Andy Boay is half of the unpronouncably brilliant Tonstartssbandht and likewise half of the Dœs Are label, which has been the port out of which most of the Tonstartssbandht releases have sailed since its creation. Evil Masters concerns itself less with the hit-single factor that Tonstartssbandht does so effortlessly and takes a relatively free-form approach, drifting beautifully in and out of structure at all levels. The sounds themselves are familiar, but not totally recognizable. When there are words, they’re definitely in English, but what are they, exactly? A single track can (and does) drift seamlessly and quite naturally between multiple genres. And perhaps because this tape is a collection of tracks spanning a giant length of time (2006 to 2011), it’s extremely diverse, with the only similarities between tracks being that they share a certain recording quality rather than any certain musical style or instrumentation. Some tracks sound like they could be skrewed covers of dark 1960s psych-fuzz nuggets, while others nod to frequent collaborator Run DMT in their sparse, looped beauty. All of them play off of each other wonderfully, creating an album that’s easy to leave on indefinite repeat. I’m hoping for many more Andy Boay albums to come in the future, preferably not five-plus years in the making a piece.
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