Thursday, May 3, 2012

Orphaned tiny sparklies


The Woolen Men - The Hair of the Night
Eggy #35


The Woolen Men's garage-punk sounds just dandy on cassette—as much as music can sound dandy on what's far from a high-fidelity medium. Woolen Men are accomplished songwriters, yet the final product feels splendidly unpolished. Maybe it's the heavy reverb and distortion on the vocals. Or maybe it's how specific guitar and organ riffs are beyond infectious, yet if one extracted these bits from the songs and played them individually, they'd fall apart on the way to your ears. Or maybe it's how the Woolen Men's guitar and bass melodies only ramble for a few notes because anything lengthier would be too proficient and self-indulgent. This is the perfect marriage of sound and format.

Also: The cassette's insert had tiny sparklies and several days after listening to The Hair of the Night, I found orphaned sparklies here and there in my work space. This vexed me a bit. Then, remembering that running a cassette label is a labor of love and how the production process for releases involves multiple steps at varying costs and that including sparklies on an insert would require a whole additional step and costs (i.e., going to a craft shop to purchase said sparklies, as well as adhesive), I quickly warmed up to the idea of sparklies scattered across my desk.

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