Cassette Review // Data Slum "Douchi Sushi"

$7 CAD //
Edition of 15 //
https://dataslum.bandcamp.com/album/douchi-sushi //

Sharpness rings through, like glass.  Words are spoken and other sounds can be heard in the background like a slight ruckus.    Words carry this dark weight and then the electronics sound like water dripping.   It feels like this is a chanting, a spell to be put on someone.   Guitars enter next in a trippy-classic way.   Words are still spliced in behind the distorted madness.    Droid type beepings come up and down with the grinding and it feels like a telephone call (trying to dial) gone out of control.

It seemingly takes this break where everything winds down and gets quieter, but then it builds right back up and is loud again.    The beeping is so beautiful.    Darker now, there is some ringing, then some knocking-- a beat like that tell-tale heart.   There is a ripple effect, a trill, like something being dropped but it also has this feeling of something related to audio failing, a record player scratch or something along those lines with these triangle dings.

A rustling now, like scraping knives together, and a buzzing as well.   There is this grating sound but it's just also that shuffling, that field recording feeling of something happening but you're not really sure how to place the picture with the audio.  I hear seagulls perhaps and singing comes on next.    It's a chanting, a moan almost.    I can hear the waves of the ocean, the singing, and then it cuts out.  It sounds like the side is over, but it comes back for a moment and then the side ends.

Electronics come through with magical beeping to kick things off on the flip side.   There is drumming feeling which sounds like spitting and then that groovy sax comes creeping through as well.    Guitars come in with a serious message and this very quickly feels like the tone has switched over to be one about survival.    Squeaking, twisting and turning and just an overall magic feeling make up this song now.

A clicking now, like shaking a can of spray paint, and then we go silent like it's all over.   Words are spoken with blissed out tones but I'm not sure what's being said.  A slight static rumble now.    It kind of crawls to a stop as it feels like an engine dying perhaps.   More of that weird field recording type of sound and then into those chants we heard earlier as well.   You can hear the water still as well.   I don't think of this as being at the beach though, so it's weird to hear that with everything else going on.

The singing cuts off, comes back and then cuts off again before the end.   It makes me feel like Side A and Side B were similar (maybe even the same) and I just picked up different things the second time through.   You konw, you hear something- like a guitar for example- the first time and then the second time your ears become used to it so you then focus on the sax hidden behind it and I feel kind of like that's what happened here.   Definitely worth multiple listens.