FH043 German Army – ‘Tassili Plateau’ C22 $6
RIYL: Cabaret Voltaire, Psychic TV, sacred geology, Chariots of the Gods, autochthonous audiology. Enigmatic California duo German Army creates often-portentous music illuminated by fading cultural voices and barren, shifting lands. Following a dizzying array of tapes, CDs and LPs in the last three years, the first four GeAr cassettes of 2014 share broader musical approaches. And collectively, they suggest a system of conceptual continuity that’s just begging to be deciphered with a Walkman and a few batteries. Our humble release of the quartet, “Tassili Plateau,” feels like the keystone of them all, music and message(s?) slowly coming into focus. Short, taut songs, visited by Bollywood dervishes with freckles of exotica, buttressed by fried drum machines lifted from the quarterdeck of Captain (Richard H) Kirk himself, and musically expanded to allow for moments of warmth and redemption, this might be the best outing by German Army yet.
FH042 Scammers – ‘Cover You’ C42 $6
RIYL: The Juan MacLean, Soft Cell, David Bowie, Magnetic Fields, Hot Chip, The Presets Scammers is the man who uses sly innuendo as a razor blade. Scammers is the man who puts ice to your your chest after a five hour rave. Scammers is the man who fills your coffee order at 7 in the morning and still has glitter in his eyebrows. Scammers is the man who kind of hates everything you are and resents what you have become. Scammers is insidious. Scammers works rank-and-file to bring the system down from within. You never would have known who it was in the very end if it wasn’t for the glitter…the damning glitter. But you never really got him anyway, did you?