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As sneaky and silent as a panther, Old Light surreptitiously dropped their new release guerrilla-style, at last Friday night's show at Habesha (formerly known as Mudai). The new 7-song cassette, succinctly titled No, is streaming on Bandcamp (and below) and was recorded very, very quickly. From the liner notes:
“NO” is the first in a series of five cassettes to be released by Curly Cassettes in 2013. The rules of the project are:

1. All music to be performed by the four members of Old Light. Each release will be produced & engineered by a different producer, at the location of their choosing.
2. All tracks to be recorded to Tascam 388 tape machine. This enables the project to be mobile according to producer's choice. All mixes to be 8 tracks or less.
3. Mixes to be mastered directly to cassette. This ensures direct analog connection between Old Light & the listener. Digital versions of Side A & Side B will be made available, but not as individual songs.
4. Each subsequent release in the series of 5 to include a new arrangement of 1 song from the previous release.
5. Cassettes are $5 each. When all 5 are complete, they will be made available as a limited edition handmade box set for $20.

The new songs are indicative of Old Light's noteworthy shift toward heavy, shreddy psychedelic rock, favoring spontaneity over all. The band began work on No on Friday, January 18 and completed it on Friday, January 25, just in time for the Habesha show. Yes, that seems remarkably speedy, but in the same week that Old Light recorded more than 32 minutes of new material, I also was very productive:
1. did 1.5 loads of laundry (did not manage to move second load into dryer)
2. read about three pages of Ender's Game on bus
3. thought about replying to some emails
4. cereal


Check out No in full right here, and purchase it over on Bandcamp. The cassettes will also be for sale this Saturday at the second annual Malt Ball—that's at the Wonder Ballroom and you are going. Because it will be awesome.