Syfon Sremo Jeden cassette
Watching the evolution of egg-punk has been somewhat fascinating, particularly its appeal to indoor-kid weirdo punkers finding an outlet and a connection to a scene through their solo projects. At its best, the genre walks a line between memorable songwriting and cartoonish novelty. Something of a celebration of limitations: cheap gear, lo-fi DIY recordings, strange ideas, often with just a single songwriter. In many ways, it has become the punk equivalent of bedroom pop. It’s no wonder the appeal of egg-punk has spread so far and wide. Unfortunately, this debut cassette from SYFON of Warsaw, Poland contains very little of what I enjoy about the genre. Sure, there’s the occasional catchy synth lick, but mostly I hear obnoxious plink-plunking, nu-metal chugging, B-rate CAPTAIN BEEFHEART-style freakout nonsense, and a lack of substance. The tape starts intriguingly enough with their DEVO-esque “Intro,” but it winds up feeling like the peak rather than the starting point. I think the intention here was to slow things down while keeping egg-punk tonality, as if SYFON wanted to make a post-punk egg record. Forget what came first, what comes after the egg? It’s an interesting idea in theory, but the lack of memorable songs on this cassette shows that there’s still a ways to go before that code is cracked.