The new Capstan Shafts release is on cassette. How awesome is that? It comes in a neat little hand-sewn package, the tape itself is that weird shade of urine we all remember from our high school copies of Automatic For The People, and the music contained on the release is the best bunch of Capstan Shafts recordings yet. Score!

Dean Wells coats each of his releases under the Shafts moniker with as much tape hiss as his trusty four-track will allow, so the cassette format makes a lot of sense. You know the album is going to be as low-fi as they come, so why bother with the digital format, right? It’s a smart move that forces the listener to pay more attention to the album than usual. Most folks are going to have to hook their tape deck up again to even play the album. Heck, they might even have to dig up their old walkman. Thankfully, this reviewer still has all of his old antiquated equipment hooked up - except the 8-track player, and that’s only because I don’t have enough outlets to plug it in - so playing my copy of Dreamily Throttled Revolts endlessly has been a snap.

And the verdict is… Dreamilys Throttled Revolts is fucking great. The best twenty-four minutes of low-fi pop one could ask for. Every single Shafts release gets better and better, but now it’s getting so good that you’re wondering why the hell the guy doesn’t have a massive cult following hanging on his every handmade release.

For the uninitiated, the Capstan Shafts sound gets a ton of deserved comparisons to Bee Thousand-era Guided By Voices, while a hint of Jandek mythology hangs in the air. The latter is mostly because Dean Wells hasn’t yet done any live performances, and most questions directed his way are answered with an inscrutable directness that almost skirts around the information, yet gives you exactly what you need to know. And boy, you just can’t mistake the GBV influence in tracks like the opening “Half A Bottle And A Full Moon”, which shows Mr. Wells as some cross-pollinated hybrid between Bob Pollard and Tobin Sprout. And while that’s a good reference point, it isn’t the only thing one can say about the album. I mean, dig the shuffle in the minute-long “Playing Doctrine”, the sparse tambourine-laden arrangement on “Interdiction Hips” and the falsettotastic “Abandoned Drum Circles”. Not to mention the amazingly anthemic “She Makes Amazing Look Stupid”. Seriously, these songs are magnificent, and you need to hear them.

Dreamilys Throttled Revolts started out as a twenty-six track compact disc called Consumption Violets, but after numerous tracklist changes - and a few re-recordings - Dean settled on this here wonderful cassette. The lucky few that get one of the hundered limited-edition copies will undoubtedly have many a living-room dance party to all these short tunes with plenty of time left over for their silly digital pursuits afterwards.

Thank god for Dean Wells. This tape rules.

The Capstan Shafts - The Better She Looks The Less She Will See.mp3
The Capstan Shafts - She Makes Amazing Look Stupid.mp3

Buy your copy of Dreamilys Throttled Revolts from Fall Of The West!
Hear more at the unofficial Capstan Shafts MySpace page!