22/11/2022
CARA PODRE and José Vale's 'SHINJUKU STATION FREAKS' featured at The Quietus 'Spools Out' Column by Daryl Worthington:
"Cara Podre are a new tape label, based in Porto. Their debut release, from guitarist José Vale, is inspired by the early Japanese noise scene, where artists played on the streets, and, outside Shinjuku Station, the album’s title a homage to this community.
Vale channels the resourcefulness of these pioneers, using lo-fi means to create something uniquely vivid. He doesn’t try to recreate noise legends textures by mimicking their gear – another album from earlier this year, Rádio Serenata, is a suite of mournful guitar jams recorded direct to mobile phone, Vale finding the potential in contemporary limitations rather than aping historic ones.
This new tape is equally proudly non-studio in its experimentation, with fragments of recorded voices collaged through wrecked guitar riffs. ‘Nara’ is a frequency bath, aggressively filtered so it oscillates from aquatic to metallic via robotic squelch. Later come bit-crushed sludge grooves, and on ‘F**k That Dream’, a gorgeous lament, albeit one that sounds like it’s being played through the rafters of a haunted house.
There are echoes of several eras of Keiji Haino here, especially ‘Watashi Dake’, as well as The Dead C. It’s an album which your ears need to adjust to, to acclimatise to the fidelity that Vale works in. But when they do, it becomes clear ‘Shinjuku Station Freaks’ contains a vibrancy which couldn’t be expressed any other way."
🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
Daryl Worthington speaks to a tape label expanding the possibilities of footwork, and reviews some of the most intriguing tapes of the Autumn, from world-building electronics to light triggered synthesis and a trumpet/cello/drums power trio
