Couple new-ish tape in from Lee Noble's No Kings label. I would recommend scoping the site, the design aesthetic is really a treat. Every tape is a little treasure.

Ttotals - Live at Grady's - No Kings
Ripper of a tape from a duo from Nashville. I know the "Live at..." thing is always a turnoff but honestly I don't think you'd be able to tell it if it weren't in the name. The recordings are way blasted for sure but the mix is right and the energy combustible. Ttotals play a style of revved up psych; the vocals are an echo-ed out wash but the guitar is raw and relentless, and the drums thunder away behind, never dropping below an energy-level I would call "amped." Short and sweet at four four-ish minute jammers, reminds me of some of the psych leaning tapes in the last Night-People batch, I'm thinking Daughters of the Sun and Lantern. Cool stuff.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.


Hobbledeions/Sugar Sk*-*lls - Split CS - No Kings
Woah. Beats. This tape confirms my suspicion that 2012 is going to be a year of Beats. Used to be, "Hey man, check out my new synthesizer," but it's gonna be, "Hey man, check out my new beat." Also, while I have your attention, let me predict that Roni Size is going to make a comeback in 2013 and instead of food we'll be able to Paypal calories directly into the bloodstream or pancreas or wherever it is that calories go. Just kidding, the world is going to end 2012. Anyway. Hobbledeions and Sugar Sk*-*lls are both Nashville cats, I believe, Hobbledeions on the A bringing what my untrained ears would call break-beats and Sugar Sk*-*lls on the flip doing chirpy, 8-bit-style electronics. Beats from beginning to end. Beautiful packaging on this one, two colors of paper to chose from, nice letter-press work, and the color palette just sings.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.


Ophibre - Chronic Complications - No Kings
Raw electricity from Boston-based Ophibre, the nom de synth of Ben Rossignol. Side A comes from what I would call the primitivist school of synth playing; no lush sounds or melodies here, nothing cosmic or new age, but instead a focus on the stark, roiling textures of energy flowing through electronics. Uneasy patterns drift in and out, high-end squeal and hiss alternates with shuddering bursts of low-end detritus. Side B makes a sharp right into drone territory, stately where the flip is unruly. The tightly-wound tone that begins the tape slowly unfurls over the duration; subtle modulations of frequency and texture swing farther and farther out, creating new interferences and rhythmic patterns and bit by bit pushing the stereo field into an expansive width until the demure starting point has become a shuddering, unstable, tangle of sound. Nice.

$6, email eggyrecords@gmail.com to order it.

A few more photos: