DOG HALLUCINATION - SERVING TWO MASTERS (3" CDR)
Igloo Magazine:
A remarkable amount of design for a package the size of a nightclub matchbook, Serving Two Masters is stuffed with small art cards and interleaved with, well, real leaves. Like the artwork, all the music is by D. Petri, with a hand from one Doggy P. Lips. It feels like family, like a scrapbook, particularly when a little down-home common sense and local history is delivered by an older lady named Betty Lou Scott. Six numeralized, pleasantly curly tracks take careful steps during the first three of just under twenty-four minutes, before it starts percolating as the guitar crisply but dreamily takes in the high, fresh air of a new day and marches out into it, returning on “6″ for a long, hard think about what it has seen and felt. More than sketches, these humble thought bubbles are said to be the prelude to a full-length album due soon.
Aural Innovations:
This 3″ EP by the duo of D. Petri and Doggy P. Lips from Spring Valley, Illinois is intended as a progressive advance toward an actualization of some sort of ‘new experimental-psychedelia’, or at least a uniquely new flavor. UNTITLED 1:14: Begins with far away 1930′s styled recordings along with a man talking and crumbling things. UNTITLED 2:22: Goes into melodic dreamy guitar and swelling keyboard (almost said organ), a mixture of shoegaze and middle ages monastery! UNTITLED 2:53: No listing for who plays what but very out there and pleasant, burbling water sounds underneath two dualing guitars. A bit of synth fritz hovering about. I bet these guys are the strangest two people in Spring Valley. UNTITLED 6:50: Guitar loop with second guitar on top, simple and nice… yes, like most sincere musicians. Some keyboard swooshes and now the hypno drum, sounds live but a repetitive pattern. Who to compare this with? Maybe some later period Ash Ra Tempel?! Yes, high praise indeed! Gets more intense, then the second drum and you start to hear the Swans influence. Hey, this is pretty badass, modern sorta stuff. They better watch out or people will start throwing money at them. UNTITLED 2:40: Quiet, far away transition from previous track. Now the Betty Scott dialogue from 1979 at 1513 16th Street in North West Washington, DC at the Embassy Building. Betty’s never seen a stranger yet, if you want to be treated like a friend and neighbor you treat the other person that way, you go Betty!!! I assume this is one of the guys grandmother? Or maybe just a found recording!?!? UNTITLED 7:54: More stylized etherealness, yes, the coolest cats in Spring Valley, Illinois! Isn’t that where the Simpsons live?!? More loveliness for the outro track, some distortion mixed in? Or is that just my CD player? Oh, it’s intentional, yes, art! Suddenly goes into Middle Eastern/Mid-Western hypno guitar/drum raga… closes with some more Betty Grandma in DC… how do they get so much music on a 3″ CD?? Yes, it’s quite fabulous.
Tiny Mix Tapes Cerberus:
Summer is finally grinding itself to a halt as clouds roll in and it gets harder to remember what a day without rain looks like. Memories of sunshine remain warm but regrets always seem to lurk just out of sight: concerts unattended, pictures not taken, diary entries that are far too short to give weight to the events they describe, gas burned to make a lunch date only to find the diner has been closed for renovations. What was the name of that girl you met in June?
All this thinking needs a soundtrack. What about that CDr, the one with the dyed cloth and pressed sage leaves in a folded paper package printed with a big question mark? Several torn apart drawers and upturned piles of laundry later it’s in the CD case salvaged from that questionably purchased black metal album. Pop it in the top-loader and hit play. Three minutes into low-mixed radio hiss, thoughtful guitar plucking and gentle, looping chords and the rightness of this choice is verified. Distinctly earthy and organic rhythm is the guide back towards the beginning of summer, before things got too hot, before your brain took a leave of absence, before your knees and hands had new scars torn into them. Does one ever plan to be sitting, watching the failing afternoon light, listening to quietly thrumming ambience whilst trying to make the past fit cleanly with the present?
It’s probably still warm enough to take a walk this evening. Better make time to enjoy it while it lasts.
Secret Decoder:
I have a friend who used to perform as The Riverfront Ensemble; the “ensemble” included only himself, his guitar, a whole host of pedals, a four-track cassette recorder/player, and a reel-to-reel tape player with loops. The music he produced was epic, dreamy, uplifting, and just a little chilling. He never recorded anything, but played live a lot, and I loved venturing out to his shows. This miniature and all-too-brief CD-R from Dog Hallucination reminds me of the music of The Riverfront Ensemble. It takes me back to a period of time in the latter half of the 1990s; a time when I was drunk most nights and experienced a ton of really amazing music.
