smooth assailing

mossy throats

2009-05-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

leaves of the mind c41
[2008, young tapes]

this cassette, put out on peter friel's post-jk tapes imprint, is from one of several projects involving ferndale, michigan's dan dlugosielski (pictured alongside suzette smith as haunted castle).

leaves of the mind begins with the grotesque murmur of vocals, which are slowed down to an inhuman degree. after a minute of only that, they'll be replaced by a wash of subtly mixed white noise that rolls in like the tide (and continues to do so, projecting a serene oceanic soundscape). immediately following that initial breaker is some beautiful, yet distinctly somber, synth playing, which sounds a little submerged, though that ties in ideally with the watery vibe, and that's joined by occasional wind chimes. all of this is happening, primarily, in the right channel. the tape hiss in my left ear ends up serving as a useful environmental companion to the ebb in the other. an understated humming drone will be added on later, but it'll be displaced by a slightly different variant, shortly thereafter, although the general feel of it, stammering and droney, stays the same. once that's synced up with a higher chirping, which shadows its every quiver, the track increases in amplitude, thankfully, bringing the synth up with it, since it was beginning to lose its definition amidst the other layers. speaking of which, those will quickly fade away, allowing for elongated squeals that will turn into high-pitched drones.

the remaining track on the first side starts off with two and a half more minutes of weirdo vocal manipulations before unexpectedly shifting into a blaring drone. after that passes, it's back to the vocals, but there will be one more noisy interjection. then, when the next piercing drones are added, they'll work in cooperation with the vocals, though they are mixed down pretty low. that will yield to a shrill buzzing that slowly manages to claw its way into the track's forefront (and then precedes to ascend way beyond that). i find that there's somewhat of an unnerving quality produced by the combination of the vocals and that loud drone, but once it seems like it's all going to be too much, the noise fades out for ephemeral heli-sputter. following that, it's back to that buzzing drone, but, in its renewed form, it's more centrally located in correlation with everything else. just before the side ends, the synth from the first track replaces the vocals.
side b opens with continual sweeps of loudly arcing (eerie) synth(?) drone that, after a couple of minutes, subsides to a wavy, droning undercurrent, briefly, before returning, slower and affected. the normal loop will then overlap that, and be treated with delay, so that it rings out endlessly. the echo of that is overdubbed by even more of the same looping layers. even when dan manages to break out of this incestuous cycle, he'll continue to sporadically use that main loop (or at least partial sounds from it) in a mutated manner. as he was transitioning out of that, he introduced a solid droning foundation, out of which surfaces the wavy drone that briefly occurred earlier. awesome. and it's even better once it becomes the focal point. eventually, he'll bring in low-end rumbling and a stuttering, mildly distorted foundation (that randomly emits pops and crackles which make me think the tape's about to disintegrate; intentional or not, it works). unexpectedly, out of the muffled noise arise slow, entrancing synth waves. those will soon transform into the melody from side a, and it's great now having it equally represented in both speakers. i also like that the more sonically intrusive of the two drones has dropped out, since the relationship between the synth and that rad fluctuating drone is excellent and deserves to be heard clearly. the last few minutes will do away with the synth in favor of shrill, drawn out tones, gusty ambiance and low, rhythmically undulating noises, which i believe to be a looped excerpt of the murmuring vocals.
i'm liking the hell out of this tape right now. (sparingly used) melody, noise, repetition, memorable droning, recurring themes... leaves of the mind definitely speaks to me. currently, it looks like there are still copies available at animal psi and dnt records.

Leaves of the Mind A2

Mossy Throats @ The Fact House (Part One); Lexington, KY 2/21/2009

(Part Two)

god willing

2009-05-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

untitled c20
[2009, i just live here]

this is an interesting tape from ren, not so much because of the sounds (which are great), but because of how little info there is about it. i'm led to believe that it's from this year, since it's not listed under god willing's personal inventory of his releases, which was updated early december of last year. unlike his other stuff on ijlh, there's no catalog number or anything else to be found on this, making it difficult to track down... and to further complicate matters it appears that i just live here's site no longer exists... hrm. i see this is sold out over at tomentosa, but other than that, i can't find the cassette anywhere. i got it from rrrecords, but it's not there anymore, either.

sound-wise, i'm finding some common ground between this and the last gw tape i reviewed, the split with leslie keffer, as both centered around tonal bliss, but this time ren has a little more time to expand upon that, and he'll make the most of it.

the first side starts out with low and high droning that's joined by a periodic stuttering sound, separate from the main layers, which serves as a rad rhythmic device, and also takes your focus away from the static drones. after a minute or so, schofield adds a new, occasionally undulating loop. a little while later the track becomes increasingly louder, and the rhythm will get somewhat lost amongst the ascending density. it won't disappear completely, but now every instance causes a rippling affect, with its low waves breaking up the drones and steady pulsations. near the midway point, once the distorted noise begins to take over, i can still hear ren's main oscillations and appreciate the low rhythmic throbbing that's clashing with the higher drone, which is trying to free itself from the grip of distortion that's grounding it. with just over a minute left, the track shifts as the thickness of it is replaced by swift-moving shrill noise and feedback, which is thrust upon a calm wave of humming drone (as well as the faint recurrence of the stuttering rhythm), which, pretty much brings the track around full circle, just swap out the other drone for the terrific noise upgrade.
side b opens with low droning and electronic chirps, though the latter will soon devolve into a choked up mess of noisy utterances. the initial drone will also change into muffled rumbling... sounds like the highs are too much so, and same goes for the lows. the strangulated noise will soon recede for deep, tonally fluctuating droning which is aided, in spots, by a bit of distortion. this has a potential for melody, but ren keeps it varied; changing up the pattern, tweaking it a little, but it's still nice to hear the same tones repeating themselves, though just not in the correct order, or with a strict sense of timing. after four minutes the drones will get chopped up and further distorted, ultimately turning into fast-paced stammering, that actually manages to provide a nice rhythm. a few minutes later and everything will have calmed back down to the earlier tonal play, but ren doesn't stop there, continuing to gradually revert until he's reincorporated the strangled squawks and ceiling scraping low-end. the noise that was tacked on to the last part of side a will also close out this side, making for a doubly satisfying conclusion.

sick tape. the more god willing that i'm hearing, the more i'm liking. his guitar tone / drone shit is the most appealing, to me, and this is probably my favorite so far. if i ever get a turntable again, i'll let you know how i feel about the privy seals split...

God Willing - Untitled c20 [2009, I Just Live Here]

God Willing in St. Louis
(noisier than this cassette and killin' it)

dragging an ox through water

2009-05-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

the tropics of phenomenon
[2009, freedom to spend]

this disc is the third release on peter swanson's fts label and it follows a pair which i thoroughly enjoyed in bulbs' light ships and yellow swans' drowner, so i was looking forward to checking out (the previously unknown to me) dragging an ox through water (pdx's brian mumford). swanson's well-written press sheet certainly helped to stoke the fire of my anticipation...

the minute long opener, i would understand, serves as a base introduction to daotw's modus operandi with its blend of acoustic folk coupled with electronic dissonance (in this instance, by way of multiple layers of erratic electric guitar chords). overall, it's a good set-up for tropics of phenomenon's (released last year as a 12" on awesome vistas) imperative organic / inorganic relationship as well as its juxtaposition of noise / experimentation with, what i'd call, indie-folk.

snowbank treatment, which begins with unabated bass drum kicks, is, by leaps and bounds, this disc's highlight. that is to say, its catchiest and most accessible. it also sees his electronic hybrid working together the most congruently. there's a bit of acoustic stringwork that plays a companion role to the simple beat and matching cymbal taps, while the rest of the song is filled out by melodic (and otherwise pleasant) electronic elements. his adventurous leanings are held closely at bay, allowing snowbank to simply exist as a bouncy electronic-folk song without any other trappings.

with the two parter a.) the unbearable dumbness of being (take that milan kundera) b.) earthen airlock, mumford will distance himself from any semblance of structure, beginning the track by manipulating a musical loop and then jumping from that into low droning, joined by a winding distorted buzz, and then eventually rising out of that with low-key field recordings (from an actual field, sounds like) along with minimal electronic additions.

it's back to basics, somewhat, with dice smiles, though the singing now is sedated, and, by extension, less impactful (despite containing the lyric "ya have dreams shit all over your face"). the flute, which comes in between the verses, at least provides a little melodic oasis amidst the song's barren landscape.

following five seconds of silence (pause), comes, arguably, phenomenon's most ambitious offering, predictions. for the first time we get legitimate noise in addition to the folky vocals. unfortunately, all this does for me, is shine a bright light on how unnecessary brian's singing is in this kind of setting. if you're into noise, the vocals will most likely detract from that. if you dig folk, the discord is surely not going to do you any favors. i might not be saying the same thing if there was a hook, or something particularly striking about the vocals... but i'm just not hearing it.
dragging an ox through water is more successful when he's not so far-reaching, such as with the more conventional songs like snowbank treatment, and this seventh track, houses and homonculi, though this one does have a noisy edge to its airy strumming in the form of high, pitch-shifting tones serving as the bridge. this time that addition feels natural, clearly more so than on predictions; however, you should take into account the fact that its occurrence is briefer and carefully mixed in, all of which alludes to a harsher sound without actually being forceful enough to scare off the faint of ear.

the concise lilacs sprang from these apes' brains (shut down all u.s. torture facilities) pretty much exists just so brian would be able to utter that entire line while being accompanied by music. he'll follow that up by striking an evener balance between uptempo acoustic guitar and experimental electronics with devil's prayer, but, again, the bulk of the experimental part of that will be relegated to a stopgap in between the verses.

not harping on powers serves as a callback to predictions in not only its integration of noisier aspects, but also in the addition of (male) backing vocals, which only pop up on these two tracks. powers isn't as abrasive as its companion piece, a good deal of the noise sounds like it's produced by affected electric guitar, so, here, the divide between the noise and brian's singer-songwriter styling isn't quite as disjunct.
honestly, based on the praise for this that i've seen in a couple of different places, i might be the only one who doesn't think that this is a gift sent down from the heavens... which astounds me because i like noise, pop and folk more than most people, i think. there's definitely parts of this that are appealing: mumford's got a great voice that seems tailor-made for music of an americana / folk vein, he's shown that he has a head for rhythm and melody as well as noise... but the sum of what he's doing just doesn't add up for me. as much as i like the sound of his voice, with scant memorability in the lyrical department (and melody-wise, he's either hit or indifference) his whole noise / folk amalgamation comes of like high-concept kitsch. i can see why people are diggin' this, but there's already someone who has mixed (better) catchy folk with (better) noise, more sincerely, and his name is kites (or christopher forgues, if you want to be precise). so, i'll just stick with peace trials, but, hey, that's just me.

