Cassette Review // COIMS "R Barb Column" (Aphelion Editions)

£5 //
Edition of 50 //
https://aphelioneditions.bandcamp.com/album/r-barb-column //

Sharp strings feel like scraping and sliding when the drums come in.   The beats have these droning tones behind them until these vocals come through in distorted pieces and it makes this video game like stomp with each beat.    The drumming becomes steady on the next track as these tones and strings forge behind it.    It can feel like a pinball rhythm and those moaning type of vocals are in the distant background now as well.

With the vocals behind it the clanking makes that sound like someone working on something metal and for some reason I'm thinking of someone banging on the railroad tracks.   The vocals sound so sad and desperate.    In that way, it really feels like the work is being done on a chaingang or something of the sort because it's like they're banging away, hard at work, but it is against their will.   Perhaps they are even damned souls, cursed to do this for eternity.

On the flip side we open with percussion dropping and these tones which feel like intergalactic ringing.    It creates the feeling of things falling apart in space.     The frequencies start up the soft purr of a motor now.   It's this slight bit of static growing.    Percussion behind it begins to bang and roll.    Those distorted rips mix with the percussion to create this groove which has these winding guitars in it and you can just feel the desert heat. 

Beeping comes through now and it feels like a transmission from a lost spaceship, which would make sense if you think of them being on some other planet made out of sand that looks like the desert on Earth.    The drums roll and the beeps grow more intense as we drift through what could possibly be a mirage.    The guitar notes drop as the beats create this walking feeling with cymbal crashes and this just has this stone cold groove now.

We twist and turn through the screeches and squeals, the frequencies change up as this steady beat remains in the background.   The synth bass resonates.   It feels like we are walking in space and then those vocals return.    The banging on the drum just has this feeling of doom about it.    As it comes to an end I just imagine a human being taken captive on another planet, forced to work against their will and trying to send these beacons of hope for rescue but rescue never came.