Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Cassette Review: Electricity​/​Ryan David Stevens​/​Deer Surround Our Home​/​null​.​sys (The Centipede Farm)


[$5 // Edition of 50 // https://centipedefarm.bandcamp.com/album/electricity-ryan-david-stevens-deer-surround-our-home-null-sys]

This is a four way split between these artists.    According to the Bandcamp page they together make the band Gasoline Fight, who I have not heard of before but will be looking into now.    It reminds me a bit of when Culture Chester broke off into their solo projects on 5cm Recordings only instead of getting a cassette from each of these artists they are being presented in the form of one cassette.

Electricity starts things off with a piece called "Bullshit. Snakes." which is probably best described as harsh noise wall, though it is really much more than that.    It begins with this static as if trying to find the station on a radio.  A voice comes through the static, as if it is possessed and it reminds me a bit of the movie "Pulse" for some reason.   This continues, as the voice continues to come through at other times but not all the time.    The level of static increases to the point where it just begins to fill a room and start screeching.

Ryan David Stevens is the only member of Gasoline Fight I can place back to the original band because as I searched for Gasoline Fight on Bandcamp I found some of their music which I have downloaded and will now bootleg onto cassette, but he is listed as "guitars".    This piece is the sound of a lightbulb in an empty, hollow room.  It grows into waves and has some slight sharpness to it, but it never gets too harsh or loud and just seems to kind of ride this mellow almost droning sort of wave.
Deer Surround Our Home is one of my new favorite names because it hits close to home with me.   My grandparents used to own a farm which the land is now being turned into all of these million dollar homes.   And so it always made me wonder things like if the bears lived in the woods (and they did) and then the woods get taken out to make room for the homes, where do the bears go?   It's just a reminder to me that man should only fuck with nature so much and then after that leave it the hell alone.

Deer Surround Our Home (I want a t-shirt) also start things off on Side B.    It's static, but more in a windy way than what we heard on the previous side, and though there are these static crashes and other moments which aren't as peaceful but it can still somehow remain ambient at its core.   There are also these uplifting tones which help to push into that side that seems to make you happy more than bring you down and I'm cool with that.

The last portion of this cassette is by null.sys and oddly enough it sounds like something from the older days of computers.   It begins not too much unlike that first piece by Electricity, with the static radio singing.   It takes a turn into the alien and then there are voices talking as if in conversation.   Computer tones which can also be thought of as coming from modems or even video games bring out the electronics next and it just, for whatever reason, reminds me of my first PC back when we still had dialup.

Aside from the fact that you can get four similar yet different pieces here with this cassette, you also can hopefully be exposed to Gasoline Fight, who I just started listening to on Bandcamp now, and it just feels like, to me, that often times the music which keeps on giving is the best music of all.   Also, any of these four artists as individuals who want to release cassettes that are not splits and just an entire 60 minutes or whatever dedicated to their music itself, I'd really enjoy hearing that as well.








No comments:

Post a Comment