BART DE PAEPE - ALVINNENBERG/DRUIVENBLOED
no basement is deep enough 2016, edition of 67
"Aural brawls of ornamented space offal, occult bedroom buzz, wonky vocal cords expansion and heaps of klingklang - since 2005 Bart De Paepe and his wastoid troupe of crystal throats and all-seeing ears are steering Sloow Tapes far away from slick audiophile shark waters, dropping a zillion psych/pickled poetry cassettes in the green-brown puddle called life, all housed in his own eye-popping swirls and twirls just to free your fungi mind. Next to draining alien innards as a member of Sylvester Anfang II, Amanita Vulva, Sloowroad... the bearded oracle from Stekene also transforms into a human blowtorch solo and unmasked, caramelizing the magic march with merciless but always higher than a kite guitar slaying, disconcerting gargles, handicapped pork chops as drum sticks and a Korg so abused it is fleeing to the closest shelter for domestic hardware violence. Comes in a cloth depiction of the sour-sweet temptresses of the Alvinnenberg, turning revenge and retribution into a crusty handkerchief under your pillow." - NO BASEMENT IS DEEP ENOUGH via FUSETRONSOUND
another gem from revered SLOOW guru BART DE PAEPE, above and beyond even the heady highs of previous recommended works BLOOD CLOT IN THE BRAIN [REC #39] and SOLITARY MOON [REC #94] - safe to say i've crossed over into the "helpless fanatic" zone for his singular brand of zoned out sonic pathways, but i was an acolyte long before by virtue of his curating, artworking and proliferating SLOOW tapes - six across four recommendations and counting here, plus an additional couple dozen or so tapes (and a couple lps) on my shelf going back to 2006 or so - no doubt SLOOW was and remains one of the pillars of the weirdo cassette world as it has existed over the past decade and is still going strong
A/D is an unraveling trip gone so bad it somehow broke through some final barrier into this negative world serenity, a glorious seventy seven minute cosmic collision of FAUST, FRIPP and SCHULZE after being exposed to whatever is in the water that JANDEK has been drinkin for the past forty years - while assuredly in the same vicinity as previous solo efforts, there might be a stronger correlation to BDP's collaboration with BEAR BONES LAY LOW in AMANITA VULVA [REC #50] plus i get some of the same MAXIMUM AROUSAL FARM vibe from a now decade-old one-off duo with MATT VALENTINE as SLOOW ROAD, channeling some MV guitar antics with markers seeming left in the wake of a virulent strain of bluesy japanese psychedelic noise rock, all carried along on some blank-faced rock-steady percussion maintaining a cool head-nodding settled-in cruising speed
that might be the most of it as one might expect with BDP, but it isn't the whole truth - tape one begins and ends with unexpected trickling loner folk ballads, the latter incorporating some sweet desert fried electric lead but still plenty of squeaky acoustic strum - OJERUM's SANGE TIL DOENDE comes to mind as does anonymous masterpiece demo BELLS RINGING IN THE DELLS OF HAUNTED HOURS submitted to and lavishly pressed by TIME-LAG a few years back, eloquently depicted as "mesmerizing hushed, raw, bedroom acidfolk sounds, steeped in alchemical spiritual depth, profound lonesome melancholy, and seriously intense & haunting intimacy, magical poetic songs from a true searcher, battler of the spirit sorrows, and rejoicer in mystical beauties" - i think that goes a long way in describing BDP's music in general, but especially those "hushed raw bedroom acid folk" fragments found here on A/D
apparently out late last year but i just caught wind of it, this would have crashed my year end top ten tapes list like a wrecking ball
LIMITED EDITION CASSETTES
