Dashpi on Feeding Tube Records

This latest from Feeding Tube Records, purveyors of the fine Cave Bears single is at it again with this piece of amazing weirdness. The packaging is incredible, fold out 3 color screenprinting for the sleeve with a huge black and white ink drawing poster jammed into the depths of this bursting mylar sleeve. It doesn't help things the vinyl is one of those heavy 60 gram frisbee's. The cover is a Japanese inspired print of boats sinking, children on a beach, coconut trees and mountains, all in a slight caligraphy sort of style.
Right away when something is packaged this amazingly I have to take notice, I'm going to pay a little more attention to the sound inside, in a different way, I mean there's something to be said for crappy xerox to add another equal layer of hands on. But the work that went into the printing here is truly impressive, someone cared a hell of a lot and I have no idea what to expect.

The A-Side first song 'Don't give up da ship' has a simple casio reggae beat...it's absurdly minimal, just one note ever comes in between canned fills with pitch shifted vocals mostly repeating 'don't give up da ship'. There's the obligatory marijuana reference and obscure themes of the sea. It's mostly a test of endurance, this phrase repeated over and over is maddening until they sort of lose all meaning and you have to give into the repetition.

Dashpi is deliberately taking on these genres that are ridiculous. Reggae?....what's compelling about a band hell bent on destruction like this? It's seeing if they can possibly do something new. I don't know if they succeed. That depends on if you enjoy Ween's irony or Ariel Pink's devotion to lost sounds. I, for one, do.
But I could use a little mythology, who are these guys? How was it recorded? Did they attempt this live? The elaborate packaging is silent except for offering a crazy iconography and doodle sketches the size of a door.
The fact that they're named Dashpi, I have to think that's 'Da Ship' rearranged after coming up with the title track.
They get a little hardcore on the B-Side, heavy beats, high pitch background vocals and deep pitch shifted main lyric. This is from 2001? What the hell was even going on then? Arcade Fire? Clap your hands? Obviously these guys were having none of it.
Casio demo chord changes makes up 'Shot doesn't wanna', pure 4-track bedroom weirdness with harsh electronics in the vein of a Ween concept rap album.
It's truly bizarre.
Travis and I will definitely be talking about this one on a future podcast.

Get it from Feeding Tube Records.

"Yah, yah, yah, yah. Don't give up the ship". These are some
seriously weird bedroom reggae jams, made on a dare nearly
a decade ago. Pitch-shifted vocals, primitive music and surreal
lyrics regarding "the aqua hole" and "the flaming room". The artist,
who prefers to remain anonymous, has made a number of amazing
archival recordings since this one was laid to tape in the early part
of the century, but none of them are as focused as this one here.
Beautiful silk screened art on thick paper, folded in four, full color
labels and one of the thickest 7"s you've ever held await you.