Kiss Hello _Summerdata_

Here at Tape Mtn. HQ we have been listening to a lot of the newish Kiss Hello* album Summerdata. I got a chance to see and play with these guys on my most recent trip to LA and now the album is here in massive digital form. Take it in slowly. 

Certain themes come up repeatedly - loss, love, loss of love. Lyrics pop in and out and are repurposed. "Summer" is in the title (good title), but the vibe is autumn melancholy to my ears. Holding on. A data dump about past summers more than experiencing summer in the moment. "Someone's Life Has Just Begun" explains this vibe better than I can say it.

There's some really impressive musicianship here. How-did-they-do-that moments like the prog-adjacent epic "Western/Whatever." Over-the-top guitar solos when they are called for.** Detail to get lost in. Some moments of wabi-sabi that I appreciate. It gets genuinely dark in spots.

I have some theories on album sequencing that I've been working on since I was in elementary school:

• One of them is that the next-to-last track on an album needs to be the most vulnerable one, the track where you've established trust and you need to get it out and take the most risks before wrapping things up with a bow on the final track. This album does not disappoint on that front. Penultimate track "Awful Bliss" is the sound of the protagonist falling apart and melting in the rain, while 
• Final track "PSLGO" does wrap things up with a shiny pop bow sonically, but leaves the listener on the ostensibly unanswered question "You turned to me and asked do you love me?" Good trick.
• One rule of mine that IS violated, however, is that the track "1717" is track #16. If there is a number in a track title, do what you need to do to make it work.

You may find that you enjoy certain stretches more than others. You may find that you are happier if you burn a CD with certain songs and listen to it that way. That's what I did. I treated it like Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch, with more than one acceptable path through the tracks.

Bonus points for Very Ned liner notes from Friend of Tape Mtn. Ned R.  

*Obligatory conflict of interest note: I have known Friend of Tape Mtn. KH Linus for essentially his entire life 

**The official Tape Mtn. Secret Blog position is that over-the-top guitar solos are a good idea 

Lorena Álvarez - _El poder sobre una misma_

Recently whenever I've been driving people places in the Comfymobile, I always end up playing Spanish artist Lorena Álvarez's album Anónimo. Lovely, goofy, wild stuff, full of joy and ideas.

Thirteen years later she's put out one album and some EPs in multiple different directions, and now we are here in 2025 after a lot of everything and she has a new album called El poder sobre una misma. The trademark exuberance is still there in wonderful songs like "Increíble" and "Los pensamientos" but this one has a lot more contemplative moments. Not necessarily background listening for trips across Portland in an automobile or for doing office work, but there's a lot of introspective joy to be had. And the title track, a dorky polka about the joys of hitting rock bottom and finding a way out, is delightful, particularly when the million multitracked vocals hit at the end.

In the video for "Increíble," she gets to roll in tall grass, pretend to fly a helicopter, hang out with chickens and goats, drink a beer with her name on it, and climb a mountain. I guess I've done three of these things? I like it as an aspirational lifestyle video:

I can't seem to find a single way to legally obtain this album in the US. Montgrí won't ship to our backwards country thanks to our trade situation. Oh well, streaming it is.

奥斯卡音乐

Back in the 90s I would spend time at the Cypress Swap Meet and there was a booth where someone was selling tube socks. This vendor was always playing these outlandish synthesizer versions of old hit songs from another country. Maybe Korea? Memory can be weird like that when you are trying to remember nostalgic retrofuturistic versions of old songs being played by tube sock vendors in a parking lot thirty years ago. I do remember taking in that music while eating a swap-meet churro and thinking that it was a good moment.

Good old Madrotter posted a recent album that Madrotter has dubbed Oscar Young and that YouChoob Music has credited to 奥斯卡音乐. Through the magic of the algorithm I found out that this artist has approximately a trillion albums of outlandish synthesizer easy listening covers. Some of the songs I recognize, some I don't, but mostly I want to imagine being in a doctor's office in 1976 nodding my head to this stuff.

Also, this album cover!!!

Catching up with August and September

Over Labor Day weekend I flew down to Southern California - Mike L was having a wine party and we were going to record music and play games. After getting spousal permission I bought tickets. Good call.

I biked to the Portland airport, took a nonstop to Burbank and then took trains down to Long Beach. Travel hack in Southern California: take the train, even if everyone thinks you are crazy to do so. I get to Mike and Michelle's charming new place and drink wine.

The details are a little fuzzy at this point, but the next day we drive up to record Kanq Qixarth music in Linus's studio, aka a garage in a morning-glory-strewn back yard:

I've played music with these guys for three decades!!! Mike's son Linus and his super talented bandmates join in. Someone gets the bright idea to write a song based on a Rick James song:

Give it to me baby
Give me that sweet funky stuff

but with the opposites of everything. Being the walking thesaurus of the party I come up with a lot of the words:

Take that from you daddy
Return that sour orthodox ether 

Needless to say it ends up being a super noisy 20-minute funk song. Ridiculous. Now I want to hear it.

