Old school day here at Chain D.L.K. with a couple of cassette releases. First up is Uglyhead, the experimental electronic project of Jake Alejo from Seattle, WA., who has been doing this sort of thing and releasing albums since 1996. 'Disembodied' is a 5-track EP on cassette that Jake calls "a descent into a bottomless pit full of ghosts". (Alrighty then, better ghosts than snakes, eh?) The EP was mostly created with hardware synths, samplers and bass guitar (YEA!!! a musician after my own heart) and features Galen Waling (Lord of Acid, Pig, Left Spine Down) on acoustic drums on the title track (#3, "Disembodied"). It was mastered by Shawn Hatfield (Amon Tobin, Surachai).

First track, "Here But Not Here" is a rousing coldwave number that fires on all cylinders (at least for me it did) and sets the tone for what's to come. Jake's vocals are of the tortured hoarse and scratchy variety, which is just fine for the material, and also seem to be augmented by the occasional use of vocoder. At times it sounds a bit Teutonic, maybe even early Wumpscutty. Next, "There But Not There" is significantly wilder, treading into hardcore territory. "Disembodied" slows things down in its measured pace, but you really need to see the quite disturbing video (shot entirely on a lo-fi VHS camcorder) version of this song, although the sheet ghost was amusing. "Too Real For Love" is just too long, too slow and too monotonous at over 7 1/2 minutes. Ending things is the warped and woozy "Funhole" which is loosely based on the novel "The Cipher" by Kathe Koja. (A man is trapped in a room that contains a bottomless pit and a snake - his only friend. Solving the mystery of the hole proves to be worth everything the man has. In order to get the full impact of this number, you really need to see the colorfully surreal music video of this song on YouTube. (Interesting enough that I watched it several times in a row.)

If you like coldwave electronic with a experimental edge, and also happen to be a cassette devotee, I recommend you scoot on over to Uglyhead's bandcamp site and buy it, because it's limited to 100 copies.