LAL-22
Cassette, released in 2005

Edition of 200.

Digital version coming as we will find the master files.

First side is a bit embarrassing and the other is scary. Here's a tape that can be way too much for you. MWM is a teenage industrial punk band including two dudes from Avarus. They serve six songs full of angst, passion and Nine Inch Nails influences. Maryfist side is a psychedelic solo EP by the singer of MWM. It was first released as a limited edition CD-R in 1998. Tomi presents here an epical journey in strange and dark trip-hop with lots of whispers, rattling, breathing and heavily dosed sounds. At the time Tomi had his cat's skull as a necklace. He also had a pet rat which also died. He put it in freezer planning to make a charm of it too. Accidentally he moved away and forgot the rat for the next people living in the apartment.

"Here's another odd new Lal Lal Lal release . . . . . No idea what this is all about or what it's going to sound like . . . . . . . [pushes play] . . . . hmm, some real clumsy Butthole Surfers fandom with grinding stumbling fuzz bass, clattering drumming, and ranting vocals . . . . Maryfist is kind of a harsh name, and indeed, this is one of the more 'aggro' acts on the Lal Lal Lal label. Aggro, but kind of funny. Kind of bad, actually. Ah, and now I'm on the Lal Lal Lal website, putting the pieces together: this is a split cassette, and side A, which I'm listening to, is by a band called Married With Misanthropy, a/k/a MWM. It was recorded 7 years ago (1998), and two of the band members went on to be in Avarus. As the website says, "First side is a bit embarrassing.... Here's a tape that can be way too much for you. [MWM] serve six songs full of angst, passion and Nine Inch Nails influences." Yeah, Nine Inch Nails might be the intent, but the unintentional reality is played more like a sober nervous teenage Butthole Surfers with a young Marilyn Manson fan singing, and the overall recording quality is so BAD that I can see why Lal Lal Lal put this out -- for a jolt of honesty and candor, some much-needed forest-mystique dispelling, and because the vocals and playing may be bad but they are a riot!
Side two is Maryfist, which is a solo project by the singer of MWM. (I'm guessing he's the Marilyn Manson-looking dude in the picture but I could be wrong.) Like a lot of solo/side projects that come from punk industrial bands, this is scary soundtrack soundscape stuff that is influenced by horror movies like Se7en. (I think that's the first time I've ever typed that title out, it looks kinda goofy. Very 1995.) It's a quiet recording and it takes a while to get going. In fact, it never even really gets going at all, it just kind of sits there and stays creepy. This is a precursor to an album like Hair Police's Drawn Dead, but the HP album perfects the form by about 100 times. Which isn't to say the terrible recording and goofy atmosphere of Maryfist isn't deliciously creepy in its own right. Shit, I love this tape." - Larry "Fuzz-O" Dolman / Blastitude