Stale Urine

Black Milk of Dawn (self-released cassette)

Lo fi fun from this collection of Pasadena folks. On various tracks they use accordions, all kinds of weird percussion, a saxophone, piano, and samples to produce an interesting and sometimes hilarious release. Each song was recorded in either a dorm room or the highway. There are many standouts on this recording--from the Negativland inspired sample collage of ``There is no oil in Bosnia'' (part two of the ``Renal Suite'') to the raucous, piano based, drunken chorus of ``Friends in Low Places''. It sounds like these guys had a lot of fun making this tape, and its a hoot to listen to the gruesome ``Fairy Tale'', or the reggae version of ``The Gambler'', or the acoustic ditty ``Bleed''. The only drawback to this tape is the overly long (as the title would suggest) ``Lesebuchgeschichten'' which, if I spoke German I might get more out of. It's slightly over seven minutes, and the percussion onslaught with German monologue does not vary enough to be as interesting as the rest of the tape. Still, this is a fine way to spend half an hour.