Halo - Halo (1990) [Bluerider, bc01, Cassette]
This was a lucky find. The tape still sounds great, even in 2022, rolling happily over the read head in the Kenwood Stereo Double Cassette KX-W8040 I just opened up to manually adjust the speed. Magnetic tape is a wonderful thing.
Would you believe this one has a catalog entry - not for any Bluerider catalog or ad I could find, but from some of the earliest Shrimper inserts? No Shrimper catalog number, no catalog number in the listing at all:
[Insert from Shrimper Catalogue 1990 Fall]
"THIS SIX SONG E.P. CARVES GUITARS AND A FUZZY DRUM MACHINE INTO MANTRA LIKE
SONGS: IF LOOP WASN'T STONED OUT OF THEIR HEADS THEY MIGHT SOUND KIND OF
LIKE THIS."
Tracklist:
A1 - "Spark Wide Open"
A2 - "Punch A Hole In The Sky"
A3 - "Shaking"
B1 - "Not At All"
B2 - "Stumble"
B3 - "Burn"
From the J-card:
not at all stumble burn recorded 5-89 at motiv
punch spark shaking recorded 5-90 at underground
railroad conceived and executed by halo
Even without listening, the above note from the J-card places the entire B-side in the same "5-89 at motiv" session of "Not At All"/"Stumble"/"Burn" that became the unnumbered Halo demo tape from 1989.
When Halo went to record Alloy in 1991, they re-recorded "Punch A Hole In The Sky", "Burn", and "Shaking" for that release. "Not At All" and "Stumble" would be re-recorded as the bookends for 1993 album JAG/eye.velocity. "Spark Wide Open" ended up on neither CD release, but did get a re-record for the 12" split with PWOG, finally allowing all the tracks from the demo to escape into the wild. A reissue with the new recordings of all 6 would have been a fun idea.
NEW: Listen to clips from the demo tape below. Because the 1989 tape is was used as the B-side, those are the same recordings you can hear here.
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What Does This Tape Sound Like?
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Click any thumbnail below to view a full size scan:
any images, lyrics, song titles, etc are property of the original artists, where at all possible images are pulled from my own scanned copies and any found/submitted images are noted and credited. this is a fan site without ads, trackers, or even so much as one of those site counters from the late 90's. if you see your intellectual property here and want it removed, email away. thanks
