Tearjerker – Strangers Cassette

Described as “hypnagogic pop”, TEARJERKER have successfully created a maelstrom of drone puss, which is elongated by distant campfire like howls, shoegaze puffs of smoke and strange voices offering anecdotal thoughts. They have in essence released a beautiful collection of everybody’s sad aching moments transcribed within the medium of musical scores.

I got my scavenged charity shop tape deck out after attaining this cassette and was more than pleasantly surprised.

“Polar Bear” is achingly brilliant, saturated with external sighs from the listener, (at least from my end). The inaudible vocal delivery which could be a sequence of well place hums and guitar virology (the extended notes echo Tiny Vipers at times) are painfully good in their sheer displacement. The songs begin to sample incongruous sounds during blissful marches of inter-sectioning thumps and tape effects (as in “Noah”) which pinches and provokes just enough experimental congeniality, whilst not over-doing it, making you yearn for more. The light rain sample in “Noah” is implemented like a light touch to the forehead, innocuous like a John Cusack rain scene but hitting the right buttons every time. Not only does this release demonstrate a desiccating virulent pop sensibility which happens to be trapped under layers of reverberation, it sounds like a frankly incomprehensible trapping of Sea Urchins melodic beauty and Double Leopards drone, something which seems to conglomerate a lot of what I love about music into one package.

“Downtown” is infectiously catchy with it’s heart pounding bass line and vocal combinations, featuring a fantastic “chorus” (if I can refer to it as that) and subtle samples near the end of the song, diminished to bass beating and then nothing but hiss. This is as macabre as it can possibly ever get, pointing to a world where human centrality is no longer of fundamental concern within post-industrial times, but where love still aches and demoralizes some of us in the exact same way: aches hurt the exact same despite the changing geographical, industrial landscape.

“Best”, the opening track, has a messianic backing vocal coupled with swirling noise and cup like drums. It is difficult for me to describe exactly why this works – the inanities of small budget productions and subtle hissing from the recording deck. It is something which I am sure you all have felt at some point too – in liking and really appreciating something and being unable to articulate and pinpoint the precise periodic table elements and dissect them on to a language worktop.

I became a disaffected and grumpy tape collector and stopped when I was 17 (three years ago). The aesthetics of a modernism now passed us, like the beauty of a rotary telephone, is rekindled in moments like this. I now have my tape deck on my desk, hoping to capture more gems. Anyone have the Hospitals RIP tape?

Written By: Degarmo

My Rating: 8/10
Genre/ Tags: Shoegaze, Noise, Lo-Fi, Experimental, Pop
Strangers: Tracklist:
1.) Best
2.) Noah
3.) Strangers
4.) Wave
5.) On Purpose
6.) Nice Clothes
7.) Polar Bear
8.) Downtown
9.) Slip Away

Tearjerker on Bandcamp
You may have missed when Sore Thumb records released this collection back in November and when Sweatlodgeguru simultaneously released the cassette version limited to 100 copies, now unfortunately sold out, but you can BUY (name your price) it right here. The tracks here are ripped from the cassette version.