Reviews

Zazen Tapes

Much Band Literally Too Pleasurable cassette

Outsider pop from upstate New York. Doses of innocent twee, quirky proto/post-punk blurts, Nuggets-era pop, freeform experimental and some weird indie-by-way-of-yacht-rock bits (“Cut The Cake”) that I simply don’t understand. When I think of those bits as interludes between the freak stuff, MUCH BAND is a much better band. Somewhat curious that this cassette is on the Zazen imprint—a newer label who popped onto my radar for their noisecore and harsh electronic releases…it’s good to keep your fans guessing.

Pink Guitars We Are Made of the Sun cassette

Ripping fast hardcore punk from Buffalo, NY. I know that PINK GUITARS originally began as a solo project, and being from Buffalo myself I saw an early line-up of his live band play once. I’m not sure if this cassette is still just the one guy or if it’s now a full band, as there are no credits found within, but whatever the case I hope the responsible party(s) keep doing whatever they did here because this tape is awesome! Five songs of blistering, ’80s inspired hardcore punk. “Always Searching” seriously kills! The riffs are tight and catchy, the drums are fast, the one guitar solo is unexpected and well played. The vocals sound a little monotone at times, but that’s also what makes it sound a little bit like UNIFORM CHOICE, so chalk that one up wherever it fits for you. The program is repeated on the B-side of the tape, but it is played backwards. I kept listening waiting for the hidden messages in PINK GUITARS songs to become clear to me, but nothing ever presented itself. What’s surprising about this is that some of the riffs are actually pretty damn cool when played backwards, too. Well, I’ll be damned. Along with all the releases on the dude from PINK GUITARS’ tape label, only 25 copies of this tape exist, so scope it online as it’s likely sold out.

Zurich Cloud Motors Do More Than Deconstruct-o cassette

This is my first exposure to a band with an almost overwhelming amount of output, having what I gather to be at least seven cassettes out. ZURICH CLOUD MOTORS ranges from catchy indie pop to bordering-on-indecipherable noise rock, hitting everything in between as well, which is quite the array. There are even moments when I hear early MEAT PUPPETS-inspired stuff coming through. A real wild ride. By all means, if you check this out, which you certainly should, give it more than just one song cause as soon as you think you know what ZCM is all about, they seem to switch things up on you.