This record review originally appeared in Quantum Noise No. 1, a limited-edition zine my wife and I self-published in 2006. More issues were planned, but alas, we never got around to them.

Das Torpedoes
Descendre cassette
(Animal Disguise Recordings)

This Das Torpedoes cassette is the screaming hum of my nervous system, which, as I write this, is drowning-out the world around me. Both cassette and my mind-body apparatus are working in concert erecting this droning, numb wall. Only one sound seems to be penetrating my being — some far-off, distant voice announcing train arrivals and departures. Or, is it the recording of a man paging various staff and personnel via the hospital intercom? What should be understood about this screaming hum, this droning numb wall, is that it’s not the usual (albeit rather revved-up) purr of my nervous system. This is the collective wail of hundreds of millions of cells inside me. They are wailing, screaming, and droning, from too much alcohol, too much cocaine, and too much guilt about consuming too much alcohol and too much cocaine. My insides are revolting, freaking-the-fuck-out, on the molecular level while my outside appearance remains in this state of stoned catatonia. I am shaking violently, and my head races in all directions, but you couldn’t tell from looking at me. (At least, I don’t believe so.) I guess this is how the fucking thing operates. I am examining all the universes inside of me and realizing that they are corrupt and sick. I started this pollution of the infinitesimally minute about 13 hours ago. Now I am sitting-up but breaking-down at eight in the morning on Sunday; I can’t tell where my screaming nervous system ends and the deep, distant echo of Das Torpedoes’ begins. And, why is it that I only listen to this cassette when I’m feeling like this?

This quasi-record review originally appeared in Quantum Noise No. 1, a limited-edition zine my wife and I self-published in 2006. More issues were planned, but alas, we never got around to them. By the way, I wrote this piece long before the concept known as “hypnagogic pop” was ever formulated.

For this review, I would like to shine a brief spotlight on New Age Cassettes, an imprint founded by James Ferraro — one-half of the SanFran-based, mantra-jamz duo, the Skaters.* More specifically, allow me to impart to you a few thoughts I have recently crystallized on said imprints’ first three releases: Cruisin The Nightbiker Strip 1977, Interstellar Hustle, and Live Smokeshows From Inside The Ciguri Cave Hazed Diamonds With Windswept Hair. Each one of these one-sided cassettes is a document of Ferraro’s work as a solo musician locking himself away inside his sloppy bedroom, surrounded by a tangled assortment of half-battered gear: guitar, synth, karaoke machine, microphone, etc.

Now, the first most obvious reason why Ferraro (who creates music under two different names: Teotihuacán and the Wooden Cupboard) named his label, New Age Cassettes, I discerned quite quickly when flipping these tapes over and reading their original, near-vintage labels. For example, the label on the B-side of Interstellar Hustler reads Lorraine Sinkler — Infinite Way Class: The 1977 Atlanta Class and the flipside of the Live Smokeshows… tape reveals that it used to be Ram Dass Meditation Tape #1. Obviously, Ferraro stumbled across a musty box chalk full of long-lost “spiritual guidance” cassettes while rummaging through the music section of his local thrift store. But, here’s the thing. After I noticed these original labels and after I realized just how old-n-worn out these cassettes actually looked and after I gave them a handful of listens (Ferraro’s side obviously), the notion hit me that Ferraro’s open-ended, extremely lo-fi, ambient soul-workouts are quite possibly nothing more than the end-result of him setting these cassettes out in the sun, allowing them to melt-n-warp into syrupy magnetic-goop, and then repackaging them for sale.

Of course, that’s not what happened, but I did in another publication describe Ferraro’s solo work as an, “old, warped cassette of ritualistic worship music created by an esoteric California fertility cult that spent the mid-’70s organically fusing classical Indian ragas, the solemn chants of a Tibetan tantric choir, Velvet Underground-inspired experimentation with lo-fi tape hiss, and ghostly, falsetto-rich doo-wop balladry from the mid-’50s.” Thus, a much more intimate relationship between Ferraro and California-bred New Age thought exists than simply his appropriation of these old inspirational cassettes. In fact, due to the tape hiss heard when turning the volume up, I’m forced to listen to these cassettes as softly as possible producing an environmental effect similar to that of a massage therapist or even a Reiki specialist infusing his/her space with atmospheric, “new agey” electronic meditation music. The only difference being Ferraro’s music offers a much richer, more psychedelic listening experience influenced, in part, by Sun-Ra’s intergalactic cosmology. It forces me to really attune my ears to its faint but powerful subtleties, and after a few minutes of paying true attention, what once resembled “new agey” sonic decay mutates into a gorgeous, incessantly mutating technicolor-soaked kaleidoscope.

Notes
*A heavily edited version of this review appears in the autumn 2005 issue of Swingset magazine. I have reprinted the original version because my fundamental point — the intimate relationship between Ferraro’s music and the aesthetic of New Age environmental music — is explained in greater detail.

This record review originally appeared in Quantum Noise No. 1, a limited-edition zine my wife and I self-published in 2006. More issues were planned, but alas, we never got around to them.

Inca Ore
Brute Nature Vs. Wild Magic CD-R
(JYRK)

I dig how many groups these days are experimenting with the human voice in ways that are subtle and meditative instead of obvious and confrontational (in ways that are more Pandit Pran Nath and less Yoko Ono): the Skaters, Axolotl, Animal Collective, Double Leopards, Excepter, Gang Gang Dance, etc. What I dig even more is when these groups create vocally driven psychedelia that isn’t as processed with effects as their usual output is. Here, I’m thinking of the Skaters’ Mountain of Signs, Animal Collective’s Campfire Songs, and side one of Excepter’s debut, KA. And now, I would like to add to that list Inca Ore’s Brute Nature vs. Wild Magic; it’s an intriguing seven-song CD-R recently released by Gabriel Mindel and Peter Swanson of D Yellow Swans. Inca Ore — a fantastic West Coast “new agey” alias — is Eva, a young lady from Portland who possesses a rapturous voice and a powerful set of lungs capable of sustaining these arcing ululations (which she skillfully layers creating mantras that feel like a fusion of late-night sci-fi flick sound-effects and some West Coast-bred, Eastern-influenced spirituality). Furthermore, as on the piece “Rainbows and Inca Teeth”, Eva displays an ability to construct vocal motifs, which unfold with the patient flow of her natural breathing patterns. When Eva’s voice — drifting as if it was just another instinctual metabolic processes — is lightly touched with reverb and echo and backed by sparse accompaniment, the music then becomes something austere, profound, and incredibly hypnotic. Not to mention, Eva possesses a keen sense of economy; not one of these seven mantras exceeds six minutes. Each one ends with me always wanting more.*

Notes
*Okay. Here is the only genuine record review in this zine. I had some extra space so I figured I would fill it up with a positive review of this nifty little disc.