The North Sea - Tanned Hides (Existential Cloth Recordings CS)

Ye-haw cowboy! New tape batch just rolled in from this new-to-me label out of Maine called Existential Cloth. Nice little package with some pretty choice presentations, but obviously this one caught my eye first. Beautiful little package with the mesh holdster, leather info sheet and an ultra-grimy print of some dude in a wild get-up. Feels really homemade, which I always appreciate, nice and tactile-like. Not to mention that it's a North Sea tape, solo project of my own "employer," Brad Rose, head of Foxy Digitalis. Guess this review better be good...

The tape presents two side long tracks, opening with the ambiguously titled "More to More." Name might imply a pretty cacophonous trajectory here but actually this piece is totally slow and burned around the edges. Dense organ like single note drones hover around before some winds whip around like air sneaking in through the cracks of the car window on the freeway. Just can't get the temperature right, y'know? Whole thing just drifts on and on, always numb and way downer style, with nothing left un-deaded. Nice to finally get to hear this project, though bummer to realize what I've been missing...

Second side, "Remnant," is one of the more on point title's I've heard this side of "Yellow Submarine." If anything even slower and more unmoving than the previous number, though not without a certain jam sense. Hushed hum keeps things in place while whisked walls of tone move real slowly on top. Great little pitch modulations too that really give this a spaced out, neo-Jetsons lift off vibe. Ironic thing of course is that once you've undergone liftoff you're just stuck out in space, and there's not much out there. So many folks keep their eyes on the horizon, but don't they know that's a hell of a long ways away? Better to just come to terms with the nothing in front of you and wade about in it. Straight into the quasar, baby, float on. Way spare and just plain weird, making for a really nice tape for those last minutes of the day, right before the Kool Aid kicks in. Ultra limited according to discogs (only 25) and not available from the label anymore but if you see one, grab it. More to come from this label soon.