Woo - It's Cosy Inside - DEAD STOCK

- cassette / sealed dead stock -

A little goldmine trash with this handful of sealed dead stock copies of Woo's second record, It's Cosy Inside. It feels fitting to have these the same week we also share the new Are You Before tape compilation - what Woo were doing in the late 80s, whether anyone really cared about it then or not, casts a broad shadow over much of contemporary formations/mutations of DIY electronics and folk experiments. Woo seem to be name checked an awful lot of late, their quixotic and inner-looking folks-y electronica brushed with a subtlety and innate offhand charm that presents an ideal blueprint for today's bedroom introvert. It's Cosy Inside is perhaps where the brothers Ives best established their voice. Many of the songs barely pass two and a half minutes, just about long enough to bring to life miniature worlds and scenes that disappear as quick as shadowplay on the nighttime wall. These are ostensibly fringe expressions, tracks such as Watermark, Marion or the centrepiece title song, play like the greats of Eno and the Berlin School reimagined/rebuilt courtesy of a Blue Peter arts and crafts segment, wholesome and off-centre in equal proportion. It's a strange world the Ives conjure, seemingly always nocturnal, yet still safe inside the day. Their influence seems to be everywhere, but Woo are still wholly unique.