Audiopile Review: Another must-grip release from the Sloth Mate imprint! Cuneiform Tabs features the label’s head and Violent Change mainstay Matt Bleyle, alongside Sterling MacKinnon, who also played in VC, though is now located in the UK. Trading recordings back and forth, the duo have painstakingly pieced together a collage of hissy art-rock and warbled lo-fi pop, at times coming close to The Hospitals’ melted-psych monster-work, Hairdryer Peace. No doubt, this one is heavy, it’s pop-y innards liberally doused in blown-out rhythms, tape hiss and fractured vocals—this sonic melee isn’t gonna be for everyone. And really, in a meager edition of 200, it physically can’t.

Like an unsent love letter to a psychedelic London where everyone is trying to find their way to a secret Television Personalities gig, Cuneiform Tabs emerge with an astounding debut of lo-fi pop and DIY experimentation. A hazy collage of joyful heartaches, twisted children’s TV themes and sing-song melodies, the album echoes the sounds of ’60s AM radio from a dozen narrow alleyways to the North.

Over 18 months, the Tabs’ Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon traded 4-track tapes between the Bay Area and the UK. While they previously played together in indie band Violent Change, the duo’s physical distance and their songwriting process of building, blurring and distorting across the Atlantic would create something no one saw coming. Grabbing any instruments at their disposal and splitting vocal duties, Bleyle and Mackinnon pushed their Tascam to its limit to make glittering, odd-shaped gems.

There is an insular feel to Cuneiform Tabs, suited for late nights after the entire city has stumbled into dreamtime or lazy afternoons when you can’t quite recall where you need to be, but you know you won’t make it there on time. It’s like a pirate radio show where Bob Pollard alternates Swell Maps and Cleaners From Venus records while randomly unplugging various bits of gear and reading passages from a book on R.D. Laing.

Originally released in a hyper-limited artist edition, W.25TH / Superior Viaduct is thrilled to bring this kaleidoscopic LP to a wider audience.