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shapeshifters... (c90 from ennui tapes) a collaboration between mr. gordon of astroboy and bryan ?? [i don't know if he records on his own as well, but he probably does] the opening title track has quite an astroboy feel to it, beats and synth bass with weird loops, but things get weirder after that with 'poe', a very nice kind of spooky song, and especially odd on 'i knew it' which sounds like the music to a children's propaganda cartoon just after the main character has taken a hallucinogenic drug and is stumbling about ["i knew it" he says over and over until at the end he's lying on the bathroom floor next to a pool of vomit while a low sinister melody informs us on the evils of drug use]. next is nice contemplative 'satellite soup' then the ok track 'raiders', followed by 'fluff' noisey distorted voices and more. 'you will die' starts out as a driving dancey kind of song with taped rant underneath, until the music is stripped away to just the ranting, although i couldn't really understand what they were shouting about. 'straight line' would be a nice song for driving in the car to go kill someone, really super deep bass and a kind of mean melody, but the ending is kind of weak for a murder. maybe you get there and decide you aren't up to it. i got lost here, cos unless i got the tracks messed up there are two more songs but only one listed on the sleeve. in any case the first is more noisey and abstract, while the second is a super energetic beat driven track. then the tape ends, remove turn over press play. side two opens with, of all things, a flaming lips drum loop, taken from the song 'slow nerve action' and i know because i have the exact same loop on my computer. does this mean i can't use it now? anyway it is put to good use in the song 'blink' which starts out as a spacey underwater kind of song and ends up evil laughter and noises. 'dead dinosuar' is a long repetive dub song, which i think i could've handled if the bassline was a bit slower, but i ended up fast fowarding to the next track 'familiar descent,' a nicer more upbeat track with unintelligible vocal samples underneath. '100' and 'ulysses' are both dark brooding tracks, music for madmen listening to the neighbors through the wall of their apartment, although '100' has the same problem as a few of the other tracks, which is not knowing where to end. 'alessa' is kind of like nightmare carnival music, followed by 'never trust children,' lots of noisey elements arranged in a nice psuedo-musical fashion. and then i get really confused, cos although the sleeve says there are two more songs there isn't any sound. did i mess up somewhere? i don't think so, but i'm too tired to go back and check. my apologies to all concerned if i screwed up, but i seem to be bad with tapes and anyway the names don't change the quality of the music of course.
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