Taeter "Glorious Paraphilia" C30 (No Rent)
Alright, so this year's PE Grammy goes to Taeter, who manages to hit all of the tropes while still remaining original and totally satisfying in approach, especially regarding the vocals. Fuckin' A; absolutely joyous, perverse and crazed delivery not dissimilar to Grunt/N12 or The Sodality (whom Taeter of course covers on "Parasite"). Totally massive sub-bass sound which my ancient boombox just couldn't deliver on, so headphones had to win out. Background clarinet and violin should be a whole lot louder in the mix, but "Special" is still a great track.
"Anal Anthropology" has a nice bass thump/throb with a pretty queasy violin (type) sound permeating. I mostly remember the vocals being a bit too quiet, even though I just got through my second listen.
"Everything Has It's Place" takes pretty excellent music concrete cues for a backdrop with a gorgeous buzzing synth drone and some excellent effected and pitch-shifted vocals.That track, however, is way too short.
The eponymous track starts the B-side with a really gloomy, urgent-sounding cinematic synth (violin? bass?) drone and vocals that are a little too quiet in the mix, however, at one point, "sugar daddy" vocals slip in quietly and discreetly, over a watery loop sound that gives way to skronking clarinet; shit yes. Now is probably the time to mention that the lyrics are pretty much perfect, in that they could be delivered many different ways to equal effect. Needless to say, "parental advisory."
Ah, "pigfucker." Favorite vocal performance on the album thus far. Fierce, demeaning, and disgusted, while remaining "invested" all the while. The Sodality and Grunt influence bleeds through the most here, but this is still solidly Taeter, with the old-school bass guitar approach. Lines like "1970s freckled Pasiphae" and "nadir of sex" are pretty much as poetic as PE has the potential to be, if you can call it that. Cold northern black metal approach to perversions, hahaha!
Hmmmm..."Unnecessary Excess." Much like this review, the title sort of reflects the track; the later parts of each side perhaps comprise the less-rehearsed tracks, and seem to "reinforce" the other tracks, but that's okay, they both have some pretty great, quieter attention-demanding sounds that help make them a little distinct.
* special mention of this tape's cover art has got to be made; it's maybe one of the "harder" illustrative concepts out there, but not in the way of Hated Perversions or a certain Alo Girl tape; let's just say it's creative. First reaction was honestly "thought his package looked a lot smaller on the cover of 'Parasite'."
Dieter Muh "Hanging The Blind Dog" C60 (Hanson)
Even though Dilloway's dumbass descriptions like "warning: causes insanity" never actually describe the sounds on the tapes, I'm rarely disappointed with stuff I get from Hanson (even though there's some kind of clown on seemingly all the tapes). In this case, it's scratching an itch I've had for a while; a while back I read one of those descriptions where Dilloway says something like "Emeralds sound like a stoned Ultra," which caught my eye. Later, jaded by the fact that the hyperbole again failed, I put the concept on the back-burner, but still sought whomever it was that took influence form Ultra who's working today. Well, on "Hanging The Blind Dog," that's Dieter Muh; a weird HNAS-ish approach to unique electronics, drones, vocals, and instrumentation. Plus, the A-side track (arbitrarily titled "Stubborn") ends with a sound collage of clips of people saying "masturbation." B-side ("Bethlehem") starts with a fucking great Steve Reich-esque loop/collage of some guy named Phillip Drews introducing himself in a slow, deep and medicated-sounding voice (apparently he was born some time in the '70's and was 15 at the time of recording). I could listen to that particular layering of loops for a l o n g fucking time, but then it switches to what sounds like a cell phone recording of walking the dog. Sort of interesting and weird, but immediately not as effective as the previous section or previous side. Things start happening again, and layers build, but still with this sort of "pet store" effect, enjoyable, though not as interesting as the other portions until some really nice metallic looping drones come in, kinda like Ultra's "Subway Etiquette," with the similar synth "wooshing" and wavy loop sound with thumping background percussion. Things get pretty droney and archaic-sounding after the wooshing sounds take over, making way for some crumbling tape manipulations exposed as the synth waves break against the rock of the percussion. Great vaccuum-y shit that I'll most likely track down more of. If this is live Dieter Muh, I'm assuming the studio recordings are fuckin' ACE. Fuck, I keep having to add to this already-long review, because the B-side track keeps fading out only to fade in again to new sound collages and really interesting rhythmic sections, the part I'm currently hearing is not unlike old Maurizio Bianchi or even Esplendor Geometrico. Despite one lazy-sounding section, if this is any indication of the project's overall "feel" and style, this is some of the better sound collage material out there today.
