Cassette Review // Bob Winfield "Punctum" (Crooked Branch Collections)

https://crookedbranchcollections.bandcamp.com/album/punctum

This cassette begins with a lot of different electronics.  It's different moving pieces which sometimes can feel like marbles racing across the floor or just different frequencies coming out in the those laser beams.   There are some windy parts to all of this, but it also feels like it can be controlled with a knob the same way you can increase or decrease the volume on an old tv.  Sometimes you just hear this one little ping drop and then never hear it again.  Sometimes that intergalactic glass bottle circles around for quite a while.

As this goes on, there becomes this louder sound which feels like a vaccuum.  If you hear it, the comparison will make sense, but it just has those similar sounds and ideas of when you're on an airplane and someone opens the cabin door (which you are not supposed to do, but obviously you may have seen it happen in movies or television)  An electronic ball is bouncing around now, painting pictures in sound.   The way this also all just feels like an episode set in space, with the sci-fi aspects of it, just makes me feel like it is scoring an old episode of Star Trek.

Sounds that feel like an alarm come out now, but it is also just that singular beeping which you can ultimately hear it break down into.  Some tapping, some more wind.  Almost like an electronic woodpecker and then all of those whirrs come in again to create that radio frequency.   The way this changes from high pitched tings to lower, drone-like bass whirrs just makes you feel like your ears are not going to be the same after hearing it.  Sometimes I also think these changes in pitch are like the way they do hearing tests.  

Just when it feels like it is done, a loud sound brings it back and we're right back into it all.  A steady tapping now, whirrs coming in like lasers, wiping everything out in their path.  This time it really does come to an end.

A crumbing in the leaves brings in a low growl, like an electronic panther searching for its food.  This is how we begin the second side.  Little beeps come in like bugs while other sounds drop like water into glass.   It's that rummaging combined with the burst that comes through to keep you from being too relaxed which really makes the sound here.   A feeling like a cash register and that race car zooming around the track comes with a machine gun-like pulse.  Everything comes in heavily at once.

It can feel like rain as little bits chip through.  The sound is expanding and then shocks.  We are in between a storm now and a flurry of laser sounds which feel like we're in a space war.  The way that these two things work together is amazing considering there isn't things such as rain and thunder in space, but I feel this in an Asteroids way.   Everything grows louder, more chaotic. Then it all comes down for a second, just to blast back.  

Tones slowly wave in now like we're lost at sea, as it can also feel as if a pinball machine is decompressing.   This sound has these slow, beautiful ways about it but also these short, harsher blips come through just the same.  It feels like something to be said about taking the overall good with life as opposed to the little moments of bad.  

A steady pace now as it feels like we're moving.  Now we're blasting off.  Circling the drain.  The sound grows quieter, gets closer to minimal, but then isn't afraid to come back with these blasts of distortion and other electronics which can make it loud in your ears.   Loud distortion seems to destroy all in its path before some final banging and this one comes to an end.