Not Harping on Powers

Predictions, by DAOTW @ PDX Pop Now!; Portland, OR 2008

hunting rituals

2009-05-04T19:37:00.000-07:00

brooding forest c20
[2008, myiasis tapes]

on the last (housecraft) hunting rituals cassette, i mentioned that i wasn't so sure that it was just scott by himself, well, this time i know it's not just him as brooding forest sees jeremy buchan included in the fold. now, if you're keeping score at home, that means that hunting rituals, at least in this instance, are more fossils (with two former members out of three total) than fossils. david payne keeps on keepin' on, though.

brooding forest opens with ringing metallic sounds, rhythmic stomping in the forefront along with slowly wavering high-pitched whines, though, that will all change after a couple of minutes. from there, this duo take a turn towards shrill screeching and howling, with occasional moments of instrumental quasi-clarity (i think i heard guitar strings in there)... one thing's for certain though, whatever they're using, they sure as hell aren't playing as was originally intended since this is awash with harsh tones that seem to cry out from all angles. it's even more assaultive considering that this is essentially the sum of what they're doing (though, there's also some lower moaning which is sporadically interspersed). there won't be too much around to divert your attention away from the noise for a few more minutes, but when they do get to that point, they kindly provide us with a foundation consisting of, what's tantamount to, a distorted muffle in the tape, occurring in periodic intervals. i find that this creates a great, albeit vague and off-kilter, rhythmic quality. hunting rituals also balance out the stridence with an emphasis on layers of quivering, faintly undulating, and noisy, droning.
i'm greatly appreciative for the listing of their instrumentation on the insert, because, when i have to guess, i'm fairly certain that i'm wrong 99% of the time... and yet, that doesn't stop me from doing it. in addition to them spelling out what they were doing, there's also a pervasive calmness in the onset of the second side, which makes the instruments easier to recognize, in this case, that would be easy mannered horn blows along with jeremy's clarinet. when johnson's wonderful melody drops off, shortly after three minutes, the clarinet reverts back to the wild squealing that permeated most of side a. that will be joined solely, for the most part, by a loop of slow, rumbling clamor. when buchan's dissonance passes, the horns will make their return, though their tone isn't quite as welcoming as it was, more like warning; however, what they were making us look out for, turns out to be a dramatic shift, right after seven minutes... all of a sudden brooding forest becomes the scene of a psychedelic tribal jam (super brief, as far as jams go), replete with an upbeat, though simplistic, drum beat, as well as slowed down vocal chanting and intoning. it's too upbeat to be evil, but too fucking weird to not be. i dunno, man, for some reason this reminds me of an (experimental) musical tribute to the peyote scene from young guns. i think it's because of the sound of the vocals. anyway, rad shit, for sure.

like i've said previously, and will continue to do until i come across something that isn't good, i haven't heard anything from hunting rituals that i wouldn't recommend. that being said, i've enjoyed the last couple of tapes most of all; the memorable melodic aspects and the unexpected twists have been fantastic, and keep me looking forward to what scott's going to do next, which is refreshing, to say the least.

~~only thirty copies of this were released, so i doubt that there's many more left.~~ all gone, but....

update (5/6): apparently i'm not the only one to take notice of how awesome this tape is as it's getting a second life as a ten inch on ecstatic peace! i'm inclined to think that it's fairly uncommon for a tape to get reissued on vinyl and especially rare when said cassette was put out in such an intimate run, so that's interesting news. i believe that this is impending, with no concrete release date as of yet.

Brooding Forest Side A excerpt (from 0:00 to 4:27)

telecult powers

2009-05-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

kiss the viper's fang c30
[2008, obsolete units]

uh oh, here's another mystery duo who (mostly) play with homemade synthesizers. weird. their monikers are witchbeam jones and mister matthews, hey, at least there's last names this time. there's also a location, brooklyn (by way of cleveland) as well as photographic evidence of their existence (girl sold separately). additionally, they run the label temple of pei, which seems strictly limited to their own efforts / collaborations.

bubbling synth tones usher in side a's kissed by a gygaxian prism (fun fact: gygaxian is a real word!). following closely behind that is a faint distorted flutter along with a drifting drone. out of these emerges a layer of bouncy pulsations, with other vibrating synth tones left to slowly maneuver their way through and around them. once this paradigm is established, jones and matthews then begin to alter it. some of these alterations are minute; increasing the amplitude of the distorted staccato, weaving the rhythmic pulses in and out of range. others bear a more significant impact; speeding up the rate of the rhythm and then eventually turning that into a near seamless throb. during prism's second half telecult powers introduce a nice pendulum-like wave. when the rhythm momentarily disappears, that gentle swinging sound will be replaced with a quicker see-sawing tone (it'll also stick around once that rhythmic layer comes back). the final couple of minutes are spent on deconstructing, as previously key aspects are rendered lost to the tiers of looser synth drones / fuckery.

side b's strange news from a distant star sees telecult powers maximizing minimalism as their approach here is rather scaled back... even though side a's effort wasn't all that involved (but, rather (d)evolved). it starts out with a catchy synth equivalent of a bass-line along with a meandering stutter (which occasionally sound like the sputtering of cars from the jetsons). after a minute, both of those will be joined by a faint distorted drone off in the distance. these two latter elements will float in and out of prominence. as strange news plays out, they'll retain the feel of certain things, but tweak them ever so slightly. the primary drone for instance; it'll undergo a few different shifts in its pattern, but i can always trace it back to its original form because the tone is still there. to a lesser degree, the same can be said for the vibrating drones. it's their seemingly insignificant adjustments to, what they've come to establish as, central layers which keep this track feeling new, without forsaking what was most appealing about these elements to begin with. even after ten minutes, when the changes to the track become the most glaring, there's still that slight semblance of what once was that holds strange news together. i think that this is something that the first track (slightly) suffered from by not having, because, when it degraded during its final minutes, there was nothing all that solid left to grasp ahold of.
i'm diggin' kiss the viper's fang, in particular, the b side, though, most of the first side was rad, too. the ending was somewhat of a letdown, but only because i liked what came before it so much. equally as great as the finer moments of this cassette is its cover art. this has to be one of the best 80s homages that i've seen in a long time. genius, and outside of the kitsch value, it actually serves as a decent representation of the music, too... something that seems to be turning into a lost art.

Strange News from a Distant Star excerpt (from 0:00 to 5:59)

Telecult Powers @ Vanishing Point; Brooklyn, NY 11/13/08

clerics

2009-05-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

a little heads up, i'm back to working full-time hours at my real job, so expect reviews to happen mainly during the weekend... because i have no life.

born in a lake c30
[2009, 905 tapes]

clerics (not to be confused with the clerics) is the meeting of prominent label runners sal giorgi (peasant magik) and 905 tapes' own mike haley (wether, big china & little trouble, blown doors, deerstalker). after becoming well acquainted with peasant magik, this is the first musical project that i've gotten to check out from sal himself, though he does have a few other things kicking around out there, too: gleam, belegost, pillars of heaven and the vellum kid.
these guys waste precious little time in letting us know that born in a lake is going to center around drones as they introduce multiple layers of them. the primary of those is a great monotone humming, under which reside two (related) layers that would drone, had they not been manipulated into constantly shuffling waves. just before two minutes, clerics provide us with, in my mind, the cassette's most shining highlight: a fantastic call and response between a dark, vibrating drone and a short, pleasant tonal loop. the random flourishes that are added are fine enough touches, but ultimately auxiliary in comparison to the sloshing base and that tone / drone relationship. when that finally tapers off, after six minutes or so, more drones will be added to the mix. i appreciate how, despite the track's flux, they'll retain that shuffling foundation. it's nice to have that feeling of familiarity, especially once they do away with the terrific melody. once things start to settle down, in the latter minutes, i find myself really drawn to the whirling background drones, particularly the conflicting speed of their flutters. clerics will build off of this dynamic with a heavier constant buzzing as well as marginally playful synth tones. they'll also manage to conjure up one last memorable drone, before closing out the side with unaccompanied clamor.
the other track will appear to carry over a few elements from its predecessor, chiefly, the thin fluctuations and distorted buzz, though they'll take a bit of care towards various manipulations of the latter in the early going. they'll also pepper the piece with unexpected shrill outbursts, which provide a nice offset to their lulling backdrop. eventually the noise will clear out for a skipping foundation that i'd liken to a record being played backwards. this will then be paired with a submerged synth line that gradually becomes clearer, and sounds angelic amidst the distorted rustling and light howling tones. just as things had reached a wonderful groove, there's a sudden shift into minimal watery ambiance, with a complimentary humming drone. shortly thereafter they'll add a couple of piercing whines (somewhat buried, as to not be too harsh); one continually trembling, the other occurring in drawn out waves. the interaction between these tones is brilliant. more drones will come to join the fray, as well as a melodic synth pattern, every so often. initially, it all feels pretty anti-climactic, considering what preceded it, but the more that i listen to it, the more endeared i am to its subtleties, as well as the overall tranquil sway, which culminates with a beautiful seventeen second conclusion.

taking into account who's involved in this, i had no doubt that born in a lake would be anything other than good, but, turns out it's a hell of a lot better than merely good. killer tape. this is the follow up to 2006's orange blue sky ep, which giorgi released, and i hope, for the benefit of my ears, that there's more to come.

Born in a Lake Side B excerpt (from 0:00 to 5:00)

mudboy

2009-04-27T20:00:00.001-07:00

is:is c30
[2008, gods of tundra]

ah, there's a black veil of intrigue surrounding this one. for starters, absolutely no one has talked about this tape. outside of having previously been in a few people's distro lists... not a fucking word. secondly, mudboy (providence's raphael lyon) doesn't list this on the discography section of his website. third, whoever added this tape to discogs didn't add it under raphael's mudboy page (creating an entirely new entity). seeing how there's no info available, this actually makes sense, but i'm fairly certain that it's lyon (two experimental mudboys?! doubtful)... but you never know. anyway, is:is is (is) waaaay too good to have slipped past everyone's collective radar. update! talked with raphael and he confirmed that it's his release (he also fixed the discogs weirdness). so then, that's that.
supposedly, this is part of mudboy's "impossible duets" series (which, appropriately enough, there's no info about), and as such, both tracks feature collaborators whose names should ring familiar to a good deal of you. side a's the martian timeslip has carlos gonzales (russian tsarlag) and~~rkd (who?)~~ (the writing looks a hell of a lot like rkd, but it's pkd, as in the author.. which would make a lot more sense). it starts off with a phenomenal loop of slow, panning synthetic percussion and beautifully drifting electronic ambiance. after two minutes we get carlos' reading of an excerpt from philip k. dick's the martian time-slip. what i'm most impressed with is how good his vocals sound. russian tsarcasm / tsarlag relies a lot on his odd nasally vocal delivery (and interesting lyrics), but here, that's not the case. it's also worth mentioning how great it is that it's also not as unabashedly lo-fi as his tapes. while that works (great) for what he does, i'm floored by how terrific everything sounds on tms. i really love the panned multi-tracking of his vocals, too... and the deliberate pace of the reading, coupled with the lengthy absences of vocals and, of course, the incredible words of philip dick.. ugh, i could rave about this all day. when carlos gets to "i love mozart... i'll put this tape on" there's an outburst of noisy synth droning "a hideous racket screeches and shrieks issued from the speakers like the convuuuullllsssionsss..." from there his vocals adopt an occasional drawn out characteristic, lingering on certain words to glorious effect. once the track calms back down, the beat remains in a more forceful state than it previously was. i dig that every time gonzales gets to "i love mozart!" there's a surge in noise, "a great raaarrriiittty from the gooooolden age of recordingssss"... this is so fuckin' good. i'm placing the majority of my enthusiasm with carlos's performance, but, truly, the music is every bit as integral as his (inspired) reading is; killer beat, great synth droning, awesome, unexpected noise... pure brilliance all around.
i dunno about impossible, but side b's breakaway religion does, at least, feature an unlikely combination of collaborators in demons' steve kenney (also of hatred, galen, isis & werewolves) and rodger stella (most notably of macronympha and hollow bush). the unlikeliest aspect of this is how sedated it is. i never thought that i'd use the word gorgeous in connection with anything concerning stella, but, i was wrong! this is lovely and revolves around dreamy dynamic synth lines, subtle rhythmic undertones, catchy loops and blissful droning. even at the midway point, when a layer of distortion (which turns into a noisy rumble) briefly comes through, it can't knock religion off of its heavenly perch, though it will signal a change in the track, as it comes to shed all of its layers in favor of low end rhythmic pulses and synthesizer fuckery / wavy droning, with a renewed vigor for looping in the final minutes.

incredible tape. i still get can't over the fact that i'm the only person pointing out how awesome it is... whatever... physical copies of it appear to be long gone, so those who cared to know, clearly knew.