Wine party later in the back yard. Everyone is talking about everything. Endless wine and endless talk about wine. The mosquitoes get one whiff of my blood and tell all their friends. I hold grandbaby Charlie and my old baby-holding reflexes kick in instantly, and we are fast friends. Conversations about digital activism, kids in college, babies, music of course, graduate school. I forget. It's a lot. 

I play a show in the garage and it is surprisingly good. Previous wine party shows of mine have been legendary in the disaster sense, but this time I play good songs somewhat competently (!), including a cover of this one after introducing everyone to it at breakfast that morning:

Linus's band Kiss Hello plays afterwards, complex and rich sophistipop, almost prog, Matt somehow live-triggering my beloved old drum machine the Boss DR-110. Positive words about their album Summerdata to follow soon enough. The night ends at some point, I guess?!

The next day Mike says he's never going to do one of those parties again. I've heard that before. We play Agricola and jam surprisingly quietly in the front room.

L. takes me up to someplace near Pasadena or something to catch a train to my Erbenb in North Hollywood. I'm not sure it saves me any time, but it's a good ride and it's good to catch up. I take the train, and when I get out of the subway the sun is going down over Lankershim Blvd. I walk and walk in the dimming light and dodge cars and walk. Eventually I get to a room with bright lights and a television. I drop my bag and head out to try to catch the pupusa truck before they close. It drives away as I approach. Some sleep happens.

I wake up super early to walk to the airport. 100% would recommend walking several miles to the Burbank airport at 4:30 a.m. after not sleeping. A gas station playing "Take My Breath Away." Ladies setting up roadside desayuno carts, bacon smells in with the night eucalyptus and traffic smells. Transmission towers tingling in the night. The sun just starting to rise over the airport.

Back in Portland. My bike is still there. I ride it home. The next day my kid starts third grade. We are back in the world.

Album releases!!!!! (Bandqlamp version)

In honor of September 9 being the most common birthday, here are two new albums getting birthed:

Salad Spinner

I sequenced all the bass lines and a lot of other things and used general computer wizardry to make a pop album. Mostly. Features songs about watching Password Plus while washing the dishes, finding kitchen accoutrements on the side of the road, inventing new alphabets during Lutheran confirmation, missing Verlaines shows and falling asleep on the train home, electric pencil sharpeners, and riding a cargo bike in 105 degree heat.

Gelatin Duplicator

What happens if I decide to make an album where every track has prominent ring modulator? This is it.  Songs about buying orange drink from a vending machine, falling asleep on the highway, falling asleep to Maya Deren films, buying expired produce, and ancient printing technology melting during the heat dome.

If you would like physical CD copies printed on an Apple //c-ImageWriter II combo and an IBM Wheelwriter 5 respectively, drop me a line. I'm done selling things (well, aside from charging $1 on Bandqlamp) but we can work something out.

Archive.org versions to follow soonish. 

COMING SOON

I've got the Apple //c out and you know what that means. Right?!!? Watch this space!

Catching up with August part 1

In August we had half a mind to fly somewhere but didn’t have enough PTO. So we stayed in the Northwest and drove the Wondermobile to Centralia, WA. 

What a weird place! We stayed in the charming, lovingly restored Centralia Square hotel (formerly an Elks lodge) and our boy looked out at the non-stop trains with religious zeal. The place is just starting to gentrify - the McMenamins hotel, far inferior to the Centralia Square, the foot soldier of gentrification - and now there are retro arcades, natural-food shops, goth gift shops with a salesman wearing a monocle. The trains constantly roar through Hub City. My son delighted in telling me which one was an Amtrak and which one was a freight train, even before they showed up.

The Centralia Rollerdrome. With a name like that it has to be awesome, and indeed it is. Largely untouched by time and beautifully kept. My rollerskating spouse was in total heaven, and thanks to the bouncy house, our kid was too.

I bought a copy of Margo Guryan's Take a Picture at the Amazon-returns bin store (who returns that?!) and now "Sunday Morning" is stuck in my head forever.

After that we drove down to the central Oregon coast to escape a heat wave in Portland. Good idea except that everyone else was doing the same thing, so we hung suspended in an eternal traffic jam in Otis. But when we got to our destination it was twilightly and cool and misty. Despite not sleeping the first night (no thanks to the drunken bros falling asleep with the TV on at nuclear volume above us) we got to swim in Lake Marie and walk in the mist and drink good wild cider and listen to sea lions ork-orking and walk and watch the fierce surf on the rocky shore and walk. It was good and surreal and necessary.