Cassette Review // claire rousay "Several Erasures" (Already Dead Tapes)

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https://alreadydeadtapes.bandcamp.com/album/ad306-claire-rousay-several-erasures //

For a minute, when this first started, I thought it was blank.   There is some rustling where you can hear sounds which make it seem not blank and then a drum is hit to add to the minimal music sound.     A quieter slide through the drums and this is what I like to call minimal percussion, which might have a different name but I'm not going to speculate or create a name if one doesn't exist.

There is a shuffling, like the opening and closing of drawers.    The drum stick drops onto the snare and does that little trill thing it likes to do.  An unwrapping now.   Dings and squeaks, like a cash register or typewriter.  (My dad recently talked to me about how he had to buy a laptop for typing since they don't make typewriters anymore.  Weird conversation)  There is this rattling like when a circular object hits the ground and kind of rolls around before becoming flat.

The sound now could be a shaking but it also sounds like a crumbling of papers.   It also could be the sound of small insects fleeing.  The beeps are behind this, those keys on the typewriter or cash register, dinging along.   The pace grows and it becomes more intense.   A clacking now like a lobster claw or something plastic of the sort.  I feel like this is a kid's book- "Click Clack Moo" I think is a real title.

A scraping now, fading in and out.  It's quiet, really quiet and in the background behind nothing else.   But it has that file being run across metal sound, like someone trying to file the prison bars for their big jailbreak during an old black and white movie.   The sound of drum sticks clanking together now.   Wood on wood.   The drum sticks create the rhythm with the dings backing them up.    A little of that scraping again now.   Filing, but not in a cubicle.   Most of the sounds heard up until now converge and just create a sense of chaos. 

At times I feel like this should have applause.  In between the starts and stops I think of it being played as such.   Bells ring like church.   The beat grows, steady, it builds.   A drum being played with sticks also banging together and this has become rather loud percussion now.    It has seemingly grown from something so minimal, something so close to nothing, into something so large and so great.

On the flip side we start things with this lone drum beat but then it's a ringing of a bell, like a triangle, quiet and minimal once again.   Glass.   Insects swarming.    A shaker and some scraping sharpness now.   It's forming this cool rhythm where I feel like you can dance to it and then another drum beat.   The drum is struck only once.   A steady shaking with the banging makes for a definite dance vibe now.

Then it sounds like a door closes and the music stops.   Scattered glass now.   Scraping glass like Jay Peele.    A banging- the moving around of heavy objects now added into this as it grows and grows.  A locomotive steam.    It rattles and seems to fade out but then returns.    One more fade out and then there is banging in here as well, a big ruckus to end it on. 

But no.  It is quietly returning now.   Drum rolls now, trill and we're off and running.    A little of that clacking again.   It feels like a race to me for some reason.   A loud, ringing banging sound now.   Metal on metal.   A ding echoes now, like a sonar wave.  It could be a gong I suppose, it dawns on me later.    A shuffling now.   The drumming creates this mechanical sound with that hypnotic sonar wave behind it.    A wild steel drum takes over now and this one has gone from minimal to loud just as it did on the first side.