tascamhits

DISTRIBUTION

DISTRO

DRILL

GIGS

INDIE CLUB

POWERTOOL

Label:	Powertool
Artist:	Robert Scott
Title:	Tascam Hits
Catalogue #	PT065
Format:	CD/Album
Year:	2007
Barcode:	942102491004-4

Physical Sales

NZ: $20.00

Pay by cash, credit card, cheque or direct debit (Email me for bank details)

US: $13.95 Pay by Paypal

Digital Sales

ITUNES

1.Viva
2.Deep Dream
3.Black Forrest
4.Hands Of Time
5.Why's And Wherefore's
6.Look Out For Us
7.Dreamscape For Two
8.Don't You Rise
9.Im Coming Back
10.Losers Theme
11.Just A Container
12.Our Hands Are Tied
13.The Sound Of Sleet
14.Conny's Dream
15.Conny's Nightmare
16.Tacky Disco
17.Services
18.Laid To Rest
19.Track
20.Grind
21.Pulse
22.Seen It All Before
23.Crucify Me
24.Back Of Beyond

....Train comin' round the bend....Robert Scott keeps on goin'....album number, um lost count. This is his Krautrock Album of sorts, well in parts. Home Recordings from Port Chalmers, with that unique Tascam cassette compression. This was done around 95/97, and yes Conny is the late great Conny Plank. A busy year is under way. There will be Bass action with Clean Tour, and maybe an album written on the way. Later in the year a Bats album is planned, its all written, its a case of finding the time. Easter will see him don his Folk outfit and sing Songs of Otago's past at a folk festival in Naseby. Also in the pipeline is the next Electric Blood album, recorded on a family holiday in Wanaka over summer. We think it's number 14 for them, and the first to feature their parents. He has teamed up with Gina Rocco again for an EP called The Other Island, due Mayish, it follows the themes of Moonlight Potato. This time they have a hand from Donald Ferns on a few tracks. There is also a collaboration with Hector Hazard for a German movie by Arne Papenhagen. "I want to branch out a bit more" he was recently quoted as saying. If you need to know more about what he has done hit the google button.

REVIEWS

REAL GROOVE MAGAZINE: January 2008. Three cheers for the humble four track, reel-to-reel recorder of so many classic New Zealand tunes! There's something about the immersion required in old school analogue technology that can give four track recordings a special flavour; maybe it's the pause button editing is such a hassle that artists have to get it done right or not at all, maybe the bouncing and bleeding between tracks can enshroud the poppiest of tunes in a magical glimmering haze, who knows? There's a fully-formed just-found-under-rock quality that's ever present on (Clean member and Bats frontman) Robert Scott's new CD release Tascam Hits. Actually a compilationof tracks recorded in Port Chalmers from 1995 to 1998, what you get is a snapshot of Scott's recording practice in all it's hazy glory, snipperts of pop tunes hang out with cheap keyboard rockers combined with more atmospheric Xpressway-style head-nodders. There's something here for everyone, no huge surprises though. Scott has mined his particular vein of jangle-pop for years now with many projects; as refreshing and enjoyable as these unearthed recordings are, it would be nice to hear some real surprises from the OG Flying Nunster. Chris Cudby.

VERBICIDE MAGAZINE ISSUE 22, WINTER 2008. Robert Scott - Tascam Hits (Powertool Records). Robert Scott plays ambient, lo-fi shoegaze pop. There are two dozen tracks on this CD recorded in the mid '90's on Scott's Tascam recorder - if you like your music glossed over with a sheen of production, stay away. If you like spacey, beautiful music that keeps you hypnotized until the last note fades away, you've found your man in Scott. And the recording value is actually quite good - Tascam cassette recorders hold their own. There are a lot of instrumental jams on this album, and Scott's excellent guitar playing will please a lot of people, from fans of 60's rock to fans of more obvious comparisons, like Low and Belle and Sebastian. (Jackson Ellis)

SUNDAY STAR TIMES: 18th November 2007. Robert Scott: Tascam Hits (Powertool Records) The album by Clean bassist and wavery-voiced Bats frontman, Robert Scott, a man who has written more under-appreciated classics than any other soul I can think of. Tascam Hits has probaly knocked around in his bottom drawer for a wee while. It was recorded at home between 1995 and 1998 on a dodgy Tascam cassette deck, and is, says Scott, his "Krautrock record". By this he presumably means that the bugger is crammed with bass pulses and guitar drones rolling out over a rock solid "motorik" beat, but this is trueof only a couple of tracks. Tascam Hits shares a certain spookiness with his admirably strange 2000 Flying Nun album The Creeping Unknown, but where that album was more keyboard and tape-effects heavy, this seems to be more about Scott getting in touch with inner guitar hero. Not that he plonks on foot on his foldback monitor and busts out tooth-rattling power chords, but this album certainly showcases many more diverse guitar styles than the bouncy folk-rock strum'n'jangle of The Bats. There are echo-heavy westerns twangfests, scattered outbreaks of wah wah, some lovely plangent slide work, warmly fuzzed-out Dinosaur Jnr tributes, Doors-esque electric guitar ragas, some rose-between-the-teeth flamenco flourishes, and a couple of tracks where the guitars whirl and stagger like a drunk getting off a fairground ride. And, as always with any album involving Scott, there are also some unassuming ballads that drift right past you on first listen but then come back, tap you on the shoulder and next thing you know, they're following you everywhere. **** Grant Smithies

ELSEWHERE.CO.NZ: Robert Scott: Tascam Hits (Powertool Records) These low-fi home recordings by Scott -- a member of the Bats and the Clean -- were recorded in the late 90s and those who demand their music polished and honed won't find much of interest here. (That said you won't find it on the polished and honed new Eagles album either.) But these delightful working drawing of songs, eerie instrumentals and sonic ideas -- all put down on a Tascam cassette recorder -- have much to recommend them. Bats fans will hear echoes of that band in places, notably the opener Viva, but elsewhere there are aural explorations in tribute to the innovative German producer Conny Plank who worked with Cluster, Eno etc. In a sense you do some of the work (imagining them rendered larger, wider, stronger) but Scott's melodic sensibilities and the quasi-ambient quality make for an album which is considerably more than the sum of its many small but fascinating parts. Graham Reid

DISTRIBUTION

DISTRO

DRILL

GIGS

INDIE CLUB

POWERTOOL