Cassette Review // DC_33.33 "Vela Abridge" (Already Dead Tapes)

$6 //
Edition of 100 //
https://alreadydeadtapes.bandcamp.com/album/vela-abridge //

Electronic loops bring out Pong like balls dropped with slight static glitching.    This does have some vibes like a video game or pinball machine.   Beeps and boops like droids come in now as well.   The knobs turn and the frequencies shift but this is using a lot of electronic sounds to create something which sounds more organic.    A little bit of static now is trying to break through as this has become quieter, a bit more minimal.    Somehow we are in outerspace now but are also drifting through a carousel ride at the same time.   There is a definite video game sound but more like from the Atari age than anything else.

We're going up and down and this makes me feel like I'm moving even when I'm sitting still.   A bit of sharpness now.    Sounds like bouncing balls come in and then stop.   There is some harshness like a hair dryer and this all just comes and goes as it pleases.    In this weird computer-based sound way I'm thinking of this as being like dueling banjos.   There is a groove and then a flat out SOS type of message.   It can open up the distorted air and really just let the laser blasts through now.   The reminder of an Atari game remains and then I feel like something is laughing at me.

Synth tones are fragmented in space now, as they isolate and leave small trails of distortion in their path.    Again this sounds like laser shots being fired and that could easily make me think of certain video games- even at an arcade level- where a planet is under attack and must be defended.  I think of little tiny spaceships which are only triangles and must stop the space rocks forming around them.   (Shout out to Asteroids)  A clanking now can also sound like pots and pans. 

On the flip side we start right off with that proverbial bouncing ball- like Pong- being let loose in a room and just creating sound by rapidly bouncing off of everything surrounding it.   This is a lot of fun and makes me feel like I'm in a unbeatable Atari game at the same time.   The sounds gets a little bit higher now in pitch but there are still patches of static and overall it carries the same urgency. 

There is a lot going on here though, which doesn't always make it the easiest to describe, but sometimes that makes for the best music.    It's that sound of knobs being turned, frequencies changing, scattering and chasing and just the overall feeling of something being played through a computer though I feel like most of it is not.    While it can sound like robots it can also sound like any program being run by a computer trying to start up and exist.  I've been reading a somewhat recent run of comic books about Death's Head (it's a four part series written by Tini Howard) and this just feels connected with that somehow as well.