Flat out fabulous and equilibrium destabilizing work from one James Levine, a truly unsung oddnik of the 80's American underground cassette network whose species of mindwarpage deserves more ear holes to invade. Levine can be counted as one of the principal proponents of loop-as-loop-qua-loop fuckery; his jerry-rigged and effects smeared constructs blooping, blearing and listing about like drunken robots snared in candy floss. "Clifford..."-era Severed Heads, The Loop Orchestra's heavy lidded slurries, Tom Recchion at his most defocused and miasmic, and the Krofft Superstars-on-Robitussin soundworld of Steve Thomsen are all good points of reference here and if any of the above sounds to you like a good place to go soak your head, you'll find Music To Listen To Other Tapes By as heartwarming as your favorite Alaskan Polar Bear Heater. "A Sample Of Croiners..." and "Introspective Retrospective Vol. 1" will follow in the coming weeks. In the meantime, his debut (or at least I think it is...hard to be certain...) was recently posted by The Thing On The Doorstep Here
Get Music To Listen To Other Tapes By part 1 via Sharebee Here
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Jim Levine! A delightful, top-drawer citizen!
ReplyDeleteme adore him longtime.
Another great post, and now im addict with Croiners sound :)
ReplyDeleteHoly Mutant Sounds
Wow, I'm really glad that you posted this. I cannot express how much I appreciate the efforts at Mutant Sounds for culturally enriching humanity with such delightful ephemera.
ReplyDeleteWow... I just recently discovered MUTANT SOUNDS, and this Croiners tape is one of the first things I grabbed. Had seen the name on many compilations and decided to listen. Amazing work. This is the kind of tape loop fuckery I should have grown up with! Thanks so much for upping this, and the other great things here.
ReplyDeleteMan, thanks so much for this. I first heard Croiners on Dry Lungs 2, and that brief, twisted track (yet another 'untitled') has always done extremely weird things to my brain. Now that I finally decided to dig deeper, I realize that this is one of a very select few who can be considered 'peers' of Tom Ellard and his early Severed Heads alumni. If anyone needs more, the only other release that I've found so far is 'Where Did the Watermelon Come From'.
ReplyDeleteGo here:
http://thethingonthedoorstep.blogspot.com/2009/01/croiners-where-did-watermelon-come-from.html
A plea to anyone & everyone; post any info that you might have on this guy, as I'd like to do a feature on him. Is he still on the Planet? (was he ever?)
While I'm yapping, I personally consider Amphibifudd as another peer: This is some seriously obscure mutant mindf**k music, check it out:
http://www.tangento.net/AMPHIBI.html
Thanks again, great work here.