COOKING COURSE

 

I work primarily in a downtown type area, and many of my co-workers choose to take their midday meal breaks at local restaurants. Now, in this capitalist (verging on post-capitalist) society, I fully recognize that these meals fuel a measurable part of our local economy and contribute to the engine that helps sustain employment for countless humans who depend on this behavior to support themselves and their families. I remember getting the occasional falafel with John in Milwaukee, and I absolutely imbibe in the occasional falafel in these modern times....but I choose to direct my money and my time elsewhere (it's as much about the time as it is about the money, honestly), and I prepare my midday meals in advance. And yesterday, while I was preparing broccolini with s-l-o-w cooked urad, air fried tofu and rice, I listened to this tape....the second in a six part cooking series narrated by Vincent Price. He was talking about French food shit that was not at all vegan and totally different from the shit I was cooking - but damn I enjoyed the listen. 

COOKING COURSE #2: DINING AT VERSAILLES

TUNGA PENETRÁNS

 

What a gloriously filthy quarter hour these punks have offered us...and I will accept their offer with verve and enthusiasm. Chaotic, blown out, stripped down Hungarian DBeat delivered with the weirdest fukkn style imaginable. I(t's a sound you've heard before....you just haven't heard it quite like this. Listen to the guitar (and the vocals) on "Leépülés" if you don't believe me. 

A LEGJOBB FÉREG

JON KABAT-ZINN

 

Very few Escape visitors will be able to (or will choose to) fall in line with the mission here but still I will encourage you:
Relax. Focus. Listen. Feel. Explore. Think. FEEL. Focus. 
It is very likely that this is the simplest cassette I have ever posted....it's also possible that it's the deepest. Because this time it's not about the sounds or the contents....it's about you.

BELLS AT 5, 10, 15, 20 & 30 min
BELLS AT RANDOM TIMES

VENGEANGE

 

Instantly infectious Jakarta punk with OBSERVERS-level hooks. Vocals are forceful, leads are flawless, hooks are endless....it's just a brilliant recording and I want to blast the chorus of the title track on repeat, because The System Doesn't Work.

STAGNANT CIRCLE

DENIM CASKET

 

Punk is meant to be weird. Punk is, by definition, queer and/or outside whatever version of 'normal' exists in a given time, This tape is both of those and all of those - I dare say I have never heard a thing like Denim Casket before I heard DENIM CASKET...and that's what makes the shit so important. Drum and bass dystopian hardcore with gratuitous early PV influences.....but the shit is from Idaho and that just means.....it means the shit is just different. Listen to "Permanent Marker" and then try to tell me that you 'know what this is' or that you hear 'what they're doing.' Because you don't and also...you just don't.  Anyone ever told you they thought about NEGATIVLAND and GODFLESH and CROSSED OUT while listening to one tape? Well, that's what is happening now. A weird, plodding, awkward sonic excursion awaits you. 

DENIM CASKET

SWEET POISON VICTIM

 

I was talking to a friendly civilian at work last week and they said something nostalgic about cassettes being "in the past" and I mentioned that they are very (very) much in the present and they seemed completely floored that the medium still existed, much less still had relevance. I hesitated for a moment, because when the circles of work world and real world overlap it can be weird, but it felt like an appropriate moment to share and soon I was talking to a normal ass woman in her 50s about the nuances of DBeat and crust and how HNW can share as much with quiet ambient as with electronic experimentation and how there are still bands who dub copies of their recordings in their bedrooms to give to friends. I talked to her about Pat and told her about the Copy Wright tapes (trying to connect the tape and punk worlds to the work world in which the two of us coexist) and I told her about '80s UK punk unknowns and powerviolence and '70s Bay Area new age shit.....and then I realized her eyes had kinda glazed over because I had just been rambling on about tapes. Which, to her, was equivalent to rambling on about nothing whatsoever. I didn't bother trying to recover though, because I had genuinely enjoyed my ramble.  Anyway - SWEET POISON VICTIM is (was?) an Afro-Beat band from Indianapolis. They released this tape in 2015 and it's really fukkn good. 

LOWLIFE // EZULI

ENVIRONMENTS

 

Without entering some long winded and partially informed narrative about Irv Tiebel and his Syntonic Research Inc. label, but I'll spare you. I do suggest listening to Altered Nixon Speech and I think it sounds perfect listening simultaneously with Sailboat. The Environments series exemplifies how pervasive honest and pure experimentation was in the 1970s, and demonstrates how perfect even the simplest recordings can be. Sailboat is exactly as it presents, and it's exactly what I need. 

THE MAGIC OF PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC SOUND: SAILBOAT