Dot Pony – split w/ Richard Phillip Smith (Ranch)
Brin – Hug Sway (Patient Sounds)
Bastian Void – Acreage (Muzan Editions)
Cool Person – Weird Person (Permanent Nostalgia)
Peter Kris – Mandan/Moroni (OTA)
Starbirthed – Chakra One (Flower Room)
Machine That Flashes – Echo / Sullen (self released)
Aloes – I (self released)
Kitaro – Oasis (Gramavision)
Mdou Moctar – Ilana: The Creator (Sahel Sounds)
Ki Oni – You Made It Out Of The FOrest Alive (Atlantic Rhythms)
Cop Jokes – Human Drama split/collab w/ Law Years (KiloHURTz)
Fischerle – Groove 7 (Outlines)
G-g-ghosts? Are we really going this spooky route today? The Corrupting Sea’s Jason Lamoreaux’s got a séance going up in here, where he’s conjuring specters and ghouls and not really worrying about all the havoc he’s wreaking. I think it’s time we put a stop to this. Let me call the Harlem Globetrotters. I have Curly Neal’s number in my phone. Spiderman’s too.
Oh – my bad, seems this “Ghosts” tape is more the ghost of memory, the hints of the past, wisps of nostalgia that haunt us and creep up on us at inopportune moments when we don’t want to cry out of regret or wistfulness, like when we’re in the middle of a job interview. But hopefully your interviewer won’t be spinning The Corrupting Sea – that’s for when you get home, to celebrate getting that job with terrifically introspective music. Lamoreaux is a master of his ambient synthesizer world, and here he immerses us in six lengthy pieces as washes of recollection and celebration, regret and remorse fight against each other but end up intertwining in a bittersweet fog of personal history, a mating ritual designed to confuse and distract the listener from whatever it is they happen to be doing. Like being interviewed for a job.
Which is why, in the end, you really have to PAY ATTENTION. Let “Ghosts” envelope you – but not literal ghosts and not literal envelopment, or you’ll come out the other side covered in ectoplasm. This is real choice synth work, and that should be celebrated. [*Chef’s kiss*] The Corrupting Sea continues to lap at the shores of nostalgia and enhance whatever mood it happens to be around. This is a strength of Lamoreaux’s, as detailed throughout his deep discography.
The darkest of ambients. V I C I M crosses knives, crosses hearts, hopes to die. Shadowy promises from Arlöv, Sweden. From the depths of Linus Schrab’s innermost being.
It’s easy to read “V I C I M” as “victim,” which connotes a sense of damage to the listener or the creator here, but there’s an even-keeled-ness that belies that, takes us in a different direction. The static and tone lapping against the rocks of the digital fjord suggests time slowly, inevitably, and eternally eroding away any sort of emotional response or connection, instead exposing the bare, unfeeling bedrock of “Ademptus Demere’s” elemental base. I’m not sure if this is a metaphor for my chest cavity or my brainpan, or if it’s an epitaph that will long outlast me. Silly shruggy emoji!
What I do know is that V I C I M rolls through landscape like a glacier, slowly, permanently altering it with his heavy vibes, his heavy moods, grinding the surface of the earth beneath it to silt and sediment. But the passage is natural – everything about it feels unhurried and authentic, not put on, no theatrics. V I C I M has an instinctive touch when it comes to his work, and maybe that’s due to the Scandinavianness of this project, of the landscape around him. Regardless, “Ademptus Demere” is as engaging as it is pulverizing, as nuanced and layered as it is dense.
Pro-dubbed “piano tape” (one side of shell black, the other white) in an edition of 50 available from Tape Lamour.
