The Blue Tapes House Band – Volume 3: Chase Me Before The Plague

Blue Tapes

The latest release from The Blue Tapes House Band has only one disappointing element; the cassette isn’t blue, but white.

I don’t know what is going on here and it is fair to say I have no idea what the House Band are trying to do, except drive the listeners crazy. For nearly an hour, pure white noise rolls out of the speakers

like the sound of surf amplified to shocking levels, while Map 71‘s Lisa Jayne and Oxbow‘s Eugene S Robinson deliver drifting lines that sound as they are being uttered by apocalypse survivors. Their voices are the antithesis of the roiling soundscape; they sound shell-shocked, deadpan, stunned, while the whole time around them the sound is harsh and relentless. It drones over everything in its path like some sort of metallicised steamroller, or rather like those creatures in the Stephen King show that made everything behind them disappear.

As the track continues, it seems as though the power of the searing noise is erasing any memories you might have and replacing them with images that come from Lisa and Eugene’s random observations. We hear about a group of protesters on Brighton beach and Eugene murmurs, possibly in agreement, as the track dredges on — but it doesn’t really let up. At some other points, it evokes an overworked and hugely distorted factory, augurs and blades moving at terrifying speeds, lathes and wheels flying precariously, the buzz and whine chaotic and all-consuming. It is the sort of thing that you could play if you wanted to make your neighbours move out. If it were on constant rotation, it would have the same effect as water dripping constantly, eroding not just the buildings but your sanity and reason.

Towards the end, the intensity does lessen slightly and its similarity to the ebb and flow of surf is more noticeable. I am not sure that it is the sort of sea you would like to be sitting beside. It sounds acidic and destructive, or as if your ears had been affected by some virus and everything was distorted and on the edge. It is an extraordinary affair; at one point, the sound lessens just slightly and Lisa repeats “Chase me, chase me”. Whatever she says, I wouldn’t be inclined to do so. You have no idea where it might lead and in what inextricable trouble you may find yourself. It is best to just allow Chase Me Before The Plague to ride over you. Open yourself up for an hour and hope that by the time it finishes, you still have your faculties.

-Mr Olivetti-