Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood - Mutact (American Grizzly CS)

Last month or whenever it was that I put in the order with American Grizzy to get the Ettrick 3", I also threw in this tape since I don't own anything from Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood and because I felt kinda bad making an order for just one tiny CD-R. Might as well make it count, right? Besides, it's not like it was expensive. Safe to say this completely surpassed my "throw in" expectations and I'm sure glad I decided to take the proverbial plunge. In case you're not of the knowing ones, Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood is, appropriately enough, a brother/sister tandem (although their may be guests I think) from Australia and have been reaping huge amounts of praise for discs like "Run From Your Honey Mind" and "Canubisanubis" on labels like MYMWLY, Celebreate Psi Phenomenon and Digitalis...not to mention releases in the pipe on labels Students of Decay and Root Strata. Safe to say they know how to keep busy.
The first side of this fab-looking cassette (are those reals floral matters glued to the cassette insert? And the gold reflecting insert on the tape, how nice!) consists of "Skull Aperture" (which I believe was already released on a tape of the same name last year) and "Our Glorious Transubstantiation", quite the mouthful that. First one's got some frantic-sounding haywire junk/cutlery clatter and hand-thumped percussion decorated via slick flute stylings that waft in strong reminisces of the Nath Family's pungis, or at least some other sort of Eastern halo. Think like a way more organic/raised by wolves No-Neck or an equivalent type band and you'll start to get the idea. Maybe also worth mentioning the group's pursual of Alan Watts' outdoor sailboat psychedelic free-ness too. The additional electronic zapz are a fancy touch too. "Our Glorious Transubstantiation" is considerably more sparse, like Thuja covering Graveyards or some left-field pre-song Godspeedian ramble. It slowly convalesces into a delightful sea-shanty dribble with toy pianos and flutes and playful crustaceans coming to life and breaking into song and dance.
Two more songs to be found on the B, "Snakes Grow Fin Fingers" (Beefheart ref.???) and "Mournful Tentacles". On "Snakes" there's some gentle strumming amist fervent palm-stamped purrcussion, lapping at your feet like rolling waves from the ocean while "Tentacles" plays out in a similarly laid-back/dream-sequence vein. Especially notable is the outrageously druggy, washed-out fuzz guitar solo that's really much more of an excercise in restraint than you'd expect, but it still rules. Couple that with some muttered (male) intonations/instructions and you've got the perfect ending to a great "great escape tape", if you will.
Although the Brothers' output doesn't yet reach into the territories of, say, Acid Mothers Temple or Wolf Eyes or what have you, they still do put out quite a bit of stuff...and it would've been easy of them to just phone-in some slipshod, haphazard performance and call it a day but that's really not the case at all hear as "Mutact" exquisitely exceeded all my expectations. American Grizzly delivered two home runs with the aforementioned (forevermentioned, more like) Ettrick disc and now this awesome tape. I'm going to have to re-browse their catalogue and seek out even more jewels. This'll keep me occupied in the mean time.