I don’t want you to look stupid. You
don’t want you to look stupid. So at least we’re in agreement about it. But
if you are stupid, and you need to not be stupid, then let me help you –
here’s a link to the Norelco Mori
podcast, which is a cutting edge cassette program designed to keep you in
the know. The deep know. Maybe the deepest. Why all the podcast riffage
(and the italics)? Because Ted James Butler, the man behind the Head Dress
moniker, is also the man behind Norelco Mori. Consider yourself un-stupidified.
The italics? Who knows, man.
Sometimes you just need some emphasis.
I’ve written about Head Dress before, particularly his Slow Chime cassette on Hylé Tapes, but I
can’t link to it because it hasn’t posted at the moment I’m writing this. You
could easily just type in “Head Dress” in the little search field up there, so
I don’t feel too bad about it. But here’s the thing – I can still quote myself
if I want to, because I felt the same way about Slow Chime that I now feel about Rose. That’s right, it leaves me, upon completion of the tape, “a
floor puddle, an unfortunate result of physics affecting the molecules in my
skin, bones, blood, and tissue.” This is the result of excellent experimental
music, and Rose is no exception to
the Ted James Butler discography (or the Spring Break Tapes discography either,
actually).
Throughout Rose, Butler
manipulates his synthesizers to create weird, wobbly patterns and gnarly
headspaces where up is green and three is five. I’m out there, in the middle of
it, letting arpeggios squirt through me like neutrinos. It’s impossible to
stop, so the only thing I can recommend is to let these twenty-two minutes pass
as best you can, because you are powerless to stop the sound. Thank the
all-powerful Cassette Gods that stuff like this keeps getting made. Hey, wait, I’m a Cassette God!
--Ryan Masteller
Posts