Mudboy - Is:Is c30 [2008, Gods of Tundra]

Demons (Nate Young & Steve Kenney) w/ Rodger Stella @ No Fun Fest; NYC 2008
(crap visuals (of the performers), but perfect audio)

hollow bonez

2009-04-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

blue blazer irregular c25
[2009, 905 tapes]

the perkiest of the perks from doing this blog is getting things that i've never heard of, and having those things fucking rule. hollow bonez are a prime example. there's no backstory on this duo, hailing from parts unknown, not possessing any online way of discovering more about them and further obfuscating matters by using pseudonyms instead of real names: one is a character from the 1984 cult sci-fi flick buckaroo banzai (pinky carruthers) and the other is from seinfeld (whitey fisk). gotta love the contrast between the origins of their names. the title of the tape is also a reference to banzai, which correlates to pinky's character.. and there's your useless trivia fact for today. beyond that, all i know is that they make their own synthesizers, but that's stated in the tape's liner notes.

8th dim mention starts out with a sick loop of echoing zaps from one synth before an inconsistent rattling drone emanates from the other, a little while later. next comes a layer of lightly distorted shooting tones along with squealing in the background. near the two minute mark, the shots start coming in clusters, giving the layer a bumpy textural droning type of feel. that'll be followed by another staccato layer as well as vague siren tones. then, a hearty rumble and a nice dominant drone, as all of the other layers mesh into one undercurrent of rapidly throbbing synth. to the background, the duo will add more whopping tones along with a swarming drone, at the same time as the foundation begins to lose its shape, transmogrifying into throttled humming while the main drone also shifts, away from its stasis and into a wonderful rhythmic swell. after six minutes, a new layer of slow, muffled, echoing tones (which turn into a rad booming sound as the loop descends) come into play. during the brief respite from that they'll dig up the introductory loops, removing everything else except for the aforementioned echoing loop. to that, they'll throw in occasional chirps. the central loop that they'll finish up with totally reminds me of the score during psycho's shower-stabbing scene, but slowed way the fuck down; very anxiety-inducing.
hollow bonez opt to keep things minimal for the start of side b's cigar store indian, with faint (i thought that my tape was effed up because, as i was ripping this, the audio was barely registering.. just a bolder blue line, over the top of a lighter one) winding drone that will eventually come to be joined by understated rattling and looping squeals in the background, i shouldn't say that, the whole first few minutes of this solely exist in the background. they'll soon form a great pattern, hinging upon the repetition of those squeals, but also consisting of a rhythmic knock, with the still present synth vibrations out in front. another memorable loop of shrieking tonality will be tossed in with the rest of their squeals, and that deadened percussive lurch. a sweeping loop of stammering synth will periodically come over the top of indian's humming foundation. the latter elements will congeal into a rad rhythmic oscillation, accompanied by a new layer of tonally fluctuating droning (which reaches piercing highs and also dips down into dying battery-like valleys). as the tape winds down they'll shy away from the high tones, focusing squarely on the mids and lows, whilst firmly retaining their semblance of rhythm.
these guys had me at homemade synthz, so i'm stoked that the music turned out to be so fantastic. as i assume you've gathered, this is very much loop-based (albeit, with a definite dynamic slant) and more experimental than noise, but if you're a fan of synths, rhythmic qualities and memorable sounds, you absolutely need this. blue blazer irregular will stand as one of my favorite tapes of the year, for sure.

Cigar Store Indian excerpt (from 6:48 to 12:02)

rale

2009-04-27T16:17:00.000-07:00

nightside / shadeup c26
[2008, peasant magik]

the first thing that struck me about this tape was.. damn, it looks really monorail trespass-y.. and, sure enough, (mt label head (and good noise-maker)) jon borges supplied the photography for it. i'm glad that i wasn't just imagining things. the audio was handled by oakland's william hutson (who's also recorded under his given name and as necklacing, a duo with matthew sullivan (earn, privy seals, vague apology, black chastity, deep jew, protein den, genius females). oh, and fun fact: a rale is a short series of rapid loud sounds, most commonly used when referring to abnormalities in the chest cavity, specifically the lungs.

the discord of banged piano keys will set in motion a series of drones which open up nightside. i dig the interplay between these constant, vibrating and undulating layers. william's got his bases covered nicely, here, and the result of that effort is a picture-perfect lull. it gets even more memorable once all of the layers begin to roll over and under each other, crafting beautiful billows of sound. a short while after that, rale will incorporate a light, bottom-dwelling, distorted crunch, but as more time passes, a noisier drone will start to rise up in static-rich swells, amidst the serene lull, which begins to ebb as the distortion gradually gains in strength, washing over everything with its choppy waves. by the time a high-pitched quivering drone joins nightside's maelstrom, the two principle drones will hardly be noticeable anymore.

shadeup starts out with a high, hollow, wavering drone, a thin, persistent crackle of distortion and another hollow drone beneath the other one. there's also some darker drones that will occasionally creep up in amplitude, only to fall back into the shadows. after a few minutes those will spawn continual low vibrations, which provide a counterbalance to the multi-layered howling... though, as the track gains in minutes, there will be less distinction between these layers.

as was the case on side a, a noisy drone will ascend from out of nowhere, this one sounds like the roar of distant jet engines. it's nice that it won't muscle the other layers out of the way; it's focal, but cohabitual. eventually, everything will be stripped away, leaving just the roaring drone and old vinyl-esque crack and pops, but only the latter will come to close out (the final two minutes of) the tape, transforming into odd sputtering noises by the end.
i'm digging this tape quite a bit. it's a quality droner that doesn't rest its weight so much on melodic devices as much as it does on the interaction between these rather standard-fare drones, taking those and turning them into something captivating and worth listening to. ultimately, though, i feel that it was rale's incorporation of noisier elements (which never overbore) that tipped the scales in his favor.
i thought, when i was doing the hater of life review, that there were still copies of this, but, happily, it is oop. well, good for peasant magik (and hutson), bad for procrastinators who didn't act fast enough, but fret not, i've got you covered.

Rale - Nightside / Shadeup c26 [2008, Peasant Magik]

Rale @ Pocket Sandwich; Portland, OR 11/02/08
(special thanks to the people of portland for seemingly videotapping every show and adding it to youtube)

basillica

2009-04-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

the correct ritual c90
[2009, bells hill]

culling once again from the newcastle area, mckeating's latest cassette offering is the solo venture of mike vest, from psych-rock groups bong, lobster priest and blue queen (all of which share one or more members).

fun fact: basilicas (proper spelling) are large, ornate cathedrals that have been given special ceremonial rites by the pope. so, super churches then.

side a's opener, invisible tarot, has a rad swaying drone, gently going in and out of audible range. hardly anything else will be added, just unsteady whirling tones, which are tiered nicely in both the (deep) background as well as tucked away just underneath vest's grand pendulum.

the distinguished presence of mike's guitar will take on a secondary role in down on the street, existing only in minimal chords (most of which are transpiring off in the distance) which will get turned into a fairly roundabout, but still welcomed, loop. the most noteworthy element here are competing loops of muddy tones that whirl and quiver, and intertwine.

i really wish that ever changing present was a lot longer than it is (less than three minutes), because i'm absolutely loving the slow, melodic guitar pattern, which will essentially be left to its own devices, save for a few stray drones, buried here and there.

now, mongular trails is as long as the last song should've been (seventeen minutes). bummer. this is good, too, though; firmly on the psychedelic side of the spectrum. the treatment (on top of the wah pedal) that mike applies to his guitar provides this with a dreamlike / underwater state. the bubbly tones of that will form a fantastic partnership with a cleaner guitar melody that's partially obfuscated by the other layers of sporadic guitar. during the first half he'll do his damnedest to keep things interesting by changing up the auxiliary guitar, vacillating between denser layering and scaled back clarity. that's well and good, but as trails reaches the midway point it really starts to take off, as that initial melody gets thrust into the forefront and now that i can hear the loop in its entirety, i'm completely entranced by it. even as it slips back into the track's depths it remains distinct, since all of the excess layers have been laid to rest, highlighting the terrific duo of wobbly wah and that brilliant piece of guitar.
in feel, air transforms to liquid runs rather parallel to mongular trails, retaining that submerged vibe, but it lacks the memorable sound of it (or any of the other tracks so far). i do dig the ambient soundscape that's been assembled, but the faster paced wah-addled soloing isn't really doing it for me, unfortunately.

the ten minutes of queened king will quickly right this ship on the strength of a killer combination of low droning sweeps (i'm liking the subtle shifts) and (somewhat) higher-pitched oscillations which are set against vest's casual guitar playing. that wah pedal is a lot more enjoyable when it's being used to warble his spaced out chords, thankfully, that's most often the case.

the a side will have ended up abruptly, but the opening minutes of the second side will explain why: the song hadn't quite run its course yet, so it'll linger (in the same fashion) for almost a minute and a half. curious. it's also worth mentioning that this side only has about twenty minutes worth of music on it, which is fine by me, an hour and a half can be a bit exhaustive (not to mention time consuming) for one tape.

tailored with eyes is one of the few less obviously guitar based tracks on the cassette, and it's a wonderful change of pace. this is all undulated howls and other electronic waves along with a fuzzy creep of drone. mesmerizing.
taking its sweet time in fading in to a noisily humming drone is the final song, dangamamama.. i think i got that right. it's joined in the early going by low-end vibrations for a bit, but they seem to dip out of audibility once the heavy, purposeful thuds of victor solana's (the din) drumming enters the picture. this will also bring in mike's guitar, though its tones are fighting to be heard through that oppressive droning noise. as solana's drumming gains in speed, a new high flying guitar drone swoops through as the dissonance starts to loosen its vice-like grip over everything. when the percussion drops back down to its previous rate, the guitar playing will become clearer as the noisy layer deteriorates into a fractured lurch. all in all, this played out as sort of an anti-jam jam... which i'm still trying to fully wrap my head around..

rad tape, for sure. what i enjoy the most about it is its damn near total disregard for dynamics. too often with drone or psychedelic music that incorporates melody, there's a tremendous amount of concern for track evolution. granted, that can be a lovely (and / or very necessary thing), but sometimes man, all i want to hear is a great fucking loop over and over without it being messed with all the time. that's pretty much what the theme of this tape is... uh, drug music would be another.

