Cassette Review // Tim Olive "Hog Line Hack" (sPLeeN CoFFiN)

 https://spleencoffin.com/store/tim-olive-hog-line-hack/

Loud and sharp electronics come piercing through right away.  This feels like an electric guitar ala Hendrix but also just a lot of feedback and sharpness.  As this takes us out for a ride on a wave, it just as soon pulls us back into the harshness of the electronics.   Grinding through all of those electronic gears, we end up also reaching a point where it feels like a bass line is plucking through the loud screeching.   Banging smashes us right back into reality.  This could be the complete and total destruction of an electric guitar as caught on tape.

This is so often loud and sharp that it fits onto the side of the scale which reads "not suitable for dogs".   This all becomes quiet and then a skipping sound comes in, which some of my older CD players used to make back in the day.  You can feel it skipping it around as whistling like birds comes through in bits.  The speed increases and that sharpness returns as well.  To go to my old Atari video game references, this is like if you're driving around in Pole Position but then somehow end up in that flurry of space laser blasts from Asteroids.  There are jumbled signals from frequencies and this also gets oh-so-sharp.  It can feel as if the spirits are trying to break through as if from the film Pulse as well.

That sound all comes together like a modem squeal but then we're right back into that wavy distortion that can make you feel like you need to turn the sound down but also just like you're riding that wave.   As the pace slows down, this also doesn't feel quite as harsh, it doesn't seem so much as it was in your face as before.  Some sharpness is in the background here, but nothing as brash as earlier.  Bass notes also drop in now.  A little rattle and that sound reaches its end.  

Onto the flip side and we're right back into the sharpness.  This time it isn't as loud and as present though, as we also have bass beats dropping and some crackling sounds.  It feels more ominous.  Just as easily and quickly as you can think about this not being as harsh, it drops right off into electronic chaos.   Modem-like measures are now being taken.  Into the deepness now and some sounds like strings plucking but more so just fast moving notes.   We're moving through that slipstream.  

A deep hum now, low like we are about to take off.  This stops, as if it hits a bump, and then fades out.  Loud static type of droning comes in next with that screeching that can be heard from the first side.  This is just coming out loud and harsh.   While this can feel like going through a wind tunnel there is also a bit of that noisy frequency in here as well.   It can really just feel like a signal, or a message, coming from space and trying to break through that atmosphere.   

This all once again ends and comes back with a motor-ringing type of sound.  It's harsh, but not as harsh as before.   It's just steady.   As the steady engine purrs in the backfround, out front we have more of these frequency type of sounds coming through, as if to transcribe an alien message.   This cuts through like an instrument, a weedwacker perhaps, but then it continues that steady motor sound.  It feels like we're going up and down, as we navigate the land, and then it drops off into that noisy destruction again.  A low drone takes us out and the message has been received.