PITTED WIZARD by SAINT HEWITT

TAPE AVAILABLE AT FLOP-HOUSE.BANDCAMP.COM


Like any good beat tape, the whole thing runs together in an endlessly replayable mass, the “Pitted Wizard”ness of it leaving chemtrails across your corneas like magic wand residue. The samples sound like they’re constantly in a state of being inundated by the tide, shredded by salt and sand and bleached by sun, only to be periodically submerged. Maybe there’s a magician living in a cave on a beach somewhere who can explain to us the mad meaning of “Pitted Wizard,” but maybe he’d only agree to the interview as a pretense to perform his dark art upon us and make our wallets disappear or something. Make our shoelaces tie together.

- Ryan Masteller/tabsout.com

In Christopher Moore’s “Secondhand Souls”, the Golden Gate Bridge is bathed not only in ever-lasting fog, but a wispy slurry of agitated spirits who’ve been relegated to circling the rust-colored scaffolding and nets ever since having successfully shrugged off their mortal coils.

Saint Hewitt’s “Pitted Wizard” should serve as a brilliant accompaniment to reading this novel, its own wind-battered beat-joists clanking sharply in shock, only to fade into the abyssal, heavy atmosphere of woozy, droning synth-lurches and warbly, haunting semi-melodies, swallowed whole and ingested by the night.

Half blurry beat-tape, half fuzzy ambiance-amplifier, this half-hour ride makes repeated listens an easy habit to fall into. &Get a load of the fabulous, Windy Weber-esque paint job on this tape, too; Michigan’s Flophouse label knows how to make a good-lookin’ relic, for sure!


- Jacob An Kittenplan/cassettegods.blogspot.com