Ever Changing Present

hunting rituals

2009-04-21T20:52:00.000-07:00

a slow slow death c22
[2008, housecraft]

the introductory minutes of the first side of this cassette feature some intriguing sounds; harsh cries and whines (and general affected vocal noise), assisted by the hr staple, delayed clamor. all of a sudden everything drops off into nothingness. out of that blackness comes.. saxophone? horns? nice... and actually, it is nice. there's a great foundation loop and then slow, beautifully blown notes. eventually, the main loop will wane, as will the melody, and a new pattern of sweeping instrumental moans come in, on top of faint, random vocals. so, that pattern will now get looped, becoming the track's heart, and then, in swings a bit of decidedly less melodic brass sputter, though it's short lived, and once that's gone, everything else will recede with it. that will create room for scott's rustling clatter in the background (sounding like he's attempted to saw metal) paired with swells of haunting drone. when the sax (or, whatever) returns, it will, initially, match the mood established by those distant moans, though it will break away and lazily meander by the end.
side b keeps the brass instrumentation theme going, at least in the onset, by way of brief snippets, turned loops, but those will quickly subside to minimal drawn out noises (and random bangs) that really work well with scott's absence of a backdrop. the soothing sax (ok, now i'm pretty sure it's sax and horn.. there's nothing written on the tape's liner indicating whether this was a solo effort or not, if so, it's all the more impressive) will dreamily float back into the fold, providing memorable glacial melodies. the instrumentation is in a more structured vein on this side, retaining their focus, instead of breaking away every so often like they did earlier, which is good, because they'll act as a ballast for the upcoming surge of creeping ambiance and racket.

the closing minutes will become more involved once the instrumental layers shed their prior melodic tones. that change will usher in a tense, whirling siren loop in the distance, followed closely by a wash of shrill dissonance right up in front.
alright, by now i've given up on trying to neatly typecast hunting rituals' sound. for a dude with, close to, if not more than, twenty different projects under his belt, i'd expect a little consistency in overall sound.. eh, not so much, but i am finding myself pleasantly surprised with each new release that i get to check out, and as long as they're consistently good (which has certainly been the case), that's all i really care about. awesome.

A Slow Slow Death Side A excerpt (from 0:00 to 7:22)

Scott Johnson, Yvan, Josh St. Denis & Rob Michalchuk; Hamilton, ON 6/21/08

2673

2009-04-21T19:24:00.000-07:00

in dreams 3" cd-r
[2009, dokuro]

some years have passed since i last heard anything from new brunswick, nj's kevin winter (asps, penis in vagina, thee black one, dogo & crackerjacks), but seeing how the last entry on 2673's discogs page is from 2006, i might not be alone in that.

taking the cd's title with a grain of salt, i was preparing myself for twenty minutes of dense noise, but lo, instead i find the disc drifting in on pleasant monotone droning with a persistent stuttering hum underneath it. it won't take very long for the drone to begin switching up its tones a bit, nothing major, but it gives it some depth. a little later, a faint layer of bouncy rhythm will sneak into the mix. the choppy feel of that coincides with the humming layer quite nicely as kevin continues his irregular pattern of tonal shifting interspersed with static droning. when he puts a bit of space in between these two aspects it makes the changes that finally occur, feel significant, which i like a lot.

just shy of five minutes in, the slight rhythm will begin to dip out of range, as a new layer of thin white noise takes its place. not too long after that a subtle ringing drone will weave in and out of the mix, at first getting lost amidst the other one, its waves will eventually become more prominent. that's especially true once the main drone changes up its tone and style (different than before); not so listless, now it soars and slowly twists above the other sounds. the low-end vibrations of the base layer will also gradually break out of their monotony as they start to rise and fall in amplitude.

towards the midsection 2673 swaps out the static for the rhythm as in dreams reaches a great high built around layers of contrasting, yet hypnotic undulating drone. a few minutes later the rhythm will get a bit distorted as a noisier layer gets introduced. it's not too distracting, or jarring, something along the lines of stormy clamor, though the main drones will be lost to the commotion.
as things begin to settle down, a little while later, i can once again pick up on the humming foundation, but that, and the rhythm (which has, by now, broken down into a droney distorted buzz) are the only original aspects left, and the noisy layer will have transformed into a soothing (due to its repetitive nature), but blustery wind-like sound. not much will be added to this paradigm outside of periodic occurrences of drawn out distortion, residing deep enough below everything else as to be rendered harmless.

once the track heads towards finality, everything will start to rise in volume, and a high-pitched drone begins to scream out... but everything will end briskly, before making good on what seemed like a threat.

if this is, indeed, the most recent thing that kevin's recorded in awhile (as google also seems to suggest), this is a mighty fine comeback. regardless, it currently stands as one of my favorite releases under his 2673 moniker.

In Dreams excerpt (from 0:00 to 7:00)

millions

2009-04-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

static and distance 3" cd-r
[2008, obsolete units]

millions is nyc's david suss.. beyond that, i can't find too much. it says here that "certain elements" of this track are from a collaboration between suss and mike magill that was recorded onto... a cell phone, of all things... i didn't notice a decline in quality anywhere, so that's good... i wonder what kind of phone they used... mine is crap.

static and distance's twenty-one minutes begin with the grounding combination of a low, somewhat dark, drone and lighter ambient ones. added to that are a few seconds of a hissing sound, that will come through in measured sweeps. just before two minutes, suss brings in a gorgeous droning synth layer in the left channel. that's paired with another higher-pitched loop in the right, though it will be offset from its mate by a few seconds. those will make for a fantastic one-two punch for a sizable chunk of time. a minute later will see the inclusion of a dominant high-pitched whirl, then, not too long after that, a buzzing drone will rise up to the surface to change the tone of the track's base. at this point, the earlier layers won't have faded out of memory, just yielded to these newer elements. soon enough, the foundation will change guard once again, out of that electric buzz into a quickly undulating hum. i'm pleasantly overwhelmed by the sum of all of the contrasting layers: the dark undertones, steady hypnotic droning, gorgeously swaying synthesizer; the amalgamation is wonderful, despite there being so much distinction within each individual aspect.
as the track plays out, david's most memorable aspects (the panned drones) will begin a slow decline in the sharpness of their sound, though you can still get the gist of their tone for a little while longer until they will have completely dissipated early in the disc's second half. in this stretch he'll continue to keep the bulk of his dynamic shifts understated. they come primarily by way of his seemingly cyclical mixing of certain layers higher than others (those which comprise the foundation being the most shining examples of this), but he'll also introduce some brand new layers which blend into the background atmosphere harmoniously. eventually, a couple of these latecomers will start to make an impression, specifically the panned, vaguely siren-esque beeps, as well as a whirling central drone. the last three minutes will bring in a brief, but frequently recurring (and memorable) loop of scrambled tones. these, in a highly affected state, will be the sole closing elements, finishing things up with rad oscillating wooshes.

this is the first release that i've heard from millions (though, i also have a peasant magik tape still to come) and it's a damn good one. there was a great balance between the persistent droning and superb melodies (that i wouldn't have minded listening to, uninterrupted, for twenty-one minutes, but oh well) with plenty of nuanced changes with kept static and distance progressing, without ever stepping out of its established character.

Static and Distance excerpt (from 0:00 to 7:00)

matt hill

2009-04-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

acidape c25
[2009, 905 tapes]

continuing my apparent, and strangely coincidental, recent theme of reviewing stuff by dudes who are either justin wright or are musically associated with him, here's a tape from fellow kansas city droner matt hill (not to be confused with a slew of other music-making matt hills), who lent his guitar talents to expo '70's black ohms disc. i think the only logical thing to do now is dust off my living science foundation cd, if i can find it, and review that, too...

side a's infinite slope will fade into a drone and won't really relent from that, afterward. hill does pair it with a ringing drone, like an old, non-digital alarm clock, but the loud guitar drone will remain the most prevalent aspect. closing in on two minutes, he'll layer it with an additional drone, briefly, though the primary one will descend, just as this ascends; the ringing will also decrease more and more from its steadiness, to a slower sparseness, as an additional, auxiliary drone joins the fray. despite the fact that what matt's doing is firmly rooted in drone, he refuses to rest on those, continually swapping out one droning layer for another, and he's also not densely layering four different things together, one or two main drones seems to suffice for him, and i agree with his methodology. with the continual exchange every minute or couple of minutes, he doesn't need to pile on additional shit to captivate us as listeners. just to be on the safe side, though, he'll throw in a repetitious loop (a bouncy tone, recurring every few seconds) around four minutes in, which gives slope a nice center.
furnace is on the minimal side of things, with a bit of a more somber tone to these drones, which initially come in slow, delayed waves, joined in the introductory minutes by an occasional sweep of low-end vibrations (when those become an afterthought, they'll be replaced with a constant layer of (very) understated clamor). i like that there's some variation to the sound of the waves, not only that, but also how matt doesn't just continually loop them, but adjust their regularity as well as extend them out, allowing them to gently fade away, rather than repetitively layering. the drones will continue to lose their earlier form as furnace draws nearer to its midpoint. once there they'll be dropped altogether as three new elements are adopted: an echoed rhythmic throb, faint sputtering (which dies off after two minutes) and sparse, delayed metallic clamor in the background. by the time that the tape's getting ready to end, it flashes back to the minimal drones before running out of time.
i got to one point, maybe two months ago, where everything i was reviewing had something droning to it, and then when i wasn't listening to music, i would start to become acutely aware of all the droning sounds that i was hearing just in normal, everyday life, that i started thinking i was losing my fucking mind... so i can appreciate the seemingly deliberate steps that matt hill has taken towards crafting drone that belies its definition of monotonous by actually being rather dynamic. this is the first thing that i've heard from hill and i'm definitely impressed.

