Batstew
(Destijl) LP $15.00 (Out-of-stock)
Roland Woodbe, The Pro From Dover himself, summed up Batstew thus: “It is one odd fucker of an LP.” He goes on to note that it “teeters on a precipice between euphoria and anguish. It is certainly the work of an unstable mind and tortured soul. I mean, you can almost feel Tucker's circuits shorting out as the record progresses.” He talks to his car, slams the doors, the girl whispers and sings along sometimes, there are occasional naif, art brut-ish noisescapes and “the dingaling song at the end of side two … about a Cadillac (among other things) that eventually crumbles into a fuzzy guitar ‘freakout’.” Overall, Woodbe compares Tucker to someone "who claims to be Daniel Johnston who rerecorded Smile,” or "Larry Fischer [doing] Pink Moon … as literally a Volkswagen commercial.”
In The Sack
(Destijl - IND061) CD $13.50 (Out-of-stock)
The cast of characters on In The Sack is familiar to anyone who spent time with Tucker's Batstew record -- upright piano, backward vocals, rants, ravings, life savings. The man is very mean on the piano and the best backward vocalist Jim O'Rourke's ever heard. Pop symphonies in the same solar system as David Ackles, bootleg Brian Wilson, the first Residents record, Moolah, Bruce Haack's kids records, Song Cycle and Horrific Child.