Various Artists - Mythical Tapes Vol. II

Mythical Tapes return with their second treasure chest full of obscure gems waiting, just waiting to be discovered. If you were brave enough to dive into the first volume, you were blessed with some killer tunes ripped out of the most remote crevices of Earth. The musical styles range from the coldest minimal synthpop to experimental weirdness and electro industrial. Each gives you something different from the previous.

Mythical Tapes Vol. 2 is definitely highlighted by Zex Model, but just like Zex Model you have to start somewhere. This compilation is just littered with promise. Bands like Winged Pegasus and Top Jugend 90 deliver some strange electro body rhythms while Nigel Samways adds some ambient drone. Sleep Easy drills us with a nice blend of Ghostly International, Demdike Stare and Ad Noiseam infleuences. Art Zero is another new act to keep an eye on if you like simplistic fuzzed out minimal electro with monotone vocals. Knifedoutofexistence does everything they can to give you a headache and wreck your speakers with a powerful noise barrage. Helsinki's Lola Kumtus seem to draw their influences from the very early days of the electronic scene. It is quite evident the spirit of Daniel Miller's "Warm Leatherette" has been conjured. The style is very similar with the monotone spoken vocals and the simplistic pulsating repetitive beats. I also hear some influence from Crash Course in Science with the all wild sounds scattered about the track. Fans of late 70's minimal industrial and minimal synth in the vein of Bakterielle Infektion will definitely enjoy this. Hopefully sometime soon we will get a proper release! Zex Model returns once more to infect us with their fierce brand of electro industrial mayhem. Paul Von Aphid keeps very busy writing and collaborating on a non stop basis it seems. This is obviously a good thing if you like your music littered with insane samples from anime movies set to an all out barrage of vintage Skinny Puppy meets late 80's Borghesia. I really enjoy the perfectly placed samples and secondary layers to the songs. There are a lot of cool little insertions in every track that add more craftiness to each piece. Zex Model is definitely the best represented artist on this compilation. You can purchase the 'Mind Slaughter' LP from Desire Records and other fine sites as well. Check out our interview and album review on the BR site. Cyborgs On Crack are a Croatian experimental, minimal industrial outfit. They must know some people as they are the only artist to have 2 tracks on the compilation. "Information Vol. 1" has a nice hard beat while "Concrete Shoes" reminds me a lot of fun quirky sounds prevelant in new beat tunes. Both are instrumental with an occasional sample thrown in for good measure. If you really dig these 2 songs, you can head over to Bandcamp and download their 'Drinking Air With Eyes' album. If you are curious about the software and hardware on the album the Bandcamp page also breaks every song down. Boars belts out a heavy dose of techno-electro mayhem. The whirlwind beats pulverize at a steady pace. They seem to have a sense of humor as well. Checkout their Bandcamp page for more Boars! Finland's To Feed A Neon Forest really captured my attention on the first volume. They delivered a high powered synthwave track "Glamorous Hands", with plenty of hooks and memorable choruses. "Paper Tigers" is slower track with a nice helping minimal electro synthpop power. It's definitely not as catchy as 'Glamorous Hands', but is still a very solid track. The echoic deep voice is set to spaced-out synths scattering a wide range of sound and creativity. Keep an eye on TFANF. I sense great things are ahead. Occult darlings, Contra Gang return to conjure the spirit of the Overfiend with "Ancient Thrones". This has killer dancey beats showered with probing synths complimented with samples from Urotsukidoji. If you do not know about Urotsukidoji, you are in for a treat if you love Anime. Be warned! Once again Contra Gang delivers and once again we are left wanting more. Kalat "Assault" takes on a rhythmic noise crossroad to help cover a wide range of representation on Mythical Tapes second sampler. "Assault" is an instrumental containing swirling repetitive drum beats with hints of early Dive and Esplendor Geometrico trickled into the music.

Once again Mythical Tapes Delivers the goods. There is no real downside to material on the compilation. You get a wide range of style. My only problem is getting the actual tape in the USA. The distribution to seems to be very limited. I guess that's a minor complaint given you can easily obtain the music digitally. For those of us that appreciate the physical format in North America, it will cost you. The tape is fairly priced, it's the shipping that is always the killer! Hopefully we will hear more from all of these artists. Apr 21 2014