Dylan Reviews _'s tapes

Last week I received a pair of tapes from our good friend _ from Denmark!

The first tape I listened to was Skolens Toss. Side A consists of more traditional pop songs done in _'s unique style, which brought a much-needed warm and fuzzy happy feeling to my mind (which has been kind of nerve-wracked all week).

On Side B, he gets a little more cinematic/experimental, with an instrumental track that sounds like he's watching a low-budget horror movie in the background, followed by a gloomier number that wouldn't be out of place on Matthew Moyer's PopNihil tape label. 

After that is a song with delay added to the drum machine while _ sings and strums his acoustic guitar over it, and eventually a John Carpenter-esque synth enters the foray. 

Towards the end is a plunderphonics collage of various recordings from other artists run through delay, like changing through stations on your radio.

This tape is like his version of Eno's Another Green World or Bowie's Low. Strongly recommended!

Up next was Folk & Støl. Cover photos from our good friend Jen Sandwich!

It started raining when I hit play on this tape, which was very fitting for what I was about to hear.

A majority of this tape consists of more melancholy songs of just vocals and acoustic guitars, much like Nick Drake's swan song "Pink Moon", but also recommended for fans of Skip Spence, Leonard Cohen, and Sebadoh.

There's also some dark Casio jams and spoke word collages towards the end of this tape, hence the Sebadoh comparison.

I strongly recommend these tapes to brighten your day. I'm so glad I live in a universe where _ exists!