March 9th, 2010
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EMILY
Neat and Tidy in Your Mind
(Mo=Da=Mu)
Vancouver, BC
Originally Released: 1985
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From the generally untidy mind of Aaron Levin:
Destructive guitar congruance. Menacing synthetic tones. Echo-to-infinity vox processing. Extirpated TASCAM wreckage. Neat and Tidy in My Mind is the most relentless barrage of left-field maximal synth North American has ever seen. It’s the second cassette by solo, multi-format Vancouver artist Emily Faryna, whose visionary digital mythics have been obscured by Canada’s under-documented vintage cassette scene. Her conical prose hovers darkly over Neat and Tidy’s minor-key delirium, brewing the magnetic urgency coursing through its self-producing ether; a last, desperate attempt to convince the world that the mind’s ailments exist on the outside. It’s a gateway drug into the underbelly of a hyper intimate experimental underground torn from the pages of Neuromancer and, to me, the flagship vehicle for the vanguard of fringe-Canada. Words left to describe Neat and Tidy in Your Mind: ambitious, singular, forward-thinking, powerful, intense, and prodigious. There is a reissue in the works.
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EMILY – Who Cares
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EMILY – Compromise
File under: 1985 // aaron levin // ambient // experimental // maximal synth // minimal synth // mo=da=mu // noise // psych // punk // synth
Categoria!! Departures Revisited :: british columbia :: cassette | 3 Comments »
February 5th, 2010
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Various Artists
Dove Project No. 9
(Self Released)
Calgary, AB
Originally Released: 1970
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From the partially-ordered, semi-continuous grippage of Aaron Levin:
We have witnessed the possessed meanderings of teenagers pushed to the creative fringe for years. It’s not uncommon these days for some residential weirdo to emerge from their suburban cave with a MySpace full of damaged sounds teetering on the edge of unsanity. This was not the case for Canada’s underground rock scene of the 60s, whose output pales numerically to our American counterparts, owing to a lack of custom pressing plants and home-recording equipment. Which is why it’s incredible that Calgarian Doug Wong, at the tail end of 1969, when psychedelic music delivered its last blow to the world’s unsuspecting youth, decided to package the last issue of his high-school newspaper with a 7″ of school “rock bands” (I’ve posted the full story here). The resulting 7″ has become a truly bewildering artifact of Canada’s marginalized fringe music community: a compilation of unfettered teenage expression; trashy, face-melting, fuzz-drenched glorious hard-rock mingling amongst Dylan-inspired folk and sunshine pop. A beautiful peak into the small lives of folk-club weirdos at a time when their sounds usually withered and vanished. Amazing and incredibly rare. This is the third time I’ve written about this record and it still astounds me.
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Wrinkled Pumpkin – Hello
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Sundance Reunion – I’m Leaving
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Dusk – Three Thirty Two
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File under: diy // doug wong // hard rock // psych
Categoria!! 7" :: Departures Revisited :: alberta | 3 Comments »
January 11th, 2010
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Lightdreams
10,000 Dreams
(Self Released)
Victoria, BC
Originally Released: 1983
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From the cassette-gripping hands of Aaron Levin:
There is a universe inside the mind of Victorian Paul Marcano unlike anyone has or could have imagined. After self-releasing Islands in Space (Paul’s 1981 cosmic folk consecration to the colonization of space released under the moniker Lightdreams), Paul seemingly disappeared into the serene pastures of Vancouver Island with only a brief mention of a new cassette available in an issue of CLEM (Canadian List of Electronic Music). Almost mistakenly lumped in with left-field Canadian avant-gardism, 10,001 Dreams takes a leave of absence from the ambient, synthesizer-driven visuals of Islands in Space to craft a wild, lysergic-filled journey into pan-delic psych and guitar workouts, stretching our understanding of pop-psych and bursting our tiny minds with visions of unfound landscapes. It is thee underground psychedelic masterpiece from Canada; released 15 years too late on a format no one cared about and relegated to absolute obscurity shortly thereafter. The cassettes were made-to-order and incredibly rare. Paul remains a visionary of human experience and is dedicated to experimenting with music and virtual reality.
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Lightdreams – Who is the One
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Light Dreams – 10,001 Dreams
File under: 1983 // folk // new age // psych
Categoria!! Departures Revisited :: british columbia :: cassette | 4 Comments »
