Firstly, check out Babe, Terror‘s “Bandcamp” page.
Babe, Terror – “Measurable Eyes” MP3/download
I’ve been waiting for Babe, Terror to record a new full-length album for awhile, particularly after it donated an impossibly wonderful song to my Going to Extremes compilation (hear a snippet of “FEZ UM DIA EXTERNO NA FAZENDA DO GRANT” — yep, I got a namedrop — along with the rest of the compilation, HERE). For some reason, however, once Preparing a Voice to Meet the People Coming emerged from its damp, clammy cave last month I didn’t jump on the review right away; guess I got caught with one foot on the merry-go-round on this one! (Won’t happen again …)
I’m especially bummed because, as it turns out, Babe, Terror’s latest is one giant leap for Babekind, a speaker-masher that plows through woofers like a freight train and clobbers all expectations (for example, his vocals are a little less prominent on this one).
I wasn’t expecting such a rough ride; he really lays down the wood on this one. The overall mood can best be described as … cloudy. Sounds topple over themselves and squish together like mounds of red-yellow-purple-green playdough (yes, I have a young daughter) and somehow never churn themselves into a complacent, smudgy brown. There are times when the mix gets a bit ‘POP’-y, where you can tell the recording equipment spat back a blurp or two when something-or-other spiked to suddenly and loudly, but it’s a small price to pay to hear so many mini-tornadoes bundled up into an electric ball of silly putty.
“To Be Really Continued” is the intro to Metallica’s “Orion” chopped, sliced, diced and spliziced, while “Basement Practicing” (a bonus, cassette-only track) like a ghost choir reciting a sad hymn while a samurai sharpens a sword in the background. It’s almost ridiculous how much more engrossing I find Preparing a Voice than the average drone-drone-drone-’n'-done record. The peaks and valleys are much more pronounced, its lows more rumbling, its highs more piercing. And it’s my neighbor’s loss and my gain, folks.
Anyone dipping into the gene pool up to and including Oneohtrix Point Never, Greg Davis, Corpsegrinder/Gnarled Forsest/Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Sun Araw, Panicsville, Stars Of The Lid, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Terrestrial Tones/Black Dice/Eric Copeland and the rest of the dronelords should give this one a good WHACK.
There are a few versions of Preparing a Voice available: You can get the cassette from Glue Moon Records and the CD-r from Perdizes Dream (a Gumshoe fan flavorite). I suggest you get the cassette, and step on it, ’cause shit’s gonna sell out and there you’ll be, lookin’ like a DAMN FOOL, tape-less and alone. It’s sad.
I found the email Babe, Terror sent me most interesting — he’s a very sincere, honest guy and he knows he’s, as they say, Onto Something Good (you might have to manually move right to read it all):
hello farmer grant i have a new record, it's called "preparing a voice to meet the people coming". i've worked in a big part of it when in delaware some weeks ago. freak and lovely place where i was, even totally whited. i want you to download it and listen to it. i see it, in its entirety, as a natural sequence from the track i made for your compilation, but with the voice acting together with other stuff. headphones tend to adjust it to the ambience i wanted to reach when making. i'm selling it at bandcamp too (http://www.babeterror.bandcamp.com). grant, i'd S2 if you hear it. best babe, terror
