Departmentstore Santas
At the Medieval Castle Nineteen 100-Year Lifetimes Since

THE REVIEW

Since the '90s, lo-fi has become much more common and accessible, but in the '80s? Without the awareness that it was acceptable as an approach to recording/composition in the first place, going down that road forced you to come to terms with the fact that if you were lucky, you'd print 500 vinyl copies and vanish into thin air. Only West Coast Americans could have gotten away with it and resurfaced decades later. Another thing to keep in mind is this: except for the few enlightened ones who already knew about lo-fi, if someone stumbled upon such a record, they'd either think they were talentless and broke or be enchanted by the crackling of the lazy spinning on vinyl.

The likable group in question clearly belongs to this category. The first pressing from 1984 is quite costly. So little is known about them that until a few years ago it was thought they were from LA, whereas the record was actually recorded in La Mesa, just a hop away from the border. And on the record, you can hear that it's between two worlds, for example, in the trumpet solo of the beautiful "Jewel of the Hills." The most obvious comparisons are with Daniel Johnston, but Half Japanese is mentioned as well, and there's some truth to it. The album moves from anguished and lyrical pieces ("Lost at Sea") to episodes of playful infantilism ("An Open Letter to etc."). The mind, such as Joseph D'Angelo, uses alongside conventional instruments, toy keyboards and plastic guitars, for a sure naiveté effect, never aligned with voids, but always arranged with the colors of cheap psychedelia. As mentioned above: awareness. That's why the album fascinated. Waves of placid loafing, entrusted with open arms to a deep sea that after years took pity and stranded it on some telematic shore. Given this description, it seems really difficult to reach the four-star rating, but the little tricks of the album reveal themselves after the second listen. These quirky 3x2 choruses hide more substance than expected. There's talk of an experienced guitarist who colors each piece with elementary yet likable phrasing, adherence of the singing to the rhythm that avoids the effect of "I'm-singing-randomly-and-I-know-it" (which ultimately avoids falling into bad taste and enhances the actual value of the compositions that wouldn't seem silly if re-recorded) and compared to many contemporary lo-fi productions, the effort to reassess the compositional medium is intense; today making lo-fi means pretending well to do things poorly, here it's kind of the opposite: essentially it's a great album in the genre.

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