This might be the most uncommon release ever covered at Record Crates United. This is in no way a criticism, in fact, I think this is a badge of honor. 

Plastic Brain Press is an eclectic indie publishing house that’s “run by a large synthetic encephalon,” and releases mainly experimental and outsider paperbacks, podcasts and e-books. This, their first physical audio release, could be best described as a listenable magazine of sound collages and poetry.

Across the album’s single 26-minute long piece, tides of static and spliced catches of obscure music clash together, and occasionally mutate into a blooming kaleidoscope of distorted noise, of which, a spoken word piece might spring forth.

These spoken word portions are each read by a different writer, and each possess a unique style and mood. Each reader is placed in a pool of sounds that changes with their tone and subject matter, which only adds more character to their stories and poems.

The jumbled musical element of Lost in The Mind Hole is more Negativland or The Evolution Control Committee than Stockhausen, as it utilizes quirky samples with a tinge of humor. Yet these collisions of often disparate sounds take on a hallucinogenic quality, taking the listener on an effects-laden journey from one existential point of view to another. Much like the work of Ken Nordine or Steven Jesse Bernstein, the sound is sculpted and bent in a way to keep the recording energetic and vivid. If you want a successful spoken word record, then you need this kind of production and arrangement.

Strange, oddly psychedelic and even at times downright shocking, Lost in The Mind Hole might be one of the most unreal and challenging listens of 2019, but it’s so worth the trip. Check it out here.

-KH

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