GLINDA STREET Swyvel is an idea. Very little is known about the two shadowy figures that make up the idea. Apparently, Gabor Csupo discovered the idea slumped over their espressos late one night at his club, Lumpy Gravy. After establishing that the two were still breathing, and in fact, capable of holding a conversation, he was able to piece together the following: 1. SWYVEL seems to enjoy very strong coffee 2. The idea works out of an abandoned building the two discovered somewhere in the city of angels which contains their curious collection of machines, computers and things that make noise. 3. One of them appears to sleep only when it's absolutely necessary. The other one apparently rarely sleeps at all. Perhaps this is in part responsible for their rather skewed perspective. 4. Only one of them owns a firearm. 5. Telephones are evidently not their favorite things. 6. Glinda Street may or may not concern amnesia in the aftermath of a car crash.

NAKED TRUTH MAGAZINE
Issue Number 10

Swyvel is an idea made up off two shadowy figures Scott Wilk and Todd Yvega. They come from LA and apparently are the composers for the USA Networks animated series Duckman. Indeed. The music Swyvel make is very much film scores / soundtracks again and I can see why their work is suited to an animated series. Each song certainly seems to tell a story and there are a lot of different moods on this CD and feelings of action. For example "Elevator" sounds sort of like being in an elevator only made out of music --- you know what I mean. This CD is an odd one but is certainly intriguing.

IMPLOSION MAGAZINE
Review by Cynthia Ariel Conlin

I was introduced to Tone Casualties through this album, and as a result the label has become one of my favorites. These are pure soundscapes --- no vocals or anything like that. Soft, ambient at times, yet haunting. I don't think it's possible to listen to Glinda Street and not think that it could be a movie soundtrack. What kind of movie, exactly, is the question that should be asked. A murder mystery? A psychological thriller? A ghost story? A film about the mob?

Glinda Street is best played loud --- while you're doing something else... something creative, such as graphic art, sculpture... whatever you're into. It's just that kind of album. It sets a mood: a serene, cool, groovy-kinda mood. A good mood.

Swyvel is Scott Wilk and Todd yvega, two guys who have learned to harness the power of that which we call sound. Top-of-the-CD-rack material.

GOOD AND STRANGE MUSIC! MAGAZINE
ISSUE #11, Nov. 1998-Feb. 1999
Review by Wilhelm Murg

There's a scene in Raymond Chandler's FAREWELL, MY LOVELY where the detective, Phillip Marlowe, is beaten, given a shot of heroin, and thrown into the back room of a warehouse, (beautifully played by Robert Mitchum in the film version.) Glinda Street could be the soundtrack running through Marlowe's mind during that experience. It is an expressionistic blur of the different types of music we associate with disturbing, stylized film scenes.

Glinda Street (which "may or may not concern amnesia in the aftermath of a car crash", according to the booklet), is a beautiful, haunting insturmental work that cannotes film noir better than many of the recent movies that have tried to capture that elusive, shadowy mood. It's a grainy tone poem about the nightmare alleys of the mind. Parts of it reminded me of John Zorn's SPILLANE, Henry Mancini's early incindental music, Bartok's more experimental compositions, Nurse With Wound's industrial work, the opening of Goddard's ALPHAVILLE, and Angelo Badalamenti's soundtracks to David Lynch films, but not directly. It's more in establishing the same feeling, connecting with the same slumming muse.

The two man team that makes up Swyvel, Scott Wilk and Todd Yvega, brilliantly combine all of these influences and capture the underlining tonal language of anxiety, uncertainty, longing, broken dreams, and surrealism that is present in these genres. The CD cannotes a world of hard-boiled phantasms and exiled romanticism of the city of angels. Apparently, the music of this CD is entirely electronic, but it sounds lavishly orchestrated. Rather than use standard synthetic tones, Swyvel has created an electronic orchestral sound that "breathes" like the real thing. The tones linger and swirl like smoke in the aftermath of a shoot-out in a cathedral. Glinda Street is a great soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist. Higly recommended for rain-soaked, late night drives through decaying neon lit streets.

APOCALYPSE MAGAZINE
Issue #4
Review by James

Where is Glinda Street and who are Swyvel? And why does this album concern amnesia after a car crash? Well, only the creators of this piece of work could tell you the details behind it, but it sure is bizarre. This sounds like it could very much be the soundtrack to an unreleased film, sixteen tracks of atmospheric sound sculpting and metallic percussive fun that really do evoke disorientation and the possibility of amnesia. A concept album perhaps and a definite challenge but a super find for those who like their experimentation twisted.

