C'mon America, how can you not like a German psychedelic artist who list his main influences as “pizza, beer, and smokes?”
Elfenbeinturm is the one-man project of Pascal Hector, tape collage/analog synth/simplistic conga-ist, whom you may have heard on the Upstairs CDR comp, Radio Scenic Glow Vol. I. Elfenbeinturm is also a German idiom that roughly translates to ivory tower (yes, I do research before I write this column). While Mr. Hector's blend of Skaters-esque dystopian soundscape hypnagogery mixed with tape loops and primitive percussion might be moving out of the esoterica of the ivory tower, he commands it with more skill than a lot of the copy cat types out there.
The worst part of this cassette is that it's only 20 minutes long. In a genre that produces a lot of music that is way too similar, this cassette is engrossing. The lush synth-scapes jump cut into danceable drumming expertly layered within the aforementioned sound milieu. It somehow takes the spaciness of one, puts it together with the head-nodding of the other and pulls it off naturally. Plus, take a gander at his website logo.
Unverified Records, where you can get this tape super cheap (if you're in the USA it will probably cost more to ship than anything else).
Since both sides of the cassette are streaming on the Myspace and since he offers free downloads for everything else he has done…
