Cassette Review // Coven Tree / Tadzio Split (BLIGHT. Records)

$7 //
https://music.blightrecords.org/album/coven-tree-tadzio-split //

Sad strings come droning in and I feel like we're lost at sea.   As it builds you can feel the percussion shaping the rhythm behind the winding strings.    This takes us into a darker type of strings, a cello perhaps, and it reminds me of some classical fanfare such as "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".    If there was to be a genre of classical based drone I don't know how you would distinguish it from the typical drone but the way Coven Tree makes these strings slightly change but mostly stay the same would make me want to think of it as such.

These hue tones really come through now as well, showcasing both the magic and the beauty of what Coven Tree is bringing to this first side.

In contrast to the instrumental songs of the first side, Tadzio starts off with these powerful vocals and minimal music, which is somewhat as you would expect from Tadzio at this point.  This song is about death and not just in the way of dying but in the way that Bill and Ted played board games against him and won-- that death.

People will often tell me that I think about or talk about death too much, but if this sound is the sound which takes me into the life after this one then I'm all for it.    In some ways this feels like a pleading with death at first, so as not to take this lady yet, but eventually it seems to be an acceptance as it becomes more of a warning than anything else.   Through this mystical music let us all know that death will catch up to us all one day.

"Absence" has lighter tones bouncing around on clouds with the words "How you doin'? I'm doin' all right" and it reminds me a bit of a minimal Slothrust song.    As you probably realize if you've read my reviews before, I will highly suggest buying this cassette for the Tadzio side of it because by now you should be familiar enough with them that you shouldn't need convincing but the fact that you also get the Coven Tree songs on the first side just make it all that much better.