Gentle Tasaday are a duo from Minnesota comprising Erik Wivinus of improvisational psych-rockers Salamander, and Eric Horferber of various lesser known underground Minneapolis projects, including the short-lived Dorothy Flight Pattern, who's only recorded output appeared on our 1998 compilation "Serotonin Ronin". Our first experience of them was on one side of a 1997 lathe-cut 10" (called "Trouble at the Caves" and released in an edition 50), and we were captivated by their visual style and uncompromisingly zoned astral folk. "In the Mind's Eye of a Blind Tasaday" fulfils the early promise of that 10" and more. It offers striking post-industrial home-recorded music ranging from the openly experimental like "Psychedelic Emergency" (which links the words of Rimbaud with samples from "Desperate Lives," a hilarious late 70s after-school "cautionary" film about the horrible dangers of teenage drug use) to the more naturalistic concerns of neo-Pagan trance-folk like "Sad Wheel of the Seasons" and the cabin fever strumming of "Summer Story" and "Vision Burn". If reference points are needed, think Organum, Nurse With Wound, Current 93 and Mourning Cloak, with a touch of the solo work of Ghost's Masaki Batoh thrown in for good measure.

CAM008CD - Salamander - Red Ampersand

CAM017CD - Salamander - Red Mantra

CAM037CD - Salamander - Birds of Appetite

CAM070CD - Salamander - Bent Hemlock