A reissue of the 1986 cassette release from Al Margolis.

"These are a bunch of experimental pieces done using the Casio SK1, which is a sampling keyboard. Apparently, this was originally released on Medicinal Tapes (a label from France), and was reissued as a cdr on Generator. The pieces are actually pretty good. They seem very "mucky," sort of like trudging through mud in rubber boots. They all have melody hidden somewhere in there. "The Evocation" is a short, but really good piece that actually got stuck in my head at one point… it's very repetitive. "Jungle Horn" is cool as well, it uses a classical music sample in it (amongst others)! As well, "Dress Me Down" is a cool, spooky piece that sounds pretty neat. Moist of the stuff here is pretty cool, lots of stuff, like "It's Your Funeral," is scary too. There are a few pieces that aren't as good as the others, but those are few and far between. The mood on this album is probably the key element. Lots of the songs are eerie and need to be played in the dark, preferably pitch black in an abandoned church or something. I recommend this cd to people who enjoy a good mix of eerieness, experimentation, humour, and masking tape. Well, the masking tape bit is optional." - Indieville

"Remember those strange things called cassettes? IPod addicts will have a hard time believing that those gatherers of hiss, distortion and lo-fi sounds once were an integral part of the avant-garde world. Through his Sound of Pig imprint, Al Margolis/If, Bwana was one of the greatest agitators of that wave of dirty creativity which used that method to put out bulletins that no level-headed manager would even try to release on a proper "label". "Radio Slaves", originally issued on Medicinal Tapes in 1986, is completely based on the samples of a Casio SK-1 that, coupled with the cheap-as-you-can-get sonic assemblage poetry of the author, makes for fine specimens of highly creative music made with really basic means. Margolis captured just everything on those memory snippets, fragmenting concepts and transcending reality with typically unclassifiable bitterness not deprived of irony. He used pre-existent music as well as actual environmental sources and media blather - lots of TV preaching in there - to interconnect jumbles of sonic material that might imply some sort of disguised meaning but, as a primary result, strikes a nerve. A masterful example is the utilization of a Philip Glass loop (circa Koyaanisqatsi) as the foundation for the vocal cut-up in "Fish tales from the Bible", according to a principle of therapeutic "learn-and-soon-forget" which delivers the listening process from the constrictions of concepts such as "taste" and "expectancy". The whole record is chock full of short items: the samples, the tracks, the events, yet this shortness yields a result that exceeds the sum of the single parts. Those who are acquainted with If, Bwana's vision already know what I'm referring to. Novices, they could be in for some serious bewilderment and maybe a tickle to the desire of knowing more about this unique composer." - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes

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