HR068 - Ice Cream Blisters - Take With Food — C60 — 1988
Side A:
Transmissions #2 (Thanksgiving) Diedre Burn The Fucking Christians George Orr Side B:
Lunchtime At GGE Studios Gotham Bank 40 |
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REVIEW by Jerry Kranitz
Ice Cream Blisters were the duo of Mike Crooker and Chris Mezzolesta from Kent, Ohio. The variety across this tape is head spinning!
Side A kicks off with ‘Transmission #2 (Thanksgiving)’, a mixture of sci-fi ambient/soundscape excursion and psychedelic delirium. I like the backwards music that propels a pulsating pattern that throbs so incessantly it made me clutch my chest. A 10-minute tasty blend of floating space electronica and 60s psychedelic ‘Revolution 9’ styled experimentalism. ‘Diedre’ is different, being a beautiful, spacey, melodic dream-pop instrumental with tasty doses of lo-fi wonkiness. The acerbically titled ‘Burn The Fucking Christians’ is even more different, which for barely 1-minute cranks out drones and oddball effects. ‘George Orr’ returns to a more musical theme, on which a slow, pleasantly melancholy keyboard melody plays to an underlying drone-soundscape and is colored by periodic siren blasts. I like this tune. It’s simple, yet interesting in its use of contrasting parts.
Side B opens with ‘Lunchtime at GGE Studios’, a loosely lo-fi guitar and bass jam with nifty jazz work by the bass, noisy psychedelic guitar noodling, and all accompanied by weird spacey and percussion effects. ‘Gotham’ is the other stretch-out track of the set, being a 10-minute journey of spectral howls, spooky drones and soundscapes, and a spacey bell-like rhythmic pulse. As the piece progresses it gets increasingly intense and downright frightening at times. But soon the bells evolve into an icy drone symphony, creating an intriguing yet difficult to describe contrast with the ghostly theme. This might be my favorite track of the set. Finally, ‘Bank 40’ is a spacey, percussion driven groove tune with a vibe that’s both Oriental and tribal.
A crazy amount of variety on this tape! But that was the great thing about the hometaper underground… anything goes if it suits the artist’s fancy. The tape includes notes for each track that I intentionally did not read until after writing my review. Good stuff.
Ice Cream Blisters were the duo of Mike Crooker and Chris Mezzolesta from Kent, Ohio. The variety across this tape is head spinning!
Side A kicks off with ‘Transmission #2 (Thanksgiving)’, a mixture of sci-fi ambient/soundscape excursion and psychedelic delirium. I like the backwards music that propels a pulsating pattern that throbs so incessantly it made me clutch my chest. A 10-minute tasty blend of floating space electronica and 60s psychedelic ‘Revolution 9’ styled experimentalism. ‘Diedre’ is different, being a beautiful, spacey, melodic dream-pop instrumental with tasty doses of lo-fi wonkiness. The acerbically titled ‘Burn The Fucking Christians’ is even more different, which for barely 1-minute cranks out drones and oddball effects. ‘George Orr’ returns to a more musical theme, on which a slow, pleasantly melancholy keyboard melody plays to an underlying drone-soundscape and is colored by periodic siren blasts. I like this tune. It’s simple, yet interesting in its use of contrasting parts.
Side B opens with ‘Lunchtime at GGE Studios’, a loosely lo-fi guitar and bass jam with nifty jazz work by the bass, noisy psychedelic guitar noodling, and all accompanied by weird spacey and percussion effects. ‘Gotham’ is the other stretch-out track of the set, being a 10-minute journey of spectral howls, spooky drones and soundscapes, and a spacey bell-like rhythmic pulse. As the piece progresses it gets increasingly intense and downright frightening at times. But soon the bells evolve into an icy drone symphony, creating an intriguing yet difficult to describe contrast with the ghostly theme. This might be my favorite track of the set. Finally, ‘Bank 40’ is a spacey, percussion driven groove tune with a vibe that’s both Oriental and tribal.
A crazy amount of variety on this tape! But that was the great thing about the hometaper underground… anything goes if it suits the artist’s fancy. The tape includes notes for each track that I intentionally did not read until after writing my review. Good stuff.