Eine Kleine China - Prince Tsushinkogyo (2022)

This year is shaping up to be a huge one for local releases; and this is one that we're REALLY REALLY excited to share with you. We featured Eine Kleine China's first tape a few years ago - somehow we had discovered them via bandcamp, and boy oh boy are we ever glad we did. 

Prince Tsushinkogyo is another dip into electronica on the experimental end of the spectrum - beats, synths, and loops fall into shape and then dissolve into each other in ways that are alternatingly hypnotic and disquieting. We really enjoy the shifts from harmony to tension that Eine Kleine China has mastered - it's the new quiet-loud-quiet. We hear echoes of everything from DJ Shadow to Jay Crocker's Joyfultalk in this. And in case you can't tell, we like it a lot.

If you want a physical copy of this, hope over to Eine Kleine China's bandcamp - this is out on limited edition CD and cassette.

Nandos - S/S 17 (2017), F/W 17/18 Collection (2018)

We learned a VERY important lesson with these two tapes from Alexander Steinitz's Nandos: when juggling unlabeled tapes, be very careful not to mix them up. We learned this exactly two minutes too late, but we think we've figured out which tape is which... maybe? We featured a tape from Nandos a couple of years ago, and these two fall in the same vein of experimental electronica. Where other local projects like, say, Evangelos Lambrinoudis II's Corinthian are more structured, Nandos embraces the chaos and gets downright muddy at time. It's a weird rave, but it's still a rave.

We don't really have a source to point you to for these - we'd recommend checking Melodiya or Hot Wax to see if they have copies still kicking around.

Matt Purdue, Cain Davis, Chris Dadge - Sell Heal Holler (2019)

We're going to switch to a few more recent tapes for a bit here. Well, comparatively recent - this one is from 2019, but that's futuristic compared to most of our posts from the past few months. There was a glorious moment before Christmas where it seemed like everything was getting back to the way it was - and the biggest moment for us was a real, live Bug Incision show at High Line Brewing. 

Well, until we're able to do that again, we're going to turn to this tape of improvisational work by the trio of Matt Purdue, Cain Davis, and Bug Incision kingpin Chris Dadge. The liner notes on this don't have any notes about instrumentation, but we can for sure say there are drums, other clanky bits, and what sounds like double bass - and maybe some violin? 

Pour yourself a Talking Hops and hit the Vocational Sound Company bandcamp for a sample (and maybe a hookup for a real tape?).