Blues Patrol on Hot and Ready Records

Rob over at Hot and Ready Records sent this one over, and up until now, they look to be primarily a cassette label from the looks of things...but they put out this single of two tracks from the Blues Patrol. I love that the word "Blues' is loosely applied to everything these days, just like punk, it describes everything and nothing...mostly here it could apply to that root idea of blues describing a kind of sadness. Everything on this single is so minimal and bare bones, like Mattress or Prinzhorn Dance School, there's something strange about how little is here to even ascribe emotion to...and that in and of itself might be kind of sad...or punk. Both.

Listening to A-Side's "...But I gotta" consists of nothing but a massive silence and minimal drum machine, overdriven all up in the red, slowly busting cones. Crackly and muffled, the tight kick was mic'd live? Maybe right next to a tiny speaker. There's a mellow, buried blues organ barely rising out of the background, with lead vocals, no effects, right into a cheap mic:

I don't wanna / but I gotta go to school

It's all a little loose, even with the weird precision of the drum machine, they might have the blues themselves, and it's a lot of effort to do another take.

B-Side's, "Phantom Curl" features a piercing, line in synth... a cheap sound with what might be live drums this time. It would be impossible to have a machine sound this loose. The synth pounds right into your head... Jesus, some kind of analog moog sound driling into your eardrums with thin pounding on buckets or cardboard boxes. Little rhythm or reason to the melody here, like they just found their fingers....or this setting when they plugged the synth thing in. The layers of pure sine waves making up this sound are hyptnotizing. The best part is, if you pick up the record and look at it under direct light, you can see the crazy groove squiggles cut into this single...hugely spaced out. This track has to be under a minute and all synth practically, you don't even need a microscope to inspect this one off the lathe cutter. The giant waves don't come anywhere close to touching each other..so needless to say this instrumental is loud as hell.

Nice two color hand printing right onto the inner white paper sleeve.

Get this one from Hot and Ready who says:

The latest we have heard from Blues Patrol since they released their ‘ROCK’ cassette with us. Back with some cool sounds, we like to think. Two new songs on the same plate, both recorded in the later months of 2011, released January 2012. Plop this down and flip till you get your fix. Each side as catchy, and dancey, as the other. And together, such a pleasure!! The first side is all about doing things you don’t want to...And the second is as spooky as a full moon on hallows eve. We are so glad that everyone can now finally here these two enjoyable songs, and in full three-hundred-sixty degree stereo! Wow, what else can top that? Not much we think.