Incoming: Memory Cassette – “Asleep at a Party”

Via Exclaim.ca’s Click Hear

Who is Memory Cassette? It seems to be the question of the moment. Based in or around Philadelphia, we know the group/artist/collective is somehow affiliated with Weird Tapes, a side project for Dayve Hawk, who in turn was a member of the late Hail Social. A post on Gorilla vs Bear quotes someone who we can only assume is Hawk as saying “Prince had Vanity 6, I’ve got Memory Cassette,” so there you go. There are a bevy of tracks up on Weird Tapes’ blog and Acephale and Sincerely Yours will be jointly releasing Memory Cassette’s debut EP Call & Response as a limited edition seven-inch record this month.

All four tracks from the EP are streaming on Memory Cassette’s myspace and available for download on the “We’re Tapes” blog, but this is hands down my favourite. The basic track sounds like the lost soundtrack to the kind of second-rate ’70s European art film that has bad English dubbing and gratuitous amounts of sex scenes. But here the sweeping strings are backed by some reverb heavy drums and what sounds like a children’s choir singing a melody that is at the same time melancholy sweet and just kind of creepy. I have no idea what it is they’re singing, as the diction is lost in the mix. It’s like a slow slip into unconsciousness after a long night of drinking.