On the Ruins of the Great Black Swamp: November 2012

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

"better than I expected."

Here is a review of Polarity.

I will let you decide if the guy liked it or not.

Band: Jason Zeh
Country: Bowling Green, Ohio
Style: Drone/Noise
Label: Handmade Birds

Of all the releases I've covered from Handmade Birds, it may come as a surprise that I actually wasn't all that excited about this one. For some reason this one just didn't strike me as being one of the label's more definable releases, but Mr. R. Loren himself has actually done quite a fine job at sort of building up some hype for this cassette through a mixtape he made and in a brief interview he did. So, regardless of what I may have expected it to be I tried to come into this with an open mind ready for anything. I did watch a video of Zeh performing live (to which I heard were good enough that they should be filmed for a DVD - something I don't really get) and that didn't really inspire much confidence in this release; but when I actually listened to this tape I was actually quite surprised with it. It's not amazing or mind altering, but it is better than I expected. Both tracks feature some really interesting, minimalistic drones that are actually quite captivating for how minimal their structure(?) is. Both track feature very little in the way of variation, with a central drone essentially carrying the track from beginning to end with very, very subtle shifts occurring in the space between. Obviously, because this is only two tracks and both do top the twenty minute mark, it can be a pretty tough listen, and I won't make any defense for it be a difficult tape to get into, but it is actually quite an impressive little release that surpassed my expectations (if that means anything).
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Side A

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Show In KCK

FOKL

Thursday, November 29th
8:00pm
556 Central Avenue Kansas City Kansas

$5 to help out the touring acts.

Piper Harrow: KC's Piper Harrow breaks, smashes, and regurgitates songs and collaborates with a wide array of like-minded miscreants in the area.

Time and Temperature: Val sings beautiful and haunting songs about lesbian nuns and other stuff. She is on tour from Columbus, OH. You can sample and buy her music on her Bandcamp page.

John Bellows: From Chicago, Bellows brings tender, psychedelic, grunge-folk. He has a recent LP on Moniker Records. Follow the link for a sound sample or, check out this video.

Jason Zeh: This recent transplant to Kansas City plays extended technique cassette music. Recent work has appeared on Chondritic Sound and Handmade Birds.