♫♪  Me, Claudius - Good Diz, Bad Bird

Glee in discomfort. Me, Claudius has a thing, here, an exploratory itch that can only be scratched by one of those long-handled wooden implements with a curved hand-like end, but a metaphorical one, a really, really long one that goes on far too long for the average itch-sufferer. Length and satisfaction go hand in hand for Me, Claudius, whose back longs for the initial satisfying friction of object meeting skin.

Then it relieves that itch until the itch becomes a flowing stream of blood.

Hey, I’m just the messenger here! The guy who somehow rammed together the idea of an immediate and satisfactory sensation and the slow burn of a Me, Claudius joint. But let’s not pretend we’re unfamiliar with the UK loopster, not with tapes already on Dinzu Artefacts and Linear Obsessional — you’ve had plenty of time to do your homework and understand. In fact, immediacy alert, “Good Diz, Bad Bird” opens side A with the most wickedly jacked piano melody this side of an Erased Tapes release, but slammed hard on a gravel road and run over a few hundred times with a dirtbike. That the melody is still somewhat intact while it’s bombarded by the elements is a noble and triumphant result.

Warped noodles through a tape deck define the rest of the tape, “Lifestyle 1” and Lifestyle 2,” grotesque and abstract representations of what apparently passes for “lifestyle” for Me, Claudius. For me, I like a nice single-malt scotch by a fireplace while I read books or write dynamite music criticism. That’s my lifestyle. It’s a warm, gentle existence. For Me, Claudius, “lifestyle” involves meticulously etching stone with metal and regurgitating the sound until it’s also covered with cave dirt, then doused with hand sanitizer and churned in a washing machine. Or maybe that’s what she uses the back-scratcher for! The itchy ol’ rock face.

And yet, the two of us aren’t so different, in the end.

Good Diz, Bad Bird is a beauty of a tape from our UK pals Bezirk — it “comes with handmade artwork, printed on a 1960s Farley 24a proofing press on Takeo Yomushi paper by Me, Claudius herself.” Stream it!

Chocolate Grinder

CHOCOLATE GRINDER is our audio/visual section, with an emphasis on the lesser heard and lesser known. We aim to dig deep, but we’ll post any song or video we find interesting, big or small.

Most Read



Etc.