Cassette Review // Windscour "Fools Fallow"

https://zachrowden.bandcamp.com/album/fools-fallow

When this cassette starts, there is this feeling of scratching and what sound like haunted moans.   As it continues there is this popping, like the way popcorn does in those big containers at movie theaters, but it's a little bit more industrial than that.  The moans come through as well, giving this some definite eerie vibes.

Sharper sounds cut through now, but that popping remains.  You can also hear voices in the background as audio clips and the whole thing just comes together in such haunted chaos.  A louder tone comes through now to take over all of the other sounds and since I'm listening to this after seeing Windscour play live I can recognize this blasting sound as the trumpet of Joe Moffett.  As soon as it comes in, you can really hear it.

A steady sound, almost like galloping, comes through with the static now.   This all comes to a head as the trumpet is now the only sound.   Quieter sounds are back there, still feeling haunted and now deeper in bass, but that trumpet just blares through.  

On the flip side we begin with the manipulation of audio clips, and there is a mention of a book drop and mushrooms.   This loops, but when it stops you can feel a sigh of relief.  The trumpet makes small notes and the voices return.   There are at least two people speaking at the same time, with the voices being altered and screwed, but that idea of the book drop remains throughout.

The screech of the trumpet clears all of that away now.   A beeping comes through with this, similar to piano keys but not quite the same.   A scraping sound comes in behind this loop now and it begins to feel hypnotic but at the same time the background noise makes me think of the cutting of the flesh.  

What I love most about Windscour is that it combines the electronics of tape looping with the trumpet.  This creates, in a crude way of saying it "electro-jazz", but yet it also could be "jazz-electro".   The idea that it has this balance between the jazz side of music and the electronic noise side of music is just perfect.  Listening to those two genres a lot, this is the epitome of what Michael Larocca is doing at Willimantic Records every month and FiFac's House.