Ice Cream Blisters - + / Or -1987- (Cassette, GGE Records), US

Here's another cassette by Ice Cream Blisters, a band from Kent, Ohio that was formed by Mike Crooker and Chris Mezzolesta with the involvement of friends. These same people also created their cassette label GGE Records that played an important role in the American home-taping circuit, releasing own and other US home-taping acts as well as collaborations with foreign home-tapers. As far as I know Ice Cream Blisters released about five tapes. I posted their When Nature Fails, Art Steps In cassette from 1986 last year on the blog.

+ / Or is a much more experimental release by the group containing lengthy synthesizer adventures, guitar manipulation, wind and brass instrument improvisation and fine field recordings. Along the way topics like Second World War and Christmas are touched on with a genuine love for absurdism. It's another great example of the free spirited American home-taping scene that had an uncompromising drive to create music. It also represents the distinct American music tradition based on the expression of the weird and the wacky. The approach and sound of Ice Cream Blisters keeps reminding me of Blacklight Braille, but ofcourse there are plenty of other strange American bands from that like-minded realm that existed during the 80's (and actually well before that), specially in the deeper abyss of the home-taping universe.

Maybe more Ice Cream Blisters will surface in the future. At least here's another one!

Kindly donated by the Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

Ice Cream Blisters - When Nature Fails, Art Steps In -1986- (Tape, GGE Records), US

Here we have another nice tape from the American cassette-culture network of the 80's by Ice Cream Blisters. A band that came from Kent, Ohio that was founded by Mike Crooker and Chris Mezzolesta and friends, they also did the home-taping label GGE in Kent. Ice Cream Blisters made a couple more tapes and were for example also featured on the Exart compilation Music From The White House: U.S.A.. Their music is quite an eclectic mix-up of many different musical genres and styles like most of the weird American bands from that time.

When Nature Fails, Art Steps In definitely fits a no future mentality having a nice punk style and attitude combined with some deranged new wave sounds and pure sound experiments. It reminds me of other American bands like The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Blacklight Braille or Strange Fruit Abiku, ofcourse Pere Ubu that also hails from Ohio and probably also many other US bands I am overlooking now one can find in the Mutant Sounds archive. Nevertheless, Ice Cream Blisters has a signature of its own and the lengthy tape has many different musical highlights. From the demented violin infused Vivaldi to the nice lo-fi pop track Drive It Down.

I guess that the punk attitude of Ice Cream Blisters makes sense in the light of US (art-)punk in the North-Eastern and Mid-West states of the US that already had their own special punk-history since the 60's (think The Stooges and the Detroit scene etc). By the way, you can hear that a lot of effort was put in this release. Strange how they have remained so unknown, even after all the music that the blogs have been reviving for the last decade. Maybe some more of their music will surface with the time. It's really good! And not on Discogs.

"Don't be a cardboard celebrity that people pose next to. Don't live in fear of something you don't know really exists, think your own thoughts, they are worth more." 

This tape was kindly donated by the Y Create archive

Get it HERE