Homogenized Terrestrials is Phil Klampe, who has been making abstract recorded sound packaged with immaculate artwork since the early/mid eighties. Having been involved in the home taper scene, he has worked on a number of projects with Hal McGee, Brian Noring (FDR tapes), Charles Rice Goff III, and more recently has been involved in performance and collaborative work with Headless Ballerinas Underwater, Rebekah’s Tape, and Dog Hallucination. Klampe finished this new recording after accumulating a hefty amount of hi-tech equipment and having plenty of time to think. The Contaminist is a more carefully composed, arranged, edited and and mixed collection than earlier albums…. so says the press release. On to the review.
DNA IN THE DIRT: Immediately starts from deep space, simple percussion and keyboard drones that sound like a female vocal. Nice photos of bees that comprise all of the CD artwork. YEK TOPEK: Primal rhythmic drums on this one along with ambient clunkering. CONTAMINIST: It’s raining buzzing clinking space debris… but it’s also a pleasant driving drone. TWO AY EMM: Oh, I get it, 2am! More cosmic drone lovliness. Dinosaurs playing a xylophone loop! SROA: Other word fidgetry and ethereality! (if that’s not a word it should be!) Kinda like when you got locked inside that church after you’d taken all that mescaline! Remember? No!? Don’t know what SROA means?? SPURK: Sounds like part two of previous track; yes, sounds like a spurk! Like falling down the rabbit hole with Tangerine Dream playing backwards on yer headphones (or ear goggles, as Jimi would say). Like if you found yourself in a chicken’s body and you were scratching up worms on the bottom of the ocean. GRAVITY REVERSED: Yes, we’re flying out into space and I’ve possibly run out of strange phrases to describe it?? SHINTH: Definitely a Chinese plinking sound along with the usual deep space droning magnificence!
The only negative thing I could say about this CD is that it’s not that unique in sound and concept unless yer one of those classic 1982 space rock cretins, then it’s prolly way too weird. FOM POCLIPSE: Nice and short, oops, it’s over. PLASTIC RESONANCE KEY: Like typing a letter to yer dear old mama while the room yer in falls off the side of the mountain… yup, just like that! But there’s still time for the peyote enema to kick in before yer smashed on the rocks!!! Or maybe it’s nothing like that! ANTIQUES: This one is more exaggerated… in yo face… yet, the same soaring otherness. And the recording quality /mix etc. is very pleasant and warm!!! THE END IS ALWAYS NEAR: The perfect soundtrack for the next time you kidnap granny and read the first three Castaneda books to her while she’s pleading with you to get a good job!!! “No Nanna, I’ll never go back to college! There’s still no Ash Ra Tempel degree!!” TRUTH EGG: It just so happens that I had a heaping plate of scrambled truth eggs for breakfast, maybe that’s why I still don’t know the truth, they should have been boiled!?!
For more information visit the Homogenized Terrestrials web site at: http://homogenizedterrestrials.bandcamp.com
Visit the intangible Cat web site at: http://intangiblecat.com
Reviewed by Carlton Crutcher