Tabs Out

Derek Piotr – Live in Denton

1.5.20 by Ryan Masteller

Do you guys know Derek Piotr? You might not – he’s a multiplatform releaser, not confined to the cassette genre (like you backward Neanderthals reading this are – if I wasn’t chained to this I-beam like Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad: El Camino, I’d be writing about REAL formats like compact discs … Ow!). At any rate, Piotr’s got a nice long discography, and I’ve been writing about his releases for several years, so … take it from me.

“Live in Denton” is exactly what you think it is – a live document recorded in Denton, Texas, on August 11, 2019. Piotr had released his most recent record, “Avia,” on August 2. He was likely feeling quite exhilarated. The results bear out that assessment. Mainly utilizing vocal samples, Piotr creates alien soundworlds that run the gamut from downtempo Thom Yorke-ian electro to blasts of digital noise all, with at least a hint of a human voice. True, these “hints” can be completely disembodied or fragmented through software, but they’re voices nonetheless. (Spoiler alert – there is no Thom Yorke-type singing whatsoever.)

If you weren’t listening to what Piotr was doing that night in Denton, you’d be able to hear a pin drop, that’s how rapt you had to have been. Piotr commands the room, demanding attention as he runs through a straight thirty-minute performance where he mixes vocals and vocal samples with what often sounds like literal electricity, manipulated as a grounding mechanism for vocalizations. Whether he settles into a minimal groove or contents himself with constantly surprising you with explosions of sound, Piotr proves yet again that he’s an artistic force to be reckoned with, a fascinating producer at the cutting edge of electronic music.

Limited edition of 30 from Cavern Brew Records!

Map Collection – Salad Dog in Moon Shell

1.4.20 by Ryan Masteller

“Salad Dog in Moon Shell” finds Map Collective going off the … er … map (am I allowed to do that?) on a conceptual adventure that makes as much sense as a Vonnegut sonnet run through fragmenting software and spliced together via MS Paint. Which means, of course, that “Salad Dog in Moon Shell” is essentially a vision quest laser focused on discovering the cockeyed realities beyond the fringes of the average and everyday. Its creators, scene dreamers Fletcher Pratt and Curt Brown (gotta love that Black Unicorn!), upend expectation by enforcing the acceptance of the unusual upon the unsuspecting.

I could’ve probably just said “dream logic” and been done with it. But where’s the fun in brevity?

The software and synth jockeys pepper your perceptions with rancid electronics disguised as dub and electro smears, but in reality these noxious concoctions fizzle and pop and blurt and dribble and pulse and ping, disregarding genre as much as convention. Still, the whole thing is incredibly listenable in a broken and malfunctioning half-speed techno sort of way, and if it’s easier for you to grab on to that kind of description, then be my guest. I’m not gonna tell anybody. The point is for you to let “Salad Dog in a Moon Shell” get its hooks in you, because once it does and once you align your mind to it, it’ll let you in on its inverted secrets, which, take it from me, are worth knowing.

Yeah, once “Salad Dog in a Moon Shell” has its hooks in you, it has them in you for good. And that’s OK.

Edition of 50 available from Rubber City Noise.