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     CommentAuthoroyibo
   • CommentTimeMay 19th 2025

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   https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/nun-darme-stu-turmiento

   As a teenager, VLK undertook employment as a sullen busboy at a small, now-defunct Italian restaurant in Hoboken, New Jersey popular with yuppies on dates, neighborhood old-timers and the occasional local politician. Decorated with the traditional symbols of the Old Country, the atmosphere of the dining room was further enhanced by a 5-disc CD changer populated by a well known local crooner, other Rat-Pack adjacent personalities, and the odd operetta aria outsider. By contrast, the kitchen was soundtracked by a small one-speaker portable radio tuned to WKTU, New York’s premier late-90s dance-pop station. On especially busy evenings when all of the booths were filled, less well-regarded patrons could be seated at one of the small tables next to the kitchen door, which would often lead to complaints about the disorienting multi-genre sound mix, prompting the owner, a choleric Irish-American who tended the bar under an Italianate pseudonym he shared with the establishment itself, to lay into the cooks who would defer on the volume level of Culture Beat or C & C Music Factory for the next half hour.

   While no known recording of the interior of the former Hoboken eatery exists today, on “Nun Darme Stu Turmiento”, VLK presents a sonic historical reconstruction of the environment one might encounter clearing baked ziti detritus at this very specific place and time. Using sounds from some of the 5-disc changer’s most cherished classics, modern computer-assisted music production techniques, and field samples from the actual Old Country, the resulting mixtape aims for something impressionistic, immersive and representative of the complete multi-sensory experience, rather than just accuracy in recreating the restaurant’s soundscape. The cassette comes packaged within a genuine reproduction of the original menu, which includes the popular “Alla Vodka Week” specials, and comes with a custom-produced "Italian style" STR drinks coaster. This is the second release covering VLK’s employment history following 2018’s “Avril and Sean in Camden”.
   credits
   released February 23, 2021

   

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