Karate "s/t"

It's the first rainy morning I can remember in a while, during this global warming induced oppressive summer.  I have more rainy day albums than rainy days it seems. Maybe I should move to the Pacific Northwest so I can thoroughly enjoy them more.
This debut by #karate is actually not only my favorite rainy day albums it also doubles as my favorite autumn record. Fall is my favorite of the seasons and as august aproaches it feels like those cool wet days with the smell of fallen leaves are a long way off. Sigh.
I read a review of this album in 1995 and as usual back then Home of the Hits came through by stocking this release.  The first song on this disc "gasoline" opened a dozen mix tapes I made that year. It's slow and spacious first verse set up a tension point with it's "hey..........sugar....." lyric and sparse slowcore instrumentation.  I still haven't gotten sick of that song and it's old enough to buy itself a beer now.
A close friend of mine had moved to NYC some years prior and I had been taking train trips to visit him.  The were affordable and I loved the romanticism of the rails. They were 9 hours long though and would get to the city poor from buying batteries for my cassette Walkman. On more than one occasion this album would be playing as we rolled into that Gotham skyline along the river and lurched through the darkness towards Grand Central Station. It's an image that this record conjures up and creates my own internal artsy fartsy music video for the album.
Man the song "every sister" just started playing here in my kitchen. I can't encapsulate this.  I'm sure you could find an mp3 of this on the internet. If it's grey where you are you really should listen to it if you can find it.  Perfect.