Cassette Review // Hito De Piedra / extant. (Split) (Crass Lips Records)

$6 //
https://crasslipsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hito-de-piedra-extant-split //

Frequencies begin this cassette, as if we're searching for aliens, but then it just really opens up with these long synth waves.   The way this just collapses and expands makes me feel like we're on a journey which can explode at any time.  This track does end with a huge distorted explosion, which no matter how many times I listen to it I never quite hear it coming because what leads up to it always puts my mind at such ease.

This takes us into some pretty smooth guitar riffs.   It's a bit on the side of blues.   A louder sound now, like an engine and it carries on in a way which makes it feel like we are moving but not very fast.   Laser whirrs come into the song now.  It rings a little bit like a horror film but stays steady within that notion of taking us on a journey, a slow speed chase.   What sounds like a car horn is followed by some wild guitar riffs added into this all. 

Wavy now, it feels like we're lost at sea.   Like blasts from a laser gun which come out in ever-growing circles, there is a stomping now, a grinding within these electronics and it is rather easy to feel yourself getting hypnotized.    Shots hit like a distorted game of ping pong.   Slower, softer guitar notes come in now as that electrified back and forth continues over it.    Somehow, this turns into a folk song of sorts as the electric shocks seem to appear less.   A voice appears now, in an audio clip I suppose (perhaps a voicemail) but it is in a language I do not speak. (I'm guessing Spanish)

It sounds like footsteps but somehow turns into that sound of plugging a guitar into an amp, as a guitar note just flows through everything.  The voice returns.   There is some cutting in and out and then the distortion feels like it's glitching as the guitar notes behind it spell certain doom.   This just somehow grew and shifted into this Old West sound where it feels like it's getting close to sundown, which means it time's for that showdown and you know this is only going to end in one way.

On the flip side we open up with a bit of percussion.   Cymbals are shaken while bells are rattled.   There's a trill and then bells are dinged while snares are hit-- it's a lot of sounds to be made as I just imagine someone sitting at a drumkit making them.   The cymbals grow to be dreamy while the hits come in slower.   A steady rhythm now and this one just jams.   The sounds of ping pong balls bouncing off of tables now takes me back to my youth in my grandparents' basement.  I find it odd my grandparents had a finished basement complete with bar and always let us kids play down there by ourselves.

The drumming falls like rain and then slows to a minimal pace now where it barely scrapes by.  The feeling of a cash register now.   A stampede, as the pace picks up like horses galloping.   Drum rolls make this feel like a march.   A wild and steady rhythm now, as if we are in the jungle.   The drums roll now and then stop.  Something scatters.    There is some shuffling now and this one takes on a sound of glass and it just flows with it.   It puts me in a trance really, as it feels like we've left the world of percussion and just formed some new sound in space.