Infinite Slope excerpt (from 0:00 to 6:00)

swamp horse

2009-04-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

gravity c31
[2008, husk]

swamp horse, more like night mare! (sorry). it's safe to say that gravity, josh lay and morgan rankin's (or franklin if you read vital weekly) third tape, is named so because of its serious nature, not so much because they're fans of physics. you never know, though.. physics is pretty sweet.

side a's opener begins with the nerve-wracking repetition of rubbery acoustic guitar chords coupled with... the wandering howls of a.. flute? huh. that's different. this is primarily where the focus is, as everything else is basically just occasional knocking sounds and sparse contact mic noise. a layer of prickling distortion will wash over the track during the last two and a half minutes, pushing the guitar into the dark recesses of the left channel, but they'll keep the drifting whine of the flute in place.

their second piece is absolutely masterful. it's also where my bad opening pun ultimately comes into fruition. there's a beautifully serene pendulum drone, contrasting with a screechier background layer and rreeeallly contrasting with the sound of a foreign chick freaking right the fuck out. it sounds to me like an eastern european version of linda blair's performance in the exorcist... hmm, even that seems like too tame of a comparison. it's hard for me to make out what language she's actually speaking when it's being screamed maniacally... holy fuck, with two minutes left they amplify the shit out of it and almost give me a heart attack. i've listened to this three or four times now, and it's never failed to startle me... though listening to this through headphones has certainly helped their cause. they'll lure you in with that entrancing drone, so you're basically forced to hone in on the vocals since they're the most dynamic thing going on, and then they scare the bejeesus out of you. awesome. the vocals will briefly drop back down in the mix, then jump back up into a distorted mess, then sink into a stretch of creepy laughter and exasperated shrieking... i actually have goosebumps right now. frightening shit.
side b is just one continual piece of music which begins with layers of calm ambient drones (more flute, too, though buried a little) along with a darker, hollow undulation that comes and goes. i dig how they'll stage the background at different intervals; briefly discontinuing the drones, then slowly reassembling them. it makes me appreciate the presence of all of them together, that much more. overall, there's a definite feeling of dissection occurring here, but the way that they do it is incredibly fluid, the music doesn't feel at all thrown off by the continual removal / reincorporation of sounds, if anything the track seems to thrive because of it. just prior to six minutes, the dark undercurrent begins to float to the surface and a minute later it culminates in a raging flood of dense, clamorous droning, which is occasionally joined by a shrill, fluctuating, tone. as the rapids progress, you can start to feel a jerky motion to the noise of one of the (detectable) underlying layers, while the forceful drone carries on. abruptly, gravity recedes into calmer waters.. the density now turned inward, as bubbling electronics are all that are left of the deluge, but soon enough it rages, again. then it doesn't. now that they'll have toned things down for good, the nice drones from the first half of the track come back around, providing a fulfilling conclusion.

the first sh release that i heard, ravish, was enjoyable enough, but damn, this one outshines it considerably. i love that there's a tangible distinction between the two tapes; gravity doesn't totally abandon the drones that their community college cassette trafficked in, but, pleasingly, that's not the sum of what they're doing... but, actually, when they were featured, it was great. the new forays (to my ears) into organic instrumentation, as well as the sample integration (i'm hoping that's what that was), were fantastic additions that really made this tape stand out.

in my last josh lay review i mentioned that this release was probably old news by now, but it looks as if they've only put out one more cassette since then (on 905 tapes). there are also still a few copies available, from the edition of fifty, at husk and autumn wind productions distro. i don't know why, but it seems like husk releases don't sell very quickly. i think it's because everyone's scared of josh. that must be it. the tapes are definitely rad.. well, the oath one not so much, but the others, yeah.

Gravity A1

christian science minotaur

2009-04-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

map 3 (of 9) c25
[2009, peasant magik]

jeez, up until last sunday, i just thought that christian science minotaur was a random, but fun to imagine, mythological half/man, half/bull with the magical powers of christian science! alas, i was looking up something on wikipedia and saw that an article was referenced from the christian science monitor. now it all makes sense. christian science.. that never fails to make me giggle...

this brooklyn duo is comprised of nat hawks (padna) and leo goldsmith (also of the pathways). nat runs the little fury things label, too.

i'm not too sure about this whole map series (something about chronicling a messianic downfall that i just shook my head at), but i ~~know~~ believe that all of the maps are eps, and that this is the first cassette of the series.

daggoo begins the cassette with howling, nighttime ambient sounds mingling with sparse organic and synthetic percussion as well as random electronic sounds and occasional understated manipulations. a couple of minutes later the track will be interrupted by periodic swoops of distorted guitar noise as all the additional electronic efforts are scraped for multiple layers of steady drumming (one panned to the left, the most authoritative one central) which conjures a tribal feel in conjunction with those memorable howling drones in the background. eventually, the drumming will change to a simple kick drum hit every two seconds, as the varied complimentary electronics are reintroduced. the last minute will scale back everything, ending with low end muffled affections.

map 3 will go on to assume a very different feel for the remainder. the first side's closer tashtego(a) establishes a decidedly electronic vibe with the spaced out throb of drum machine snares paired with tapped cymbals that are soon joined by layered melancholic droning background ambiance. a little while later csm (or is it xsm?) add on a really great, slow melody that brings the track to its beautifully lulling peak. the combination of sounds that they began the song with will have dispersed by now as they attempt to bring in a new electronic rhythm, but in the early going it's just random beats and percussion that can't quite congeal into anything substantive, but also aren't intrusive enough to interfere with the niceness that they've got going for them. after a few minutes it'll finally form a solid uptempo rhythm, yet they won't tailor the track's tranquil mood to match the bpm. they will do away with their main melody during the last minute, as they tweak the speed and pattern (slightly) of the beat and also slip in some subtle guitar noise.
the abrupt end of tashtego(a) (nearly) seamlessly turns into tashtego(b)... nearly because (b) is on the second side of the tape. you have auto-reverse, right?

naturally, (b) carries on the way the first side ended with, at least for the first twenty seconds, then we get a nice (fractured) manipulated guitar melody to go along with the skittery rhythm and warm drones, though the percussion will be dropped a minute later, highlighting the auxiliary electronic sounds that were concealed underneath it. following that, (b) will continually become worn down, losing the superfluous layers, starting with the slow decay of the guitar. they'll use the death of those to play up their pleasing ambient sway.
a little past the four minute mark is where i'm assuming queequeg kicks in, once they lose the ambient drones (replaced with ambient electronic layers that don't drone (as often)) and introduce, what seems to me like, humming amplifier / guitar noise, though it's fragmented heavily and occasionally packaged with other electronic sounds. once it breaks out of its initial jitteriness, i really like its lovely tremolo-ish distorted waves and how they'll sometimes pair those with synth tones that match the feel, but also provide a good contrast. christian science minotaur will almost come around full circle by bringing back the synthetic rhythm to end the tape.

i enjoyed this quite a bit. in terms of what i've heard from peasant magik thus far, it seems like somewhat of a departure as map 3 is pretty accessible for the most part. i can easily see the two tashtego tracks having a broader cross-over appeal with people who like innocuous downtempo, yet catchy, electronic music (i think back to 2004-05 as a frame of reference). if that's really not your thing, though, i can't say that what christian science minotaur are doing here will win you over. i'm sure some people will be stoked on this.

Daggoo

photo via cakeshop.

frozen body

2009-04-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

dried up / blown away c24
[2009, 905 tapes]

frozen body is denver-area expatriate mike zorman, now located in portland, oregon. actually, i believe it was mike who started the whole exodus of colorado noise artists to the west coast. other projects that he's involved with (or has been) include: whispering yes, dust bustr, dude war and yamahama. vile bile tapes is his imprint, too.

dried up opens with sputtering, stuttering layers of damn near impregnable distortion. various indiscernible sounds will challenge these walls, but will continually be deflected, leaving only vague disruptions (and hums) in the static for their efforts. eventually there comes a break and mike will take the opportunity to wedge in some nice wavy drones, before everything starts closing in again. at least now the pace has picked up as he's moved into general dense noise territory, with a few outbursts of manipulated screaming to break up the monotonous rumbling. a few minutes later the tone will alter slightly, though it retains its density, and now it sounds like it's trampling another layer of noise beneath it as it stampedes along. slowly but surely the distortion rises back up as the track reverts to its previous form with scraping noise butting up against it for awhile, before that yields to bumpy low end noise that does the best job of trying to break through all of the distortion... it actually succeeds by the end of the side.
the other track is still dealing heavily with density, but this time it's slower moving crackling embers of distortion. what's funny is that on the surface it seems more sedated, but really it's just so blown out that it's actually gone past overbearing and is now just multiple layers of corrosive sound that created the feeling that they're going to melt straight through the tape at any moment. honestly, it seems like just about everything that he's trying to add to this is an exercise in futility, since it's easily being choked down into submission by the distortion, and then sent back through the speakers chopped up, and grossly maimed. as it turns out, though, zorman's actions won't be completely all for naught as he musters up a memorably repetitious pattern out of a scraping noise, and bubbling (thanks to clipping) tones. after being deprived of anything happening in a.. well, no, just genuinely happening, the continual occurrences of any distinct sounds would've been a gift, but this actually sounds good, too, so that's a bonus. i said before how it sounded like the cassette was threatening to melt in my tape deck, well after six minutes the audio quality of blown away has degraded into.. essentially a distorted death rattle. it seems like it's barely being held together at this point. it'll start to regain its strength as the same great elements that appeared to signal its decline will also be responsible for its rejuvenation. once things are back to the way they were, those elements will drop out of favor for newly appearing waves of noise, which smack up against the noisy walls, making for a rad conclusion.
for me, this tape was quite a shift from what i was used to hearing from frozen body, which was harsher noise that was built off of tones, rather than stifling thickets of distortion. granted, the last time i saw him live was.. early last year (i think) and the last release i checked out was the nightstalker 3" from '07 (on starshipstereo), so maybe this is a new direction for him, maybe it's just a quick deviation from the norm, i dunno. if this is the style that he's decided to adopt from now on... eh, i'm on the fence. i think what he was doing before was more interesting, personally (the video is a great example of what i'm talking about). this isn't bad, though, and i've continued to warm up to it the more that i've played it.