A mysterious duo whose members go by the names D. Petri and “Doggy P. Lips” (quotations intended), Dog Hallucination revels in drifting guitars smeared into melodic jelly by what must be a mountain of effects pedals. Disembodied voices litter the landscape, and the two longest pieces (all six of the movements are nameless) incorporate hypnotic percussion, to great effect. An equally magical aspect of this release, which arrives courtesy of the Intangible Cat imprint, is the packaging. A custom-printed, hand-folded envelope contains the disc, wrapped in beet-dyed cloth and surrounded by pressed sage leaves. If you enjoy this EP, be on the lookout for Dog Hallucination’s forthcoming album, entitled Mitzi, which will hopefully be released soon. Serving Two Masters is both a sight to behold and an earful of bliss, and it can be obtained directly from the Intangible Cat website.
DOG HALLUCINATION - BOB HALLUCINATION (3"CDR by Intangible Cat)
Weed Temple:
“Bob Hallucination”, an album by the dadaist bunch Dog Hallucination comes first, with its ever-shifting, underwater guitar & synth based trippertronics that sparkle & shimmer in the summer sun. It’s fucked up and peaceful at the very same time, combining siren-like wails far in the background with psychedelic folk deconstruction and futuristic beats that give the album a sort of a “prehistoric future” feel - like the first fishermen using their primitively carved boats to get fish and discovering a half-submerged space ship instead. Pagan atmospherics clash with IDM-ish structures - like a series of remixes of Dolphins Into the Future or Super Minerals circa “Pelagics”. Aquatic weirdos ahoy!
The Sound Projector:
An enjoyable three-incher is the item by Dog Hallucination sent to us from Spring Valley Illinois and released in October 2011. More precisely, the record Bob Hallucination (INTANGIBLE CAT-14) is a collaboration between Dog Hallucination and Bob, from Headless Ballerinas Underwater; Dog Hallucination is apparently the duo of Doggy P. Lips and D Petri, who fancy themselves as a cross between The Residents and Gilbert and George with their mild sense of zaniness, their video art and performances, and their rip-roaring funny face disguises. Dog Hallucination have made three solo records before this one, all of which look intriguing and puzzling; they say they tend mostly to work with guitars as their starting point, but there’s a strong interest in electronic music and the use of field recordings. On Bob Hallucination, the strategy has been to send their guitar recordings to Bob and allow him to process the music (they prefer the term “pulverize”) through his electronic boxes, with added keyboards, field recordings and mixage. In technique at least, this is not unlike the performance method of the original Faust, who manipulated each others’ playing in real time with their boxes of effects in the early 1970s; and the finished results are not too far away from that area either, without attempting to sound self-consciously imitative of “Krautrock” as so many do these days. Sorry, do I sound unimpressed as I write this? I don’t mean to, because I like this record a lot. It may not win any prizes for startling innovation, but it’s beautiful instrumental music with a strong sense of conviction and determination, making the most of minimal loop and repetition techniques, and not coming across as over-laboured or pretentious – as organic as something grown in one of D Petri’s Petri dishes. I get the sense that editing is one of the team’s strong points, and that a lot of music has been thrown away to arrive at these four tracks of distilled loveliness. Investigate.
Anti-Gravity Bunny:
A tightly compacted 3″ where Dog Hallucination (Doggy P. Lips & D. Petri) is joined by Bob from Headless Ballerinas Underwater. Weirdness abound on this one, the guitars getting fucked up & beatified by Bob with some added field recordings thrown into the mix. Gentle looping guitars, droning into the ether alongside ruptured electronics gurgling everywhere, phasers set to “caress,” celestial warmth feeding the fire, all infused with a solid rhythm, a noisy techno-drone that does more to invoke lucid dreams than it does the urge to party. But this is still totally partyable (at least a couple of the tracks are). And totally awesome. Here’s hoping Bob joins in the Hallucinations more often.
Idwal Fisher blog:
Thanks to Peel playing their 12”’s that went on for 20 minutes I did have a soft spot for The Orb [Andy Kershaw took him to task over such indulgence of course] but for me, at a time when things were going tits up music wise, their music was as welcome as a found fiver in an old coat pocket. Their trippy ambient beats filled with quirky samples floated from my speakers like mind melting ether and then they teamed up with Mike Oldfield and Steve Hillage and it all went horribly wrong.
The Orb were the first band to spring to mind whilst listening to all 23 minutes [natch] of [4] Bob Hallucinations. Bob Hallucinations may not like it but thats what you get for sending your releases to someone who used to listen to The Orb. The production is pristine, the guitars layer and fall like glistening slivers of icicle melt, the field recordings are sublime and well positioned [a nail factory by all accounts], the beats [when they eventually appear] are all Muslimgauze-y and when put into one whole it should work but with it being so overly polished I find it as gratifying as overfeeding on Quality Streets.