D.L.K. THE HELL KEY MAGAZINE
Issue #6, February 1999
Review by Marc Urselli-Scharer

Swyvel is Scott Wilk and Todd Yvega, Frank Zappa alumn and composers for USA Networks animated series Duckman. Their GLINDA STREET CD presents 16 tracks of experimental material featuring nowave influences, concrete music hints and electronics usage. There are no vocals and the range of used sounds varies from synth-oriented acoustic programs of raw material, from digital sounds & samples to noises. The collage of these sources becomes nearly trance-inducing and brings you in an alterated state of mind in which your perspective risks to get skewed, as the one of these two guys, who do apparently rarely sleep at all... GLINDA STREET may be (or may not be) also interpretated as a concept album about amnesia in the aftermath of a car crash and post-incident trauma, actually it is a kind of whirling experience spinning inside your brain as the stars and the birds do after a hard hit... Swirling in a sublime circle of stereophonic pleasures, with occasional overtures made of dreamy ambient joy and rhythmically driven moments...

Voltage Magazine
Issue 9
Review by JC Smith

This CD is a collection of pocket soundtracks inspired by the aftermath of a car crash; each of the tracks on this cinematically-illusory disc is overflowing with musical passages that embrace sly, video nuances while retaining a certain distance, because of the condensed nature of the songs. "Accident" bursts forth with a cartoon-inspired tumble before horns and tension synths lead into clicking, heel-on-pavement percussion, as it winds through a tunnel and into the fantastic amusement park of "Reconstruction". "Four Thirty-One" has a drowsy, early morning disorientation; "Amnesia" paces indecisively, in search of self, peeking behind various musical curtains along the way. Every track is full of imagination and there is always something going on; every track inspires a mental view of pictures both gleeful and grim (but usually with a playful nod) on the bone white screen of the cranial cinema. Fun!

Carpe Noctem Magazine
Issue 15
Review by Carnell

Tone Casualties, a new music label which is a division of animation greats Klasky Csupo (of Nickelodeon's Nicktoons fame) is a fascinating enterprise which features "unconventional sound adventures and daring endeavors into electronic music." The music on Glinda Street, the new album by the duo of Scott Wilk and Todd Yvega, is like the score to a film that would make even David Lynch scratch his head in wonder. Odd and engaging, the sometimes dissonant melodies and unique syncopations make this disc unlike many others. What is most fun about Glinda Street is that, if you lay very still while listening and close your eyes, a delightfully absurd movie can unwind on your eyelids full of circus music, resonating drones, the sound of clocks ticking, and the menacing "oomp-pa-pa" of a calliope from hell. Not exactly club music by any stretch, Swyvel are, by far, one of the more interesting bands I've heard lately ...and one that is highly reccomended.

OUTBURN MAGAZINE
January-May 1999 issue
Review by rodent EK

Part fairy tale, part action adventure, part sci fi..."Glinda Street" by Swyvel plays like a film score that makes me think of Raiders of the Lost Ark, some kind of beat the clock game show, and even The Twilight Zone. With lots of bang for the buck, and lots of slamming horns, edgy melodies, and ticking time bombs, "Glinda Street" delivers a friendly and anxious blend of mad cap audio adventures.

TERRORIZER MAGAZINE
ISSUE #58, Sept. 1998
Review by Damien

Shipping that underwear off to the laundry following your last encounter with an ambient noise record? I'd hold off if I were you. "Glinda Street" may or may not concern amnesia in the wake of a car crash - evidently no one can remember. Whatever the story, it's all too easy to construct a new nightmare against this backdrop of bizarre and unsettling atmospheres. There's a definite incidental music feel here, as the sound seems to be following some unseen horror unfolding beyond our field of vision, and the whole thing'd make a damn good alternative soundtrack to "Driller Killer", "Cannibal Ferox", "I Spit On Your Grave" and so on. A hellish ensemble of, and I quote - "machines, computers and things that make noise" - have been perverted to this wonderfully warped cause. If it's evocative music you crave - evocative, that is, of premature burial, prolonged death or being the last creature on Earth - then give Swyvel a call.