Music Review: Demon Queen, Exorcise Tape

By Ricky Lima

Demon Queen‘s first album Exorcise Tape has been officially described by lead vocalist Zackey Force Funk as “really about satanic stripper shit.” I don’t think I’ve heard a more accurate description of an album in my life. Exorcise Tape is dark, sexy, and super catchy. Zackey Force Funk is totally right; this is the kind of music they’d play in a strip club in Hell, and if that’s the case, that’s a place I want to go to. Zackey Force Funk and TOBACCO have knocked it out of the park in their first collaboration.

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Music Review: Black Moth Super Rainbow, Cobra Juicy

By Ricky Lima

I’ve had the pleasure of introducing some of my friends to both Tobacco and Black Moth Super Rainbow over the years. I explain to them that both artists are fronted by the same person, and they usually comment that they don’t see much of a difference between the two. That is when I usually go into a rant about how BMSR is a more folk driven project with organic textures where as Tobacco is a more harsh sounding, hip hop-driven project.

After reading interviews with Tom Fec (the mastermind behind Tobacco and BMSR) it becomes clear that this kind of distinction drove Fec away from making more BMSR music. He felt boxed in by making his records sound like a Tobacco record or like a BMSR album and that there was no growth in making albums sound a certain way. After a very successful Kickstarter, however, Fec is back with a new BMSR album titled Cobra Juicy.

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Tobacco, Maniac Meat

By Less Lee Moore

“I want to make you feel paranoid in a good way. There’s something seriously fucked about workout tapes from the mid ’80s, and just about everything obscure on beta tape. They make me feel awful, but really good and curious at the same time. With this Tobacco stuff, I’m trying to translate that feeling.”
—Tobacco, September 26, 2008, Interview in Kotori Magazine

The contradictions inherent in being both a music lover and a music writer frequently lead to a profound tension between pure enjoyment and the need to explain and categorize every song that weaves its way into my ears. One persistent classification has been “music that makes my mom nervous.” Although I have empirical knowledge that Born Innocent by Redd Kross is one such album, I have never been brave enough to test out other potential contenders like Nirvana’s In Utero or anything by JG Thirlwell (the cover of Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel’s Nail was enough to send her into apoplexy).

Certainly Tobacco‘s Maniac Meat would introduce my mom to an entirely new dimension of nervousness.
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Black Moth Super Rainbow, Eating Us

By Noreen Sobczyk

When you visit the Black Moth Super Rainbow website, you’ll find that their new album Eating Us is available in a limited “hairy summer jacket” version. Well if that doesn’t say it all, what does? Hopefully this review will help elaborate on this, at least a bit, because a lot of the beauty of Black Moth Super Rainbow is that the music must be experienced and can’t be fully explained in text. Does that sound pretentious? It’s not, I promise. Take a tab of BMSR and you’re guaranteed not to have a bad trip.
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