Couple of new tapes in from Not Not Fun. I will drop them off at the Half and Half on Sunday.

High Wolf - Animal Totem - NNF 158
Terrible band name, miserable album title. Repulsive, embarrassing. But despite all the shamanistic, spiritual, blah blah blah posturing, this is a really nice tape and I'm glad to be stocking it. Fuzzy, hypnotic loop music made with restraint and patience. The songs build and dissipate subtly, and side-step the exaggerated dynamic swings that often stand in for substance or craft in this kind of music. Except when it comes to naming, this guy makes all the right moves. Really glad to have come across this tape. $7

NASA - Diamonds & Wood - NNF 161
No nonsense blast of in-the-red double guitar and drums (I think) that occupies the same baffling no-man's-land as Magik Markers (Are these guys artsy avant-noisemakers? Are they pesky, riff-crazed teenagers?). Nice balance of abstract stuff and more conventional heavy stuff, sometimes one on top of the other. I get the feeling that they recorded hours of basement freak-outs and then whittled the best ones down into this tape, which is probably why it's a cut above. The tapes themselves have a cool, metallic silver insert that is hard to describe but was worth trying to describe for a moment, I guess. $7