Dried Up excerpt (from 0:00 to 6:28)

Frozen Body @ The Porrhouse; Portland, OR 5/04/07

hockyfrilla & deepkiss 720

2009-04-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

split c30
[2008, archivo de sangre de dios]

googling the name deepkiss 720 (with or without the space, i'm just going off of how it's shown on the cover of this) will bring up phrases along the lines of "...uk's best kept secret", and i agree with that wholeheartedly. one of my friends in london first told me about (eastbourne, east sussex's) jason williams (also of garner, small things and i'm being good) a few years ago and dude was already taking on a cult-like status back then. i also remember hearing something about him never recording anything.. apparently, that's not the case anymore, but it did seem like a noble enterprise at the time. it also heightened the mystery of the project to those of us across the pond... or maybe just me.

williams will spend the first few minutes in a brilliantly sparse and sporadic noise mode, cycling through passages centering solely around shrill, hissing manipulations, with only empty seconds left to segue to transition into the next segment... which could include several other complimentary layers and additional flourishes such as panning. other times, though, he'll use a subdued foundation of gurgling clatter as well as a cascade of digital white noise with somewhat buried feedback. what you should really glean from all of this is that there's not much in the way of structure; jason appears to be making it up as he goes along. what i'm digging the most is that, despite there not being an overall cohesion that you can count on, he'll compensate for that by frequently revisiting the same sounds, of course, not when you're expecting them. it does provide a great deal of methodology to his chaos, or a semblance of such.

after four minutes, there won't be as much of a buffer between the sounds. williams will also deviate from his prior, strong, sonic touchstones (the best of which was something that sounded like a printer from the late '80s) once his work becomes more involved. by now he's incorporating everything from drones (which come and go), high-pitched squealing, rhythmic distorted crunches, feedback and sputtering noise. there's a lot of care given to panning, too, not only with distinct layers in each speaker, but having a single one jump from one to the other. as was the case earlier, don't expect anything short of (outstanding) dynamic noise that refuses to settle.
with four more minutes having gone by, veal will assume a different character, built on a foundation drone of a piercing whine, that, while its presence is steady, twists and turns constantly. added to that is understated noise, static, low-end humming and warbling sounds.. all of which rarely exist at the same point in time. i especially like the stretch after ten minutes when everything slows down to highlight that shrill drone, which then gets broken up into two, offset, layers in each channel, though they'll come to merge on occasion, before breaking back up again. from there jason continues to operate in dual channel mode; killing off the drone, bringing it back, manipulating it and surrounding it with crumpling distortion and mixer hum.

with less than two minutes left we're thrown for another curveball once musical samples are incorporated. the first of which is an old school rap song (played forwards and backwards, each given its own channel), then it's on into heavy metal riffs, then into more metal riffs (aided by killer ambient synth ). after going through all of them once, jason starts weaving them into each other, panning them, interrupting (which works best with the jerky guitars on the last sample) and otherwise destroying them. all the while there's slow hissing distorted noise accompanying them. sick sick sick.

hockyfrilla are the manchester / edinburgh (respectively) twosome of dora doll (aka lisa nyoukis, of prick decay / decaer pinga) and rhian thompson (ckdh and giant tank).

gulo gulo begins with the strong presence of droning and quickly brings in banshee caterwauling to join the various subtle noisy manipulations that drift through at random. a short while later hockyfrilla add another higher drone to their base and start skewing a musical layer of some sort (not sure if it's their own or not), but they'll keep it pretty hushed, comparatively. i'm rather drawn to the stop and go nature that's produced by what they're doing with it, though the tone of it, to begin with, also carries a high level of appeal.

after four minutes (hmm, i'm sensing a theme here) the vocals will come back through as their manipulations will have taken on a great buzzing (and clacking) quality that they'll play up by droning it out into waves of fluctuating amplitude. a repetitive beeping (like a wristwatch alarm) teams up with the droning base, as does a shrill ringing sound; the vocals will have disappeared by this point. soon enough, the ringing, which was less distinguished, takes on a more coherent repetition, which occurs in between each instance of the other beep, creating a memorable, slightly hard on the ears, rhythm. once this is established the duo will keep any other additions minimal, also scaling back everything else that wasn't background fodder.

near ten and a half minutes, the background quiets down as the main rhythm is transformed, with the beeping removed, as that ring becomes something slower, less pronounced and arrhythmic. i do like the seesawing tonality of it, even if lisa and rhian throw me off by giving it some repetition, only to halt it unexpectedly, before resuming again. during this period the vocals will come back and i don't know if they're mimicking the buzzing drone from before, or if that's what they were all along, but i like that i can clearly tell what the hell it is now. the last few minutes bring back a nice shifting core drone and also introduce a catchy pattern consisting of a sustained tone, followed by shorter beeping to finish up.
it took me forever to finally get my hands on something of deepkiss 720's and i must say i'm not let down at all, veal was a tremendous side of dynamic noise / experimentation from him. it should further jason's lore quite well. hockyfrilla's effort was rad, too. after the schizophrenia of side a, i enjoyed the droning and repetitious elements of it. this split definitely worth checking out, if you can. it was released in an edition of fifty in the middle of last year, but amazingly, it looks like there's still copies available. if robin (archivo de sangre de dios) doesn't have any on him, it looks like alt.vinyl does.

Deepkiss 720 - Veal excerpt (from 0:00 to 6:00)
Hockyfrilla - Gulo Gulo excerpt (from 0:00 to 6:00)

Deepkiss720 @ The Gildredge; Eastbourne, UK 8/17/07

hockyfrilla photo via jannica honey.

aea

2009-04-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

bled and let rot c32
[2008, cloud valley]

hmm, the tape's title doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nice as live and let die, but, meh, close enough. i'm assuming that (hamilton, ontario's) darcy atkinson shortened his moniker due to the los angeles rock band that previously laid claim to autoerotic asphyxiation, but i like this abbreviation even more. it would look cooler if i weren't too lazy to use the shift key and capitalize the a's, but, alas, i am. i write too many fucking sentences to worry about capitalizing properly.

this tape on scott johnson's cloud valley seems like a mutual respect / admiration type of deal, since darcy's hosted scott's hunting rituals on a couple of tapes (of which i have another one which i will post in the foreseeable future, but i want to get to the housecraft hunting rituals cassette that i have first)... then again, outside of these two, who else is there making rad noise in hamilton? okay, there's fossils, but everyone should know about them already (ugh, speaking of which, i have a collaborative lp with david payne and andrew coltrane impending, don't mean to say that like it's a bad thing, totally not, just... fuck.. i have too much shit). aside from the music, my favorite thing about this is the note pertaining to the a side (which, despite having individual tracks, has the overall title of it's been a year) stating that it was recorded with "plenty of edits and overdubs". if you own a fair amount of noise tapes, you'll know why this is humorous, though, the b side (fyECytic) does say with "no edits or overdubs", but whatever, that's not as funny.

one thing about bled is that both sides are continual pieces of music that are broken down into separate tracks based on where they start changing direction. darcy listed track times, which would be helpful (and still sort of is), but i find that when it comes to tapes, and people who list individual track duration, i'm usually at a loss. i assume that the track time on the cassette doesn't really start until the actual track starts (pretty much every tape begins with ten or so seconds of dead air, which would be dumb for me to include), but i'm finding that others don't share my opinion, which can make things weird, if it's not completely obvious where the shift in one piece of music transpires. while my times don't sync up perfectly to those listed, they're not that off, it was pretty clear to me where the changes were occurring... i just wish the general consensus would be, when the music or music starts, that's 0:00, not when you press play, plus it's impossible to even record anything for the first few seconds, which would make even less sense if that's what you're basing it off of. argh. this is my saved up rant, that's not particular to this cassette, that i felt that need to unleash. apologies.

the end of nature begins with tiered drones (one low and steady, the other higher and oscillating) which are adorned by a slight layer of rumbling distortion as well as sporadic accompanying noises which float in and out of earshot. after a few minutes more dynamic feedback driven noise can be heard below the other principle layers, though it'll prove to be fleeting. once that has passed, the earlier, understated, delayed noises will come back, though they'll again appear and then quickly disappear, allowing the entrance of more varied banging and (held) ascending tones, which trade off with a layer of crunching noise. after five minutes atkinson introduces what i assume are his vocals. they're pretty concealed compared to the other layers, but i've convinced myself that i can hear him actually speaking, despite their level in the mix as well as their various affections. shortly thereafter, those vocals become more animated and then it comes across as more obvious.. in hindsight, anyway. despite everything that's added to this track, it's really the drones that i'm vibing with the most on this one.
future shock will quickly establish a fantastic foundation based upon a loop of (whooping) tone ascension that's filled out by various high-pitched, but restrained, synth tones, low hummed droning as well as another loop of an echoing synth sound. i dig how darcy's doing quite a bit of additional noisy stuff (panned and screeching sounds), but it's hidden below the meat of the track, which is those awesome loops. a little before the midpoint he'll add some of his affected shouts, which are repetitious enough to align beautifully with those loops, though he will pay special attention to tweaking those vocals above all else. at this juncture, i'm loving the whirling feedback that's trying to make its presence known, but will be bullied into submission by everything else. distortion will also start becoming more of a factor now as the other layers, save the feedback, begin to get more fucked up, but not to the point of being unrecognizable.

i dug side a, but perhaps ironically, the second side is what truly wins me over. first up is house of sleep, which is, at its core, a noisy droner.. mostly, in that there's a foundation of distorted rumble that keeps going on (seemingly) forever; however, it's broken up by amazing, almost beautiful sounding sustained drones that would appear to work opposite of the chewed up distortion, but really sounds so much fucking better with it in place. the last minute or so introduces a new great sounding tone which exists under the ascendant main drone, although it will come to displace it by the time the track ends.

that will take us right into the high-pitched tonality which signals the onset of free fall. darcy starts out by exploring the dichotomy of shrill and low droning noise, with static encircling all the while. he'll then begin to focus on the lower, continuing that while adding a layer of hollow droning on to it. the highest tones will attempt to scream out, but aren't so effective amidst the pattern of rad, albeit, muddied noise that atkinson's churning out beneath the drone and distortion.

the transition into underneath the volcano is incredibly seamless, the only noticeable difference is that the pattern from the previous track is gone, as the track resorts to basic droning noise, though it will bring in a great howling drone, as well.
more high-pitched droning will signal the entrance of the final track, lullaby, along with a marching crunch and darcy's indistinguishable screams and shouts, beneath all that blaring. (almost) needless to say, this isn't very lullaby-esque. i have to say, though, i love those piercing drones, especially when nearly everything will have faded out, and then even more once they start undulating for the closing.

i think my last experience with darcy's aea project came by way of the cut hands split with thousand year frog (last year, i believe), which i remember enjoying, but my god, he's gone from a dude whose music i like to being a name that should (in a perfect world) quickly become familiar to fans of experimental / drony noise. his shit as grahf was rad, especially in the way that it was put together (go read my review if you haven't yet), but this is just flat out killer stuff; not relying so much on subtlety and panning, because the sum of what he was doing was captivating enough. one of the interesting things (compared to everyone else's labels) that darcy does with his myiasis imprint is do a lot of personal split cassettes with other dudes that he also puts out solo joints by, which is at the very least unique, but if he keeps up this quality, whew, i'll be stoked. stay tuned..

