THE MUSIC TAPES
MARY’S VOICE
Elephant 6 veteran Julian Koster has been involved in the neo-psychedelic movement for almost two decades with much of his personal work being released under The Music Tapes moniker. The multi-instrumentalist has certainly tried to stay true to the far-out nature of the medium, relying on the old-school musical saw to create the kind of sine wave melodies many electronic musicians would just synthesize. On his latest release Mary’s Voice, Koster ups the ante on other neo-psychedelia and freak-folk musicians by mixing old-fashioned instruments with only slightly newer sounding electronic keyboards and recording equipment. The resulting cacophony is mind altering. Is that avant-garde I’m listening to or is this some dusty old hillbilly 78? It doesn’t matter when it is this captivating. (Merge) Andrew Coulon