Music Reviews

“loop_guru”

Loop Guru

Fountains of Paradise

Hypnotic

The Loop Guru re-release and re-package continues! Standard operating procedure for Cleopatra and its sister labels, you must understand. But when each Loop Guru reissue seems better than the last, do you know what? My bitching mouth shuts immediately. Such is the case with Fountains of Paradise , a set of imaginary soundtracks collected from cassette-only releases The Catalogue of Desires . The pieces within are ambient and minimal, largely built around percussion, with only micro-traces of their familiar world-music fetish. Chants and conversations spoken in hushed tones are often added into the mix. “Drumming For Creation,” in particular hits a dead-on Brendan Perry-ish vocal, absolute magic. Strings, synth, found noise, long-forgotten words, and strangely organic percussion clash and meld to form one of Loop Guru’s most impressive releases yet. To find parallels, seek out Scorn’s paranoid calm, a well-worn copy of Heart of Darkness , DJ Krush, and older recordings of tribal music. Play all simultaneously. Let’s hope that Loop Guru’s new material is as incredible as these past treasures.

Hypnotic Recordings, 13428 Maxella Avenue, Suite 251, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292; hypnotic@tunanet.com


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