Great lines. Accessible but still edgy. A perfect mix of old and current hip-hop. I listened through, non-stop, twice.
Favorite Tracks:
Get your mind right and check out The Honey Bear Saga from Mickey O’Brien.
This is off the label, Hand’Solo Records.
And I love the playing card-style box it comes in:
One of the most unique rappers I have ever heard is on Cold Camp. You will know it when you hear him. I can’t decide if I think he is rad or not… ok, no, wait, I have decided… he is rad – been in my head all week.
Cold Camp’s (from Calgary) latest album, Winter Dreamz, was just released earlier this year.
Interesting feature of the tape itself, the B Side is the instrumental version of the album – very cool.
Favorite Tracks
Cold Camp is on Hand’Solo Records out of Toronto, CA.
–
I went to a recent club show here in Fresno that had mostly local acts, except for the band Pancho And The Wizards (they are from the Central Coast of California – almost local). So I had not heard of them before, but I really enjoyed their set.
Somehow I didn’t catch that they had any tapes (even though I checked the merch table, I thought). One of the band members hit me up on TikTok and said they do, in fact, have tapes, and he was nice enough to send me one.
While the tape was released back in 2021, the music shows no signs of age. Psychedelic garage rock with accessible punk. Listening to the cassette made me think of things like:
Favorite side: B
Find more Pancho And The Wizards on Bandcamp.
I really didn’t know what to expect from Jason Trachtenburg’s tape, “I Really Love You Tonight”. Getting to listen to something in the literary folk genre might be a first for me. But holy crap, the talent here can’t be denied.
Honestly, I was expecting something experimental and was pleasantly surprised to find out it’s only a little bit. Very catchy but with some weight to it somehow.
I hear the fun side of the Beatles mixed with some Oingo Boingo, Dave Edmunds, and the Bakersfield sound.
Familiar, but with a flair I think only Trachtenburg can deliver.
Find it on Bandcamp.
You’re not going to find many cassettes that have a piccolo trumpet, flutes, a conch shell, and a cow horn. A fun cassette to play for the tikes in your life.
Find it on Bandcamp.
-Mikey
New York City anti-folk band, Prewar Yardsale, new album “Sylvia Plath”!
I was lucky enough to get sent this spiral staircase of hidden black cloud, folksy, dark fun.
Gotta say, I enjoyed the B side of this tape the best. It could be the fact that I was into my second beer while listening to side 2, but I dunno. Song highlights for me include “Sway”, “She Knows Her Place”, and “Where Did You Go”:
Prewar Yardsale’s girtty lo-fi is working for me today. Check out their Bandcamp for a copy.
I filtered through some new albums and recent indie releases to give you some new tapes to listen to.
A punk and lo-fi garage band out of Los Angeles:
Hard rock with some Doom Metal influence, for sure. Heavy duty.
A New Jersey alt-rock/bedroom pop artist who is a registered nurse.
Hardcore punk from Ukraine. Yep, Ukraine. Seems like supporting anything coming out of Ukraine is the most punk thing to do right now.
Alternative love rock out of Brooklyn.
Damn enjoyable and interesting ambient experimental stuff, even if you are not into Minecraft.
Okay. That’s a little taste of some new cassettes I thought you might like. I hope you enjoy one or two, and I’ll be back later with more.
I dunno if I am renaming my Tape Pull segment here or starting a new one but today I was reminded that there was a time when I walked home from school near a record store and I would make sure to walk by the shop to see if there was anything new in the window or inside.
So I felt like starting a no-frills In The Window series. Just posting a new/new-to-me album (with a tape available) whenever I can, so you have something new to see on the blog (and later on the newsletter).
Today, I have been listening to “Agnosiareign” by Cemntation Anxiety from the experimental label, Black Artifact.