Falling
Back In Fields of Tape
Britt Brown
TOP
10 TAPES FOR JAMMING WHEN IT’S STILL HOT IN DECEMBER (aka “INDIAN SUMMER” JAMS)
Thought I’d try my hand at a straightforward “topical”-style list for this
column, cause they always say you should “write what you know.” You know? And
right now in my personal sphere I’m wearing a t-shirt, squinting in the
sunshine, and trying to figure out what Xmas gifts to buy various family
members. For a lotta the planet, that’s probably an odd combo. Cause holiday
season elsewhere is usually congruent with slate-grey skies, freezing wind, and
8 layers of wool clothing. But not in our hood, obviously. So here’s some tapes
we dig throwin’ in the deck during 80 degree Decembers and all that. Maybe this
is sort of too abstract a theme but oh well, it’s too late now, deal with it.
1. PINCHERS “MASS OUT” (REAL AUTHENTIC SOUND)
Really random semi-shitty mid-80s dancehall-y album by a shortlived “big band”
that reggae rad dogs Sly & Robbie masterminded for a while. The production’s
kinda clean but still cheap-sounding, with lots of stuttery drum machine
click-clacks, bouncy feel-good piano, and lyrics about pots of coffee, the
Grammys, and how Christian chicks are weird. It was recorded in Kingston but
it’s not that dubby or anything, it just has this pleasantly bland and sunny
vibe that kinda works, as if this music could have been (and was) made by any
one of several hundred different Jamaican groups across the decade, and you the
listener just coincidentally HAPPEN to be listening to THIS PARTICULAR slushpile
of songs. It’s more just “music,” rather than “a specific band,” like something
that’d be playing on a radio in a movie: groovy but innocuous. Not sure if that
makes any sense, but neither does the cover art: a really sly-looking RUN DMC-style
youth with a massive gold chain around his neck, leaning against a pink-and-blue
wall. Also: what the fuck does “mass out” mean?
2. HEATSICK “TOTAL AFTERNOON SUNDAE” (ALCOHOLIC NARCOLEPSY)
Loved this tape for a long time, holds a lotta good times inside its spools. It
sounds like laying back on a hillside in the sun in front of a lake or some
waves, half-drunk or maybe just sleepy, and just closing yr eyes and letting the
world swim in your head. Exquisitely woozy. The loops and revolving fogs of
electronics are recorded at this perfect pitch where they don’t come across as
artificial or even manmade in the slightest, it’s just a kaleidoscopic vision of
some otherworldly organic organism, breathing and floating in a stunning
weightless moment (kinda like when they first catch sight of those translucent
alien creature things in The Abyss, they’re just spellbound, like
“Whaaaaaaaaat….”). This thing could be a thousand hours long, that’d be fine.
3. HUMAN SEXUAL RESPONSE “FIGURE 14” (PASSPORT)
What is UP with this band?? I grabbed this tape at a garage sale about 8 years
ago solely based on the name and it took me at least half a decade to even wrap
my head around how amazing they are at being deadpan dumb. Wacky-as-shit lyrics
sung with a trembling glam delivery and total sincerity (“time-warp at the Anne
Frank museum/you write postcards and you see ‘em/Anne’s in the attic by her
skylight/she’s wondering if her breasts are growing right”) over strangely
serious ponderous 80s rock (in places the guitars remind me of that chiming
style Blue Oyster Cult were so obsessed with). It’s Music As Playground, that
meta-irony where every song sounds like it’s actually parodying the very form
it’s taking (rock, ballad, radio pop, etc). In short, they’re kind of like the
poor man’s Sparks. Which, in case you were wondering, is a good thing. Five
seconds of internet research reveals that HSR were a beloved late 70s Boston
band who never got as famous as people thought they would. From my nice 20/20
hindsight spot here in 2008, I can say that I personally am not surprised AT
ALL. But the goofily peppy back-up vocals, warped pop verses and bridges, and
song titles like “Dick And Jane” and “What Does Sex Mean To Me?” do make for an
appealing afternoon curveball to throw on once in a blue moon.
4. THE SNEEZES “EASTER BARF” (MIDDLE SCHOOL DOGS)
The most Platonically perfect distillation of Teen-Boredom-As-Reason-To-Be-
5. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE VOL. 1 “S/T” (no label)
Our friend Sam edits together these weird blissed-out vignettes of shimmering
underwater psych babble and gives them each a totally different name and
packages them in awful photocopies of pages ripped from school books and this is
our favorite one we’ve gotten our mits on so far. It sounds like the inside of
Ecco The Dolphin ‘s brain, warbling sparkling endlessness, luminous blue loops
swaying invisibly, magical animal consciousness. Mysterious and murky but also
uplifting and enlightened. Have no idea what the hell instruments are making all
the tripped bubble FX and dream-sequence washes but it doesn’t matter, the
adventure’s a metaphor or something, you can go wherever you want with this
shit.
