Cassettes Will not Listen

Arjun Gray

29 June 2009

Bear raises a fair few more questions than it answers. The 1st that springs to mind " what the hell is something that pulls acclamation from 2 such different ends of the blogosphere basically going to sound like? The answer : like something that would possibly draws interest from either end, but may not always hang onto it for too much time. Jason Drake reputedly moved from his home climes of NYC to the sunblasted stretch of LA before recording his most recent project as Cassettes Wont Listen. It shows ; Into The Hillside does have a particularly Californian feel, aurally citing a complete host of West Coast influences that in places feel a bit like pretty nervous bedfellows " the bright acoustic strums of classic Seventies rock, earnest electro-pop tunes and squelching synths more than a little in debt to G-Funk. As a collision it barely sounds especially compatible, and thats part of the difficulty. Re overall cultured Drakes music slips elegantly in alongside that of the pantheon of artists now mining the Eighties for melodic and regular ideas, but the entire thing feels a little disjointed, for the main part more like an embryonic collection of sketches than a last coherent product. Quickly Approaching sets a languid counterpoint melody over high speed shaky breaks, coming across something like an airier and more liquid 65daysofstatic. Later That Night, in contrast, is a brooding slab of sample-led instrumental hip-hop that kicks off with staggering bass and washes out into a tail of feedback.

Except for each track that grabs and holds the interest there are those that just appear to flow by " completely pleasantly, I grant you, but unremarkably. A wonderful Drive To You rides a bassline unnervingly harking back to LCDs Tribulations but drifts away into the background before it even finishes. 1 or 2 points even achieve the inspiring attainment of sounding like dubious jazz-funk ; the less expounded about Hmmm the better, in spite of its 'Windowlicker'-esque percussive stutters. Its tough to escape that feeling that a lot of Into The Hillside might have done with some kind of focus, vocal or otherwise. As an instrumental album there's simply not enough modification to hold the notice over its complete runtime " Drakes production, while smooth and clean, flattens everything to a resting heart rate above which it infrequently rises. By the halfway point physical disappointment sets in at trying to focus on something that appears so out to elude consciousness, to get replaced with thoughts of what to cook for dinner. Used to be keen on DiS but you blokes are falling off.