THE REGGAEE “Balthar” (Tipped Bowler Tapes)

Don’t know how yr supposed to pronounce this band name, but I just say it like Bob Marley style, “The Reggae.” (What’s up with that extra ‘E’?). Anyway, this spraypaint-streaked C20 is pleasant enough. The A side is soft fog levitation...with wooden tapping, shell chimes, overweight specters mumbling from within a dream. Stumbles around for a little and closes the door. The B side is basically the same, with a stuttering loop and lots of muffled “clumsy wraith” percussion murk. It drifts like that for the better part of 10 minutes and then devolves into rodent scratching. The J-card’s far more baffling than the music: blurry, computer-printed art of a Senor Frog’s-style trio of goofy lizards playing with balloons. WTF?! Also, as seems to be a mandatory thing with the TBT label, each tape comes with a printed page of a random Sherlock Holmes story. Let’s do it non-acronym-style this time: What The Fuck.