Sunken Landscapes

"Auditory Hallucinations Vol. 2: The Mind's Eye" CD

Scotch Tapes

Genre: experimental, noise, ambient

Long Beach, CA

May 8, 2009

A trip, to be sure. This hefty tape weighs in at an hour, and it turns out to be fairly true to its title. Each of these cosmically reverberating compositions is a wondrously schizophrenic sonic journey, a trip to distant galaxies and molten, subterranean vistas. Pretty gnarly stuff for a tape limited to ten copies. Almost definitely one man's improvised experimental tomfoolery, this cassette succeeds because the overarching vastness of the sound makes for an unexpectedly beautiful listen. Bass-heavy grumbles, eerie samples (backwards and forwards), and sneaky tape manipulation produce a unique work of atmospheric noise. At times you're riding on radio waves bouncing across the universe, at other times you're contorted between the pipes and levers of a grumbling, underground mining facility. There is no question that this music is made for the tape format, as the sound's nuances are accentuated (and randomized) by the cassette's imperfections. Plus, tapes rule in general. If you can get your hands on Auditory Hallucinations, do so immediately - it's one of those fascinating, ultra-obscure nuggets from the experimental underground.

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youuuuuuuutube!: sunken landscapes live, "frankenbloom"

Matt Shimmer

[Vitals: 7 tracks, 60 min, ltd to 10, distributed by the label, released 2008]