassette

YGGDRASIL
Michael Krause
Wiesertsweiter 2
D-88069 TETTNANG
GERMANY

Pille Allein
Pille Weibel
P.O. Box 5037
CH-6002 LUZERN
SWITZERLAND

This split tape contains the coarse soundcollage of YGGDRASIL on one side and the lo-fi songs and experiments of PILLE ALLEIN on the other. The five selections from YGGDRASIL consist of bass and guitar tones, metallic noises, vocal utterances and other indistinguishable sounds treated with various distortions and effects. These pieces all pulse and throb in the true tradition of German noise music. PILLE ALLEIN also presents its listeners with a couple of these Teutonic grinds. Most of their selections, however, are folky-rock guitar-vocal songs, recorded in extreme lo-fi. Overall, both sides of this tape add up to a nice little glimpse into the Central European underground.

Swami Loopynanda
AUTO6