6. U.S. GIRLS “FOUND ON THE GROUND b/w ST. JUDE BOYS CHOIR” (HARDSCRABBLE
AMATEURS)
Megan’s U.S. Girls set-up is deeply simple but in all the best ways: one loop,
one microphone. She’s like a DJ, really. Except covered in silt and blasted out
of a really rusty bad PA. This uber-brief (I think it’s 3 minutes, all told)
cassingle came out pretty recently but I already love it like I’ve had it for
years. I dig how straightforward the A side hit is, just a skipping little
melody that she sing-songs along with through a cavern of reverb. Elementary
school kids could jump-rope to this jam, easy. The B is a little more
“experimental,” buzzing organ-style notes hovering above the ground while she
sings voicelessly up into the rafters. Still rules though, nice gospel-drone for
when yr feeling reverent. Cassingles are perfect for perfect weather: play it,
flip it, then flip it again or move on with yr life, the sun is shining, don’t
waste the whole day, get out there and soak it in while yr still semi-young!
7. JONATHAN RICHMAN & THE MODERN LOVERS “MODERN LOVERS LIVE” (BESERKLEY)
SPEAKING OF elementary school kids, here’s their king crooner himself. No one
else out there attempts to speak the language of 7-year-olds more eloquently
than J Richman, and nowhere is this vibe more totally apparent than on his live
recordings. He’s so sunshiney and smiley it’s like a fucking Raffi concert.
Every song feels like he’s teaching babies how to count or something, the
intellect level of the lyrics stays resolutely in the “Under 10” bracket. And
sometimes when I’m in a good mood and life feels ok I get a kick outta throwing
one of the few live Jonathan tapes I own on, and this one serves that purpose
swell. “Ice Cream Man” is a joke, sung from the perspective of kindergarten
innocence, it makes you feel like “what’s a PROBLEM? Never heard that word
before!” And “Morning Of Our Lives” would not be AT ALL out of place played over
a segment of Sesame Street (the moral is “listen to your heart;” radical, I
know). This shit is like weird regression drugs.
8. THOMAS MAPFUMO & BLACKS UNLIMITED “CHIMURENGA VARIETIES” (GRAMMA)
Stumbled upon this weird Zimbabwean groover at a thrift store in a random strip
mall in Florida and picked it up solely based on how epic Thomas M looks on the
cover (long-ass dreads, with a face like a hundred year old grumpy African
politician). But the songs are strange and great too, Big T mumbles a lot and
leads a really killer backing vocal girl group, the way the voices mesh is
awesome and hypnotic and the rhythms just flitter along jumpy but steady, no
verse, no chorus, all jittery Afro-dance. He sings strictly in Zimbabweanese (if
that’s a language?), so who knows what he’s talking about, but it sounds like
the overall gist is “life is complex but wonderful, don’t worry, be happy, etc”
and musically he states a good case. Also: only a complete badass names their
backing band Blacks Unlimited.
9. DUCKTAILS “II” (FUTURE SOUND RECORDINGS)
This one might be a little obvious but Matt’s clearly a master at sunny skies
beach romanticism and his talent for conjuring imaginary “warm breeze & palm
trees” bike ride instrumentals hit its apex on this little self-released gem. 30
minutes of concise groovy drum machine beats and pleasantly hypnotic wah-wah
guitar gesturing where every song sounds like it’s the magical pop-bliss
crescendo playing over the end fade-out make-out/embrace scene of a really
charming rom-com starring 2 lovable offbeat indie types. I’m realizing that
maybe makes it sound like this would suck, but it totally doesn’t at all.
10.
BOBB BRUNO “WHITE LOVERS DREAM HOUSE” (ARBOR)
We’ll always be biased when it comes to Bobb’s stuff but so what. This ’07 CS is
one of the more lush, lost, and dreamily lonesome EPs B’s put out in recent
memory, and it kindles that nice flame of fictional nostalgia quite well. Tender
childhood blankets of amplifier warmth coat twinkling distant flashes of
electricity, an assured drum machine rhythm marches you somewhere safe and
familiar, guitar melodies lap against your legs. An ideal soundtrack for falling
asleep in the backseat of your parent’s car on a long nighttime drive: you don’t
know where yr going, but it couldn’t be bad. And it’s not.