Hyper Vigilance "Eat more medication demo tape"

[[$7 // Edition of 100 // https://hypervigilance.bandcamp.com/album/eat-more-medication-demo-tape  ]]

Whenever I see releases such as this I always want to try and figure out what the title means.   We're all medicated somehow, aren't we?  If you take Tylenol you're medicated on some level.    But this music implies something a little bit different and it's the type of medication you would hope it reaches- the psychotics.

On one side of this music are the beats.   It's not really electronic in that sense, as the beats are more of a thumping variety.   It's the pounding, the breaking... though there is a certain undeniable rhythm to it all.    Trapped behind this are vocals sceaming to get out.   Through static booms of doom these songs seem to be conflicted amongst themselves.

Equal parts Dana Fowler And The, dreamcrusher and I Like You, Go Home the music of Hyper Vigilance is electronic hardcore on paper but when you see that tag and think Atari Teenage Riot and the like that is really just not how this sounds at all.   it's that almost metal backing with a variation on electronica in front of it.

This music paints an image of a man in a straightjacket, locked inside a padded cell.  I like to think of The Joker or any number of other criminals in Gotham safely secure in Arkham Asylum.   The constant banging of the head against the door echoing through the empty halls reminds us all that we are at home.

Jonáš Gruska "Nočné oscilácie pre jedného" (LOM)

[[SOLD OUT // Edition of 10 // https://zvukolom.bandcamp.com/album/no-n-oscil-cie-pre-jedn-ho ]] 

On each of these four songs by Jonáš Gruska there is a distinct connection in the way that the songs are structured, yet they each have their own sound as well.    It reminds me of what would happen if an artist took a song like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and played it on a guitar, then on a violin and so on with other string instruments.    They are all connected, yet they are not all the same.

The first track has these beeping whirrs to start things off and it sounds like the changing of frequencies.    This goes into a looping pattern which comes out with a kind of pinball game noise to it as well.    If I was listening to this on cassette or somehow not paying as close attention to Windows Media Player, I'd still hear the distinction into the second, quieter track whih is comprised more of blips and clicks like the drum machine of Phil Collins

As the second track grows in volume and tempo it gives way to the sound of glasses, really glass bottles being played as musical instruments.    We end with beeping, much like a hospital machine, which delivers sonic whirrs behind it and it almost has a sound where it could be in space.

There is guitar feedback almost out of nowhere, yet it flows so smoothly still, and then it turns into that hum of a drone and I feel that should be how it ends, as it would fade out as such but instead it gets this one last whoosh to lift us up before the end.    It's the sound of a toy whistle, maybe even a kazoo but in an electric sense.

The only way to get this cassette now is second hand but if I happen to see it out there in the cassette world I would be eager to try and get my hands on it.    Until then all we can really do is continue to download and listen to it from the Bandcamp page and then hope that one day maybe it will be pressed again.