- I'm not a tape guy. But having listened to Container's LP on Spectrum Spools from last year on repeat, and hearing more and more about noise musicians' flirtation with techno, my interest was piqued enough to try out Fake Sound Routine, Vol. 2. The tape is a compilation from Container's I Just Live Here imprint, and it couldn't be further from my usual listening habits. The online shop I bought it from issued a friendly warning, "NOTE : The fidelity of these tapes is not great. They top out at -10db up to -15db, and are generally more muddy sounding than I prefer. The tracks are killer, so if you don't mind a little extra tape hiss with your mutant techno, then we recommend it."
Mutant techno was right: Cubicle's "Bag of Tapes" used loops to form a constant, distorted drone but their repetition summoned a danceable rhythm, albeit a dark and disturbed one. Other tracks, like Unicorn Hard-On's "Feel Dead" may have been framed with claps, kicks and hi-hats to remind you of rhythm, but in between the beat got lost, replaced by disconnected samples and synth lines drifting in and out of sync with one another. There were some familiar sounds of course (like the double claps on Frak's"Wanna Try This") but the unusual was never far behind (such as the hideous frequencies of Decapitated Hed's "Lines of Escape").
By the end of the compilation, with many of my prejudices shot to pieces, even the rave/hi-NRG sounding tracks that close things out seemed oddly listenable. I was hardly surprised, however, that I landed on Container's "In a Pile" as my pick of the bunch. A ratcheting drum fill captured the whole track with the drum skin caught between snare and distortion. As with his LP, it was the imperfect percussive elements that leant the track its rawness and grime, which until I began listening to Container was a complete anathema to my inner-audiophile. The track peaked at the very end with everything literally "In a Pile" but not a mess. Even the noise seemed to tie in to the whole rhythm of the production, making it one of the most accessible tracks on the tape.
This music is all about context. For people like Unicorn Hard-On, the tunes here are examples of artists "making it okay for noise folks to feel comfortable freaking out to beats." To listeners that come from a techno background, this stuff is exciting. Listening to Fake Sound Routine on a shitty boombox, where I could hardly differentiate distortion from production, was something new. The compilation highlights a bunch of artists at the intersection between rhythm and noise—something that's already been going on for years, as Farrar points out. So, while it mightn't be the only cassette that offers this kind of sentiment, true to Farrar's words, I found it an excellent entry point.
TracklistA1 Acre - old day
A2 Cubicle - bag of tapes
A3 Container - in a pile
A4 Frak - wanna try this
A5 Diamond Catalog - disabled fog
A6 Unicorn Hard-On - feel dead
A7 Decapitated Hed - lines of escape
B1 Lazy Magnet - blank vault
B2 Salt Swan - bone dish
B3 Frelow Nam - spoon store
B4 Frak - harmonia
B5 U16 - gait
B6 Untrance - electric dreams
B7 Dariius - through the gates