*100 copies limited edition* "There is a place. A place that knows no sadness, where even feeling blue is a happy thing." Blue Cheer? Blue, blue, electric blue.

These tracks, we’ve been told, are based on voice-overs. Voice over what? A human voice … abstracted, distorted, indecipherable. And what, if anything, is being communicated? The artist refers to these pieces as tone-poems. Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss might beg to differ, but we’ve come a long way from the 19th century, and music, especially in scare quotes, can be almost anything nowadays, even when its sonic dimension is decidedly unmusical. Voice-over work is Luke Calzonetti’s side hustle, and the source material here was derived from reaction and screaming sounds vocalized for cartoons. Despite a healthy dose of the playfulness, irreverence, and signal jamming we associate with Calzonetti’s visual realm, is there possibly an aspect of revenge? That said, no beloved cartoon characters were harmed in the creation of these recordings.

The first track, in its opening seconds, suggests — to these ears at least — a yak in the midst of a difficult, disagreeable bowel movement, although how would we know what that sounds like, never having been in proximity to animals native to the Himalayas in Nepal and Tibet. “Yakety yak, don’t talk back.”

Track two is more linguistically human-sounding. A voice in a computer game bouncing off itself, doubling and bubbling over? Rapid babbling. The windpipe in fluctuation. Now and then a distinguishable “okay.” To what end?

Track three. Definitely human utterance. “Okay, sorry.” Or was it, “Okay, say it?” Say what? Are those groans exasperation? An elongated Yeahhh. With voice-over work, there must at times be multiple takes. According to AI, “Voice actors need to maintain vocal clarity and energy for extended periods, which can be physically demanding.” The greatest voice actor, in our opinion, was Mel Blanc, who gave voice to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig — not forgetting Tweety Bird. What might he make of these recordings?

Track four. The most symphonic, in no way euphonic, a form of plunderphonics. Piracy! That’s what’s afoot. The sound of nothing less than pure distress.

Okay, sorry."  — Bob Nickas