Perhaps Bob Hallucinations would prefer it if I mentioned them in the same breath as Column One which I would do if only they’d lay off the hours of mixing and editing and pruning and making sure it all sounds just right. Stripped down and raked out into an hours worth of material there’d be enough sounds in here to keep me happy for many an alcoholic afternoon but as it stands now I find this too condensed and overworked. Pretty when ugly is needed.
http://idwalfisher.blogspot.com
Cyclic Defrost:
A collaboration recorded five years ago but only very recently prepared for release, between the profoundly underground artists Dog Hallucination, a duo from Illinois, and Bob (just “Bob”), formerly of Headless Ballerinas Underwater. A four-track, twenty-three minute psychonautic journey through an altered state (“toot! toot!” goes the train whistle), its scenery absorbed by gazing through warped, stain-glass windows.
Bob Hallucination covers a lot of ground in very little time, yet never sounds rushed – it has been recorded with crystal clarity and every guitar note, beat and bloop glistens and resonates. After a propulsive jump start, the third track floats in misty pastel colours over a pastoral landscape. The fourth track – all tracks are merely numbered – has endless textural depth and an almost orchestra grandiosity, which, like most of the movements on Bob Hallucination, quickly dissapates and morphs into something else altogether. Though in this case the theme reiterates itself one last time, its beats greasier than the first time round.
That is the unique strength of this obscure little record – rarely are so many ideas packed into such a small space without crowding each other. Here, they dovetail into one another with perfect logic unity. If hallucinatory, it is a very lucid dream.
Stephen Fruitman
Vital Weekly:
No information yet on the website for this release, other than that is a "collaboration between Dog Hallucination and Headless Ballerinas Underwater's Bob." The recordings were already made in 2006-2007 and listed are keyboards, sampler, percussion, field recordings, editing. Four tracks in total and despite the relative low information level, I thought it was all rather nice music. Electronic (obviously), with dashes of mild rhythm, reminding me of the more experimental edges of ambient house, melancholic passages and largely reverbed guitar bits. Psychedelic ambient music. As said, I thought of this to be very nice, but the sad side was that it lasted only twenty-three: for me it could have lasted twice that, since I was quite curious after this to hear what else they are capable of. (FdW) http://www.vitalweekly.net/
DOG HALLUCINATION - BOOGERS (CDR by Intangible Cat)
Vital Weekly:
Colorful and with a lot of fun, that are the first things that triggers me. The artwork of the CD-cover is self-made compiled with photography, drawings and collage technics. A pleasure for the eyes. The CD 'Boogers' is a compilation of music of the last five years. Doggy P. Lips started to record sounds on an old tabletop cassette recorder and exchanged the recordings with D. Petri. The sounds are mostly created by voice, guitar, a lot of effect pedals and field-recordings. The result is a noisy experimental album. No noise as a wall of sound, but abstract electronic sounds with a lot of diversity. The album ends with two composition which are more musical. Firstly it starts with a harsh loop created by a voice and more elements like bells and long-lasting soundwaves with a drony mood calm down these harsh sounds. The CD ends with a long drony track with edited water-alike looped sounds. Will this long drony music be the next step of Dog Hallucination? I hope so, because they create
it in a good way.
http://www.vitalweekly.net/
Olive Music blog:
There is a plethora of music to explore within the realms of experimental, sound collage, or even terms as archaic as musique concrète, from artists like Black Dice, Baalte, as well as artists like The Books and Secret Mommy, who approach this style with more accessibility. However, despite that there are numerous artists to choose from, many contemporaries fail to seem as expansive as they pride themselves on being. Dog Hallucination's Boogers is a completely different case.
It's worth noting that there is a bit of a concept-- or prelude-- given alongside the liner notes. The concept isn't revolved around social commentary, or Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species, but it's alluded to in the title. Yes, Boogers. This title isn't referring to a musical concept as heady as rhinology, either. It relates to Doggy P. Lips's unusual emphasis of the word in a conversation he had with D. Petri that occurred after Petri lent him a cassettes and a recorder, some cables and pedals, and a small amplifier. After Petri finished his collaboration with P. Lips, he realized that "boogers" played a much more vital role in the music than he had thought. Although that may seem inaccurate, the word boldly represents the pervasive puerility of this album.
Absurdity reigns supreme from the moment Boogers introduces itself, with a manipulated scream followed by cartoonish vocal samples and other unidentifiable sounds given on the first track. Although Boogers has a plethora of noises, in no way is it a "lush" album, because none of these sounds harmonize as much as they do topple over and interrupt one another. In some ways, it's oddly entrancing, like the Metal Machine Music-esque third track which features twinkly guitars, bubbling keyboards, and panning feedback shrieks. In short, Boogers showcases transcendence at its finest.
Though this album begins on an abrasive note, Dog Hallucination prove that they are well aware of the need of variation by the seventh track, where the textures become progressively sparse. This change in direction is quite a relief to me the more I imagine the beginning of this album spanning a 35-minute length. Though their eccentricity, concept, and overall presentation may not appeal to some, I have to at least respect Dog Hallucination for the onslaught of sounds provided on Boogers.
http://olive-music.blogspot.com