tape cuts tape

I’m a tad mildly surprised at not seeing tape cuts tape figuring in Andy and Jerry’s top 11 Jezus Factory choice cuts as published in a recent edition of the record collector as part of the magazines – er – celebrated label of love feature, didn’t we do one of those type spotlight things in an earlier incarnation for record mart and buyer – thought so. As said no mention for their two outings – the previous ’pagan recorder’ warmly received here many moons ago and this one – ’black mould’ – mind you that said 60 odd releases to their name and scarcely one putting a foot wrong, Jezus Factory have attained a reputation for time and time again being able to source sounds that are just a little on the special side. Now us here have a particular fondness for tape cuts tape, agreed you are probably wondering why this hasn’t therefore featured in lights long before now, well its that old cliché – fell out of love with music, lost interest an issue heightened considerably by killing off a handful of laptops and then losing a seriously lengthy missive a little while back and I guess more pertinent in the case of Tape Cuts Tape – their CD went on a walk as CD’s are prone to do especially ones that find home here. All we can say is thank heavens for spotify because no sooner did we turn this up – by pure accident I hasten to add – then up re-appeared the CD – with sleeve and press release intact – believe you me such instances are rare events around here. Eight sumptuous suites lounge within ‘black mold’ and I say lounge deliberately because it seems in the years between this and their last opus these dudes have been a chilling and refining their sound to a smokily seductive signature. That said much like their last offering TCT have an undeniable knack for changing the listening landscape at the drop of a hat and just when your getting comfy – happy to say ‘black mold‘ manages to clearly signpost its want for mixing things up by seemingly pairing together the differing personas so that it’s the back end of the set where things get a little deep and playfully mind arranging leaving the earlier moments freely absorbed in crafting the radio friendly ear candy like for instance the title track and opening salvo. Touching the 13 minute ticker tape which to the less adventurous might seem on first viewing a bit of handful but believe me once your knee deep in you never want this honey to end. Sound wise its appearance awakened the feelings I had when first hearing ’birthday’ by the sugarcubes shuffling through the radio static on the late night Peel musical wingding, that same strange romance and sense of something not quite complete slowly evolving and shifting focus with the attending parts converging in such a magical motion as to emerge fully formed. Purely a lights dimmed affair, there’s a sweet sensual sophistication brokered here that’s teased by a patient smoothness of slow build raptures coiling together a lullaby like spell craft softly dappled in a sultry sepia tweaked cosmicalia. The slinky ’deep garden’ is attractively lulled by a dizzying snake winding riff atop of which Lynn Cassiers wooing torch trimmed mantra aches with ethereal seduction to cut a musical shape that wouldn’t look to out of place on Musetta’s ’mice to meet you’ set. Aptly titled ’sludge’ the sets sore thumb channels the mood to a different level, stoner dub fuzz with a thing for a spot of kraut, this cold wave slab of minimalism loosely touches base with a youthful Cabaret Voltaire albeit that’ll be the Cabs re-editing old school Killing Joke / Brilliant flip sides at the wrong speed with a seriously out of it Echoboy invited along to add warped weirdness. Its at this point where the aforementioned deeper edged phrasing comes to pass with ’loose thought’ finding itself rooted in a gorgeously locked grooved primitive kraut dialect while ’rundfunk’ again serviced upon a subterannic dub palette mooches ominously cast adrift in some trippy psych induced nightmare to sound not unlike any one of the many Gnod offspring. The obliquely ambient and criminally brief ’moon over beach’ rounds matters out to an end though not before the applying of some hollowed and sparsely stilled David Lynch styled atmospherics bade you farewell and leave you cowed with a feeling of eerie disquiet.

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