Bulbs Light Ships CD
DJ Psyops Ventriloquism mix CDR
Michael Jackson Thriller CS
Tony Touch 5 Deadly Venoms of Brooklyn mix-tape CS
Cubs game on WGN Radio
Kraftwerk Computerwelt

Bulbs is a Bay Area duo featuring drums by William Sabiston (who first came across my radar a couple years ago when he was a member of Axolotl, note his fairly substantial presence in this classic show report from the archives) and guitar by a newcomer from Bakersfield, CA named Jon Almaraz. I guess the first thing I'll say about their music is that by the time the CD was over, I had completely forgotten that they were a drums & guitar duo... I just assumed they both had to be playing some sort of tweaked electronics. Putting it back on, yeah, I can pick out drums and guitar... sort of... sometimes... but that doesn't explain how they stir up nightmare/dream sounds into a soft and gentle stream of mystery that constantly unfolds outward while staying rooted in the same hazy field where ghosts of silent lightning storms, flourescent schools of fish darting through coral reefs, stoner laser light shows, and the actual entire short history of psychedelic electronic music are all are flickering together somewhere inside the fog machine. A fine debut, in other words, on the label Freedom to Spend (which is a new label run by a guy from Yellow Swans). The CDR mix made its way to my co-worker via a buddy of his who manages runway shows for fashion models... it's by one DJ Psyops... he's from somewhere in the Chicagoland area and checking out his MySpace page is a toe-dip into some sort of post-rave world that I really don't understand, but the mix is slamming! The only track I could place was by LCD Soundsystem, and that was just because I googled some lyrics... Thriller is such a flawless listen, on original cassette even... I lent a co-worker the Ego Trip Book of Rap Lists and he came back the next day, "Hey, I've got one of the mix tapes that's on their best mix tapes of all time list! I brought it!" That's the Tony Touch tape and it is great. I really like the KRS-One song "Step Into A World," the one that uses the chorus to Blondie's "Rapture".... "No past rappin, youth trackin, talent lackin/MC's more worried about their financial backin/Steady packin a gat as if something's gonna happen/But it doesn't, they wind up shootin they cousin, they buggin!"