Paradise Cleaners Peformance Revue cassette
At first listen to Portland, Oregon’s PARADISE CLEANERS, all I could think was that I wish they had used their cleaning skills to tidy up whatever dubbing set-up was used to duplicate their cassettes. Upon further inspection, it seems that the recording itself is what requires the polishing. Wildly lo-fi, mid-tempo, plodding noise rock. There are some very cool synth licks and some super heady HAWKWIND-esque bass walks throughout the recording, but they get a bit lost in the combination of the recording and tape dubbing quality. PARADISE CLEANERS really shine when their songs stay under three minutes long; the five-and-a-half-minute flanger dirge is a little too out there for me. Normally, their proclamation of being “goth FLIPPER™” would drive me out of my mind with rage. However, after noticing that the last song on the tape has almost the same riff as “Ha Ha Ha” but with added vocal noise and a less catchy performance, perhaps that assessment is more self-aware than I had given them credit for.