REVIEW:

And you thought Eugene Chadbourne's 1980s "basement experiments" on cassettes were weird! If Ernesto Diaz-Infante leaves any lasting impression (and this writer thinks he will, thanks to his free improv skills), music fans in a few decades will surely be baffled by his large output of wildly different releases, especially his most obscure productions. This album, a cassette with Xeroxed artwork from the Omaha micro-label AZA Foreign Lands, belongs to the same category as his other tapes for Seagull and oTo. It features two 20-minute collages of field recordings (street sounds, answering machines), basic electronic tweaks (drones, electric buzzes), and passages of acoustic guitar and voice. Surprisingly, these provide the most disturbing moments: the guitar is horribly detuned and prepared and Diaz-Infante murmurs more than he sings, making the words decipherable only in part. It all sounds very dark and alienated -- Chadbourne's tape universe without any iota of humor. Lucky for us, we have his other, more "high-profile" releases to convince ourselves that he is not the madman he appears to be here or that his inspiration is not running out. This art is extreme, radical in its negation of the listener's pleasure, its artistic claustrophobia, and its do-it-yourself parti-pris. No need to say that it's only for the fanatic or collectors of bizarre sound art. --François Couture, All Music Guide
credits
released January 15, 2002

Ernesto Diaz-Infante: field recordings, guitar, vocals, and tape collage

Recorded at 699 Arguello and in and around San Francisco, California.

Originally released as a cassette on AZA Foreign Lands micro-label in 2002.