Future Shock

AeA @ Someplace; Somewhere 10/18/07

josh lay

2009-04-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

hater of life c24
[2007, peasant magik]

hater of life, eh? sounds like more sunshine, lollipops and rainbows from my favorite kentucky miserablist.

side a's hater begins with competing low and mid-level drones, the second of which, in dipping up and down, often brushes up against the very top of the audio mix. to that he'll introduce an additional drone that pans nicely between the speakers. after pleasantly drifting along like this for awhile, hater's shaken out of its daydreaming state with feedback, at first, and then ungodly (but oh so sublime) bursts of rhythmic clatter, buried underneath the droning. once that noise settles down it's left up to the rad, slow whirl of feedback to serve as the stopgap in between each of lay's singular, powerful drum bangs. as soon as the feedback begins to spike again, all hell resumes to break loose, but this time it ushers in great squealing manipulations and elongated, shifting tonal play. the pattern that arises from his cycle of manipulating to the un-affection of the tones is incredible. that he keeps the previous combination of spaced out drums and melodic feedback even furthers that feeling.
(for some reason the deep blue hue of the cover disagreed with my scanner)
the other piece, life, rolls out into sparser terrain, consisting of deep, distorted throbs of rhythm with random complimentary clamor left to (somewhat) fill out the emptiness of the background. those will be joined by a terrific drone that gets broken into shards of stuttery distortion by the percussion. i really dig those slight rhythmic ripples that are produced by it. once the introductory, amped up, drums become a less noticeable factor, josh keeps the interrupted manner of the droning intact and proceeds to incorporate that as his main foundation, adding various nuanced sounds to it, but not a whole lot else in that opening movement. after three minutes, his affected vocals become an integral factor, though they're so mixer tweaked that they don't sound like someone's actual voice; scraping low end noise derived from lay's throaty howls, aided by random hissing noises, on occasion. the way that he often relies on just the strength of his killer droning, and just punctuating that with his dreadful vocal noise, gives them more of an impact. in life's second half, his voice will assume a larger role, deviating a bit from just the blown-out hums and abrasions; proffering clearer and pointedly grimmer exclamations. the remaining minutes will continue to see the relationship between josh's vocal noise and his great drone play out (with some extra commotion thrown in towards the end), but the noise will eventually fade away as the drone turns into fluid waves for hater of life's most serene moments. one could almost mistake it as an optimistic conclusion... you know, considering.

man, i was stoked on the poison drinker cd, but, fuck, i'm pretty sure i love this tape even more. the a side was especially amazing. i'll have the second swamp horse tape (which should be old news by now) review up next week.
while i've still got a fat stack of '09 releases from peasant magik, i've also got a couple of stragglers from the first batch that was sent to me. one of which is still in print. this sold out, was re-released and then sold out again. i'll go ahead and upload this, too, unless sal tells me not to for some reason. my new policy is that i'm only going to upload (entire) things that i actually bought (which are sold out), but since this is a few years old, i think it's fine. hater of life is too good to not be heard... which, apparently, has been the case.

Josh Lay - Hater of Life c24 [2007, Peasant Magik]

god willing & leslie keffer

2009-04-08T16:43:00.000-07:00

split c20
[2008, scumbag relations]

god willing (philly's ren schofield, of several ex-things, who also runs the i just live here imprint) kicks off the split with bulk sog, which begins with a somewhat disguised vocal sample of a guy telling a story about some dude fishing with his wife.. i dunno. the most striking thing about it is that it sounds like it's going to be meaningful (and they caught.... nothing), but it isn't. the second sample underneath it seems more compelling, but it's not as easy to hear underneath that main one. it's a curious intro to what quickly shapes up to be an out of the ordinary track from ren (i.e., not as dense and rumbly as he's proven well capable of being). forty seconds or so into that sample he'll apply a little distortion to the vocals and also add a layer of idling drone. once the story concludes (after a minute), that idle beefs up into heartier buzzing, conjoined by sparse, blown-out distorted ugliness (more of what i'm used to). after that turmoil passes, it's on into droning oscillations which will continually be tweaked and otherwise manipulated (over-amplified, clipped, stunted, etc.) as they continue to press onward. near the midpoint, the track mutates into a dense mess, with the dynamic tone becoming lost to prickling distortion and stammering noise, though the underlying, monotonous drone remains (faintly) audible. eventually a rhythmic lull of tonal undulations will arise from the mire and the thicker noise elements will simultaneously recede; however, once they're gone, they'll pull that rhythmic drone down into the darkness with them. by now the track will have reverted back to its earlier state, with brief interjectory waves of strangled noise. the closing minute reduces bulk sog down to two layers of basic monotone drones with a light foundation of distortion.
right from the early going of side b's the best globes, (nashville's) leslie keffer treats us to a delightfully melodic loop joined by the sound of a needle stuck in a record's groove. after letting those ride along unadorned for awhile she'll add short segments of darker droning synthesizer. shortly thereafter, keffer will ditch the skipping record sounds and also swap out that base melody for another as tbg enters a fantastic stretch of psychedelic entrancement that centers around a fixed distorted drone, a memorably tone shifting drone and understated synth melodies. approaching the five minute mark she breaks out the guitar for improvisationally meandering chords planted beneath a new (outstanding) loop, as leslie abandons her less harmonious elements. after briefly disappearing for higher-pitched, vibrating tones, that loop jumps back into the fray, though in a slightly altered state. i'm glad that as globes makes its transformation into loud swirling drone, i can still pick up on its melody, even as it's buried and further modified. as the track really begins to wind down, a fluctuating drone will enter, as will another synth loop that becomes progressively muddied as this nears its conclusion.
after a couple of older tapes that really didn't grab me that much, i'm finding myself more endeared to what ren's been doing lately. bulk sog was pretty rad (and the embedded video is fairly faithful to the overall sound of his side). as for leslie keffer, this is definitely one of my favorite works by her. i don't know if it's just me or not, but it seems like her split releases are always great, and there's no exception here. gorgeous music.

i'm almost certain that this is sold out everywhere, so i'll upload it in its entirety. i've still got more scumbag tapes, more keffer (whorney 4u) and more god willing (untitled cs on i just live here and a split 12" with privy seals (cka earn)) to review in the.. who knows when... but for now, enjoy!

God Willing & Leslie Keffer - Split c20 [2008, Scumbag Relations]

Leslie Keffer; Berlin, Germany 9/08

God Willing @ The Smell; Los Angeles, CA 3/27/08

mildew

2009-04-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

self-titled c20
[2009, 905 tapes]

mildew (milwaukee's eric and mike schauwitzer) have been on the back burner of my mind for a couple of years now, ever since i heard the octopus frontier collab (with climax denial), but it's taken me until now to finally get my hands on something of theirs. i must say, though, it was well worth the wait.

this cassette should carry a huge amount of appeal to fans of rhythmic... um, not noise, how about electronic experimentation? mildew will do a masterful job of looping and layering said loops to craft two highly enjoyable pieces of music that manage to come across as progressing, rather than monotonous, despite the overall lack of free-form aspects (and transitions).
after a few short seconds of a false start, mildew establish a solid rhythmic foundation centering around a springy tone (which repeats itself every three seconds), a consistent mid-level drone and a steady dead thudding that loops every second. just before two minutes they'll throw on a great loop of cold, lifeless synthetic beats. a minute later those will be swapped out for a metallic pounding. that won't stick around for very long either and once it fades out of earshot, the drone will flee with it as well, replaced by a higher pitched sustained one. this, too, will quickly come to pass after a nice vibrating noise sweeps through. the track will then continue on as it previously was, well, without the bouncy loop. then, the drum loop comes back in, along with a rad rattling, clacking sound... i don't know, i'm struggling for the right adjective, here. suddenly both the knocking foundation and the percussive loop will become obfuscated in the droning mess, though the drum beat will cling on to at least a semblance of its former self while the other layer has either been manipulated to oblivion or dropped entirely, it's hard to tell at this juncture. eventually it'll regain its prior foothold as the drum loop, by now, has half devolved into a shrill (but restrained) screech. with two minutes left, the main drone turns into low-end revving, punctuated by rad spikes in tone every so often, amidst chewed up / spewed out noise. a new, ephemeral rhythm will pop up... just as the side winds down.
the second side starts off with some fucking weird ass loops that.. i don't know, man... james ferraro should be pissed that he didn't come up with these first. those will be aided, minimally, by (more) sweeping knocks off in the distance. mildew will then layer (and layer) fragmented psychedelic loops on top of each other until everything becomes a soupy haze of strangeness. after a few minutes the knocks will become a permanent, one hundred and twenty bpm foundation, fleshed out by high-pitched whirling in the background, more fantastic loops and buried frequency modulations. as good as this is, it's about to get a hell of a lot better. near the track's midsection, there's a short lull that the schauwitzer's will drone their way out of and, slowly, but surely, that drone will start to fluctuate in tone, buzzing like a chainsaw at times. seemingly out of nowhere they'll have flipped this track into a fantastically melodic drone with exquisite incorporation of those alien loops, with the steady beat marching along. what i'm ultimately thrilled with from the loops is that they're not continual, mildew tailor their appearances perfectly to the melody of the drone, but there's still not a distinct pattern to them, it's beautiful. the last few minutes will see a series of beeping tones tossed in, along with more modulations.

fuck me. i knew that mildew were capable of putting out some joints that i'd be stoked on, but i had no idea that this tape would be this awesome. highly recommended.

Side B excerpt (from 4:42 to 9:42)

concrete arteries & polish hex

2009-04-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

facial spore c62
[2009, excite bike]

concrete arteries (aka con artist) is former dayton, ohio resident (and former to-night golden curls and black almas member) jon lockhart, who's now located in ypsilanti, michigan.

polish hex is... is... all signs seem to point to (excite bike chief (and fellow michiganite)) dan dlugosielski (haunted castle, the mossy throats, body morph, white leather, snow covered deer corpse, uneven universe). i've got nothing to back up this assumption, except that all of polish hex's releases (so far) have been on exbx. the most telling of which is the four cassette box set that was put out in an edition of one. also, dlugosielski is a polish surname. mystery solved?

the opening minutes of facial spore's first track serve as somewhat of a deceptive introduction, since it's basically low-key meandering build-up, but after that segment of sparse drones and subterranean distorted noise, holy fuck does concrete arteries' side take off, (that'd be near the three and a half minute mark) once lockhart introduces occasional echoing tone chirps, which interrupt the chemistry between a low, fluctuating drone and a choppy tonal rhythm. i love how he really works these elements for all they're worth by varying that choppiness, adjusting their frequency, as well as allowing the drone to play out by itself to stunting it in accordance to the rhythm. those chirps that fly through are also outstanding. almost three minutes later the low-end fuzziness is abandoned as the track takes on a more cohesive sound, consisting of two drones (which are traded off back and forth), attacking facial spore in waves. pretty soon the fuzz will come back, so too will the tonal chirps as concrete arteries drives his sound back into the ground. he'll break out of this muddied phase by reverting back to the short, vibrating, arcing waves. those will grow to overlap each other as an additional drone tries to rise up every so often, but can't quite make its way into prominence.
the second piece begins with a layer of hollow, floating ambiance with the understatement of sputtering electronics hidden nicely beneath. additional complimentary layers will come and go, filling things out without changing the overall feel. as the ambiance fades out, that lowly sputter will receive more attention as it's paired with a fantastic delayed crunching noise. sporadically, a rad whining tone will join the squeal and echoed thuds. as the focus shifts to that, the other two layers drop out, allowing for a droning passage, unabated by any other enhancers for awhile until a shrill tone attempts to cry out from its stuttering position. after eight minutes jon reintroduces the echoed crunch and loud whining tone, but now pairs it with a sick (soaring) drone and a warning siren tone.. and it's fucking great. i especially like it when the high-pitched whine starts cutting through the other layers like a table saw. once a few of those layers dissipate, in comes that killer whining tone that was earlier employed and it'll be accompanied by multiple layers of noisy, muffled droning. the last few minutes of the side revolve around the juxtaposition of low-end filth and shrill squealing.

polish hex's first offering begins in a remarkably similar vein as the one concrete arteries finished up with. at first i thought this was odd, but the track titles for both sides is simply facial spore, so taking that into account, the flawless continuity of it makes some sense. anyway, the onset is muttering electronics, sustained howls and a generally cloudy atmosphere rife with indiscernible sounds and whirling tonal manipulations. not too much later ph will crawl out of the darkness and begin to forge his own path. that transformation hinges on a terrific humming drone that joins in right around five minutes, amidst repetitious squawks and a prolonged whine. eventually, other layers will fall back as the main drone sporadically weaves in and out. the track will come to emphasize the interplay between that droning and another layer of short, delayed drones that vacillate from being drawn-out to short, choppy echoes. soon the high-pitched whine comes back into the mix as the humming becomes more of a steady fixture. the subtle changes to it, as well as the way that it comes and goes at random, are fantastic. as polish hex pushes past nine minutes, the landscape will mutate once again, this time into a unique passage of deadened tonal fuckery. a minute later he'll transition out of that with a repetitive high-pitched beeping (that morphs into an undulating drone, and then fades out of existence) and waves of low, eerie, horn-like emissions. once that layer of beeping finally falls out of favor it makes way for a near screeching drone and well concealed stuttering noise. the last couple of minutes will see the low drones die off while the others become highlighted, most notably is the screeching which has a delightful bit of dynamics to it, which keeps things interesting as the supporting layers become fixed.
facial spore will close out with its least immediately gratifying track. where the others were chock full of either superb sounds, or memorable (or rhythmic) combinations there of, polish hex's conclusion is essentially a full-on droner, bereft of the significant changes that its three counterparts had. despite all that, this track does keep me tuned in for all of its twelve droney minutes thanks to the slow, continual progression of it. this isn't sustained droning with minor tweaks comprising its evolution, but, rather, a series of unique droning segments that seamlessly bleed into other; changing the shape without altering the mood. i did love that the doomy horn-esque sounds will make an appearance on this track, too.

i've been a fan of the projects that jon's been involved in before, but his contributions here were nothing short of incredible. polish hex's side was no weak sister, though, and helped further establish the fact that this tape will end up being one of my favorite releases of this year. limited to a scant forty copies.

Concrete Arteries - Facial Spore 2
Polish Hex - Facial Spore 3

Concrete Arteries @ Gem City Records; Dayton, OH 5/17/07

The Mossy Throats @ The Fact House (Part One); Lexington, KY 2/21/09

Part Two

bipolar bear & talbot tagora

2009-03-31T17:37:00.000-07:00

i wanted to get this reviewed before it came out, which is today, but today is better than tomorrow. oh, and i am still sans turntable (next weekend hopefully!), but lucky for me this comes with (the always welcomed) digital download.

abstract distractions 10"
[2009, olfactory]

bipolar bear are from los angeles. outside of that, it's been difficult trying to figure out who is exactly in the band. their myspace lists a bunch of people, the press sheet lists fewer (paul kneejie, luke birk and marc (just marc, apparently). what about thadius, nat, bryan and kerri? beats me. i don't know about everyone else in the band, but paul has stayed busy with his other projects: the pope, the manifolds, sxbrs, white suits brown boots and he co-runs the (awesome) kill shaman label with bryan levine and was in the early incarnation of expo '70. jeez. after all that i'm too tired to dig up the others' history.

talbot tagora are a trio of locals: mark greshowak, ani ricci and chris ando. chris is the only one out of the group that i'm familiar with, since he was previously in (droners) bonus and (noise rockers) mikaela's fiend.

bb's cape verde begins the record with muted guitar feedback in the left channel and a chugging bass rhythm in the forefront. after a few seconds the guitar joins the mix, but it operates independently of the solid rhythm. even as the bouncy chorus rolls in they've still got a distinct separation between guitar melody and rhythm. i dig it. paul's lifting falsetto during the second part of the chorus is great, too.

both guitars will come together in unison for the memorable foundation of algiers, though the guitar will repeatedly stray from the rhythmic base for quite a few distinct shifts, making its return that much better. speaking of which, the instrumentation in this instance really is the chorus, since the vocals are in a talking mode rather than anything nearing a melody. even without the indelible singing, bipolar bear won't miss a step.
there's a jerky bass rhythm to library that's paired with quickly repeating guitar chords. during the song's middle stretch the repetition of the guitar will craft a droning quality which segues into the soaring chorus remarkably well.

i'm loving the dynamic guitar work on march of the mudmen as it twists slightly as the track progresses while the bass continues to lunge forward unflinchingly. that is, until after a minute when the band flips into an unexpectedly relaxed groove for the remaining sixty seconds or so.

the press release that came with this dropped quite a few comparisons to other bands (i still don't understand the need for descriptions in these, seems counter-intuitive to me), but i think they missed a pretty obvious nod to unwound on the closer pixote. that's a goddamn lofty aspiration (if you hold the band as near and dear as i do), but bipolar bear pull it off sincerely on this brief offering. rather than going down their previously uptempo path, they'll center this around angular guitar and paul's plaintive, echoing vocals. the dynamics of this are superb, but i'm more impressed with how they did it while managing to stay within pixote's framework.

talbot tagora thrust us back into upbeat territory with their opener internet fixture. instrumentally they're in a steady drive. it does push the song forward, but isn't that immediate (though i was still tapping my foot all the while). the vocals are what i'm drawn to the most. it sounds like a group effort, light and secondary in the mix to the music, but lovely and definitely necessary.

we live in sack is a totally different vibe. the musicianship is way more defined and imperative with a slew of odd shifts in both tone and rhythm throughout it. the best of those shifts is the exchange between sparse guitar chords and the bass's response to it. the passages with the sustained (sung) notes along with ani's pounding drums are rad, too. terrific song that was surprisingly held together considering how often they veered off into other directions. i still can't believe that this isn't even two and a half minutes long; they packed a ton into this.

the forward propulsion of the guitar that starts off black diamond soon gets broken down into choppy riffs that are beautifully filled in by minimal kick drum usage. the vocals this time are in an almost nursery rhymelike chant. that will be swapped out for a kazoo in between the verses. i like the straight-faced use of it (tacocat, also from seattle, did wonders to make it believable as an actual musical instrument). as the song plays out, everything (seemingly) starts to slow down more and more until the final seconds when they speed it up (and close it out on a different tangent).

talbot tagora will enjoy a great deal of success with their most normal rocker, the weather man. the driving guitar has a killer melody to it and the singing is, dare i say, conventional for a change. i really like the loop that the band gets into which is built around the (four) repeated utterances of free / see at the end of the verses which kick back to the beginning after the cycle's completed. the second half abandons form and turns into a nice, stunted, repetitive instrumental jam for the duration.

while the record seems to have came into fruition because of both bands' bonding over the smell in los angeles, it makes sense to me on a different level. la's underground rock scene has been known for its fun, youthful exuberance, in the recent years, and it seems like that's slowly but surely made its way up here. i dunno, maybe it's happening everywhere, but all i know is what's around me. anyways, this 10" is a perfect embodiment of that feeling, but beyond just being catchy and upbeat, there was a tangible sense of substance in these songs (particularly tt's side) that left me with an even greater impression.

Bipolar Bear - Library
Talbot Tagora - The Weather Man
(three out of four of talbot tagora's songs are available as free downloads on their last.fm page)

The Pope "Mao Mao Mao" (song set to photo still)

Talbot Tagora "Guitar Strap"

(tt photo via george chen)

climax denial

2009-03-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

the absolute bottom c30
[2008, husk]

climax denial is milwaukee's alex kmet, who's also in (or been involved with at one point) ten little piggies, octopus frontier and godsick.

the cassette starts off with shouted vocals that are manipulated just past the point of being decipherable, like he's using a megaphone. those are joined by a layer of light static and a sick vocal loop of someone saying (the track's title) what i've seen. there's a lot to love in that brief loop, chiefly: the deepness of it, the slight affections that emit just a touch of noise, but the cherry on top is that "seen" is drawn out into a four second rumbling drone. repeat that over the course of this short track and i'm stoked. the juxtaposition between the two dissimilar vocal styles is striking, too.

just a body centers around denser noise; grounding distortion, chirping electronics and humming noise, but out of the latter arises a helicopter-esque sound that continually drifts from front to back in the stereo mix. just before four minutes it changes into more of a jet engine droning as a high-pitched whine begins to ascend right along with it. once feedback starts playing a more prominent role the track shifts a little, bringing in kmet's distortion-soaked shouting as body begins to thicken whilst the main sputtering drone carries on its oscillations. alex puts together a killer pattern near the seven minute mark when his spoken vocals, as well as the main drone, become segmented by short fits of great grinding noise and feedback. he'll ditch that after a few minutes once the noise ends in prolonged feedback drone, signaling another change in the track, this time into more straight-forward dense noise; strong distorted foundation, layers of differently stuttering (and undulating) noise that eventually devolves into low droning, cut up noise and screaming to close out the twelve minutes.

a fear of life ii begins the b side oddly bereft of noise, just a somewhat grim (but musical) ambiance that dips out of sight rather quickly in favor of a low, far off drone in addition to faint murmuring vocals. soon enough, though, it gets a bit noisier with a steady distorted crunch with a memorable tonal loop hidden beneath it. the rest is all shouted incoherence. i actually love that i can never make out a damn thing he's saying on this tape. the tone and manner of manipulation works wonderfully for me.

tapeworm agility builds off of a nice rhythmic base and has alex's vocals at their most fucked. at least, i think that strange delayed noise is his voice. whatever it ultimately is, it's the perfect compliment to that rhythm, which is agility's main point of interest.
the vocals (certain this time!) are also pretty tweaked on the restrained two minutes of hotmouth and pussyfoot (heh); coolly delivered, but affected to an almost robotic level. those will be fleshed out by a winding drone and a steady, subdued hum.

the tape will get back on its previously established track with y kan't u b klean? as has been the theme on this second side, the noise will be a non-factor. there is a harmless layer of distorted trembling alongside a hollow rumble, repetitive chirps, muted, delayed feedback as well as echoed shouting from klean's depths. i'm digging the whirling drones that are a by product of the beginning of each of alex's bellowed passages.
absolute bottom falls under the power electronics side of things, which is honestly, just a notch above wall noise in the cellar of noise's sub-genres, for me, but i'm a big fan of climax denial. while a lot of pe is overwrought to the point of being comical, whatever (token) misanthropy or misogyny (or any other mis) exists in the lyrics, it's masked fantastically by effects. the vocals are the most off-putting thing about some power electronics dudes, but that's a non-issue here, and beyond that the noise was fierce at times but also rhythmic in other spots... overall this was a terrifically balanced release that i've got only kind words for. i'm pretty shocked that there's still copies of this available at husk.

A Fear of Life II

Climax Denial @ Ohio Noise Squat; Somewhere, OH 10/09/08