First Night Nephalem

First Night Nephalem is a grungy, punk-forward album from Tape Lab’s Late Night Nephalem, and one of those rare sessions where the whole point actually survived the recording.

Not to get pretentious about it — because nobody needs that — but this was a legendary Tape Lab night. The kind of night that explains the whole operation better than any bio ever could: collaboration, noise, bad ideas becoming good ideas, and people making music together because it is fun. You can hear that all over this one. It is messy, alive, and 100% from the heart.

Yes, it is 35 minutes long. Yes, it is unedited. That is the deal. The rough edges are not a bug; they are the receipt.

First Night Nephalem also marks the first appearance of N@T*, who completely crushes the intro and immediately becomes part of the Tape Lab mythology. Meanwhile, CD+ is unstoppable on the keys throughout the session. Nobody plays piano like CD+. Love it. No notes.

Then there is SPNF!N!TY — wow, what a fun handle to type — adding strange audio textures by reading Moby Dick and other source material into the chaos. The whole thing gets even more warped when the Kaossilator drums are slowed down, bending the rhythm into something heavier, stranger, and way more interesting than it had any right to be.

First Night Nephalem is not polished, not trimmed, and not pretending to be anything other than what it is: a real Tape Lab night captured in full. Grungy, punky, collaborative, ridiculous, and absolutely from the heart.