I haven’t been able to get enough of Tracey Trance and his miniature Leprechaun universe since Chocolate Bobka posted about him on the 2010 cassette round-up that Altered Zones launched with. His Fountain tape on Night People may be sort of “old news” in this cut-throat information economy, but Tracey’s is some of the most fully incarnated lo-fi music I have ever heard. It’s not just that he does the cassette sound “well”; it’s that his songs would simply lose almost all of their glowing, childlike strangeness if they DIDN’T sound like they were being played back over a warped VHS tape. Even on MP3, “Fountain 1″ feels like tuning into a May Day celebration in a Playmobil village via stethoscope.
Tracey Trance, “Fountain 1″
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Words: Emilie Friedlander
Fountain cassette is available via Night People , with art by SDReed.