Kenji Siratori - Harakiri download mp3 flac

I am so grateful that I went up to Edmonton and found this tucked in the shelves of a record store. It looked interesting enough. A simple cassette speckled with silver dots and information about the release. The packaging is super minimal, a black kind of cardstock with veins running through it hides underneath the plastic of the case. A few pieces cut into tiger stripes are glued to the outside. Another piece of the cardstock wraps around the case. Simple. I didn't know what to expect.

I stick the tape in my cassette-deck and crank the volume. Ready? Siratori builds this surreal cyberpunk landscape complete with distant howls and churning machinery. The experience is a trip, to say the least. It totally reminds me of a big steam engine chugging away in the depths of hell. Maybe there's an orchestra of rejected cellos and other offensive stringed instruments humming in the distance, miles away. It's hard to tell if those are the real source of the noise on account of such heavy distortion.

My favourite part of this cassette are the eerie voices - the ghosts in the machine. It truly sounds like spirits lift from the tape, swirl around and dive into your ears. I love this dark ambient noise stuff!

- Kat Cardiff (feedbackzine.ca)