Halasan Bazar and Tara King th. “Rot Inside”

13 Oct 2014 — Henry Schiller

“Rot Inside” sounds like it’d be the music that plays during Serge Gainsbourgh and Jane Birkin’s daytrip to hell. It’s the soundtrack to a Halloween party where everyone comes dressed like John Wayne and is of the opinion that Pink Floyd could never recapture the magic of Piper at the Gates of Dawn. “Rot Inside” is evocative of a damp New England backyard on a crisp autumn morning; it is evocative of a rodeo clown come back from the dead, and gunning for the cowboys that tortured him. It is French New Wave meets the American Old West.

Whatever sense it sparks for a particular listener, there is no denying that “Rot Inside”, the product of an unlikely collaboration between the groups Tara King th. and Halasan Bazaar, must reside in the polarized space between different, even contradictory musical forms.

Every moment of psychedelic revivalism is bookmarked by woodland-oriented Scandinavian guff. Every burst of western guitar has lilting around it the sneaking suspicion that Belle and Sebastian has been listened to, absorbed even, by the people playing this song.

Halasan Bazar and Tara King th.'s debut collaborative LP, 8, is out October 13 on Moon Glyph; expect further coverage.