Tabs Out

C.C. Sorensen – Twin Mirror

1.23.22 by Matty McPherson

Out in the middle of Lubbock Texas, somewhere between 45th and 60th street, there stood an economically sound, yet imposing Savers thrift store. Whenever I visited Lubbock, it was a family ritual to go there even though the only thing I ever really found was an early 90s CGI VHS tape. And the cover still scares me enough to have never watched it to this day. That building is gone now though and I’m not sure what stands there. It’s been about 8 years since my Grandfather died, which marks the last time I visited West Texas.

I suppose I’m bringing this up for a couple of reasons. One, because Full Spectrum inadvertently became a liferaft of sorts to connect me to that region outside of family. The label’s 2021 output kinda casually overflowed with stone cold classic after stone cold classic, while also even courting the attention of the local Lubbock paper (I wonder if my grandma stopped her Fox News for a second, or uncle who perhaps has brushed shoulders with some of these folks, read about this). I think Andrew Weathers has not just a keen ear (for mastering), but a keen brain for convincing people something along the lines that “land is art, land is sound; make something of it.”

The second reason is that C.C. Sorensen’s Twin Mirror sounds like they went to that Savers and found every cool object – from an appliance here to a VHS there, even a random designer coat – and then made a beguiling crystalline album level statement. Sorensen has been in the Full Spectrum universe for a bit, contributing to lathe cuts and ambient orchestras, while teasing the possibility of a solo release. It has not been easy to bring this release to life, with over two years of life (in particular, a move to San Antonio that took time to settle itself) continually delaying and pushing this recording.

Twin Mirror operates seamlessly out of that, in spaces that teeter between bewildering ambient and lackadaisical jazz. The 8 zones here (built collaboratively with a hodgepodge of cool cats) all work like puzzle pieces. Sorensen summons a litany of esoteric sonic points–field recordings (“Toad Vision”), orchestrated minimalism, first-wave (read that as “good”) post-rock (“Disappearing Spirals”), hell even Mutual Benefit-style folktronica–for these singular zones that maybe won’t reach the destination, but kinda just want to chill with you on the journey. It all casually rules, and is yet another open invitation to the Full Spectrum Sonic Universe.

CC’s techniques are indeed, nifty embellishments of the synthetic and organic. They don’t supersede or interrupt each other as much as they kaleidoscopically collide–qualities an unrelated, upcoming Astral Editions release also highlight–and tango therein. Two standout tracks–Six Heart Snake and Nine Gates–enshrine that. The former starts as a jazzy guitar homage, but soon deteriorates under drones and new fangled guitar parts. It hazes away, slowly, coolly. The latter’s usage of horns impart noir characteristics that bubbly, popping drum patterns hold steady. Meanwhile, Sorensen introduces a heavy piece of modification to their voice, creating a beguiling alien counterpart that fits like a cherry on top in the state of affairs.

Even though it is January, I have a gut impulse that this music could blossom over a Texas summer. And oh yeah, you do hear a lot of frogs on this album and wonder if those sounds are from a real frog or one of ‘em Blade Runner frogs. I’m entranced not to know the answer.

Edition of 100 Available at the Full Spectrum Records Bandcamp

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Ryley Walker and Steve Gunn – DRZWI DOORS

1.21.22 by Matty McPherson

In the Husky Pants Records swing of things, a bootleg Thinking Fellers Union 282 t-shirt is an ancillary to a used CD of Come’s Eleven: Eleven. Also yeah, CDs are perpetually in vogue and more potent than a vinyl, which the cassette is regulated to a merch table exclusive for time travelers from 2008. None of this is exactly shocking, especially considering if you heard the end-of-the-year wrap up podcast with noted-Chicago post-wook gtr plyer Ryley Walker, who personally told us something that amounted to this. However, Mr. Walker’s decision to (almost entirely) forego the cassette has made getting copies of his works in formats that comply with the Tabs Out Ethical Code of Honor an excruciating experience. He’s a son of gun(n) like that.

However, I’d also warrant that this is a respectable MO that purposefully forces a listener like myself to make the commitment to the bizarre times he wants to throw a post on twitter or bandcamp up with an actual tape release. Such was the case when in December he did a no-frills, “by the heads, for the heads” release of a “fried as fuck, practice space drones” tape release entitled DRZWI DOORS; Steve Gunn (who sometimes makes albums for the label that Come and TF282 released stuff on) co-stars as collaborative du jour for this release. Unless you picked up a tape or somehow can badger Mr. Gunn or Mr. Walker to provide you a way to listen to it, then you likely will never hear it. (Or you could just go back to the year-end podcast, where part of it was sampled).

This has one of ‘em blank inserts–Im not sure if its a c30 or c40, who played what, and what the catering situation was like. What sounds we got on both sides though are sizzling, and I continue to hold out for more Walker tape collabs or label samplers. Anyway,  Side A kinda sounds like a botched attempt to recreate the emotions brought forth from that ten-minute Coldplay song from last year. This is by no means bad. Excellent bouts of guitar wailing that begets majestic whale noises that Chris Martin and Co. should’ve thought more about. See how prances and glistens, calmly setting up the listener for when a noisier, hulkier sonic mass appears a third of the way down? And even when it turns semi-loud, the duo are careful never to go full hog wild. Well, until its final third, but its often only in contained, nimble doses. When the guitar stops sounding like a whale it terraforms into a bunch of bleeping seagulls. Eventually it becomes a jangly noiser worthy of a freeform dance or images of tightly wound buildings. When Side A is not still, it is never not casual; two minds in a deep listen and practice with each other testing how far they can upset the balance set forth so nicely in the first third. 

Side B meanwhile is a little more chipper n’ skipper, replicating that first third of the former’s quietness. It’s opening centers on the two players making a twangy, squiggly sound that is the equivalent of chewing around a sack of sunflower seeds in yr mouth. Eventually if you chew long enough, they become little bits of crushed stars: once again the two take towards a more astral twang as the drone spreads out. Brilliantly, the duo brings back those seagull guitar quips in quick bouts, which ultimately don’t impact this softer (and shorter) piece than the A-side. All in all, a solid fish fry I’d contend.

Limited Edition of 100 Sold Out at Source.

Jeff Surak – Eris I Dysnomia

1.22.22 by Matty McPherson

Dysnomia is the only known moon of the dwarf planet Eris and likely the second-largest known moon of a dwarf planet, after Pluto I Charon.

Dysnomia is an aphasia in which the patient forgets words or has difficulty finding words for written or oral expression.

Welcome to the future. We’re here right now, live at the source: DC-based Jeff Surak’s latest tape offering Eris I Dysnomia. Surak’s name is new to me, perhaps new to you, but to the annals of home taping he’s about as decorated and astute as they come. The mail order web page links reviews that reveal “at one point, he