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JAZZFINGER   Tar Of The Moon Vol 2   CASSETTE   (Unrest)    7.50



I have been trying to get stuff from the UK drone cult Jazzfinger to carry at Crucial Blast for eons, but their releases are released on such tiny labels and in such limited runs that usually when I find out that something has come out, poof! it's out of print. Can't blame people for jumping all over anything that these guys release, though. Since the early part of the decade, Jazzfinger has been crafting superbly delirious drone-orgasms in their signature sound, a mix of crushing, murky ur-drone hum and high-end feedback skree and layered tapestries of aural drift and detritus. Their music is closely aligned with the druggy, buzzing dronemusic of Total, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Yellow Swans, Sunroof and Double Leopards, but Jazzfinger take that sound in a darker, creepier direction, using rock instrumentation and improvised noise and a shitload of effects to invoke minimal, creeping descents into subterranea, each lengthy dronescape created in a ritualistic fervor, stretching out to epic lengths.

This limited-edition cassette features two side-long tracks recorded live in the UK in 2005, one from Manchester, the other Leeds. The first side is a cacophony of howling records or some similiar kind of reed instrument, chortling breaths passing through them and raising up a thick warbling din alongside screeching guitar feedback and torrents of metallic high end skree. Underneath, a massive metallic drone grinds and roars below the surface, like doom metal riffs being stretched apart and dislocated and left to hang, buzzing slabs of oozing distorted guitar sludge and huge distorted open-chord strum and plodding bass notes lurch and creep throughout the wreckage of improvised percussion and clanking and streaks of black ectoplasm. One of the noisier Jazzfinger jams that I've heard. The performance on the other side is less heavy, more laid back and haunting, billowing clouds of reverberating guitar strings draped in a twilight haze, clusters of insectile electronic chittering and distorted voices swarming over deep bass drones and muted strings plucking out eerie minor-key melodies. Here, the band creates a sinister murky slowcore, and at times it sounds like a noisier, more low-fi version of Thrones & Dominions era Earth, at least early on. As the track goes on, though, the guitars become more abstract, smeared into glistening pools of black feedback and shimmering room-ambience, and abrasive scraping sounds begin to enter in, the sounds of metal and other materials being dragged and doused in effects, deep rumbling buzz and electrical humming rising up from below, everything draped in tape hiss and static.

It's beautifully packaged, the tape housed in a regular plastic case with full color artwork, which fits inside of another slipcase which also has full color artwork, and each copy is hand numbered out of an edition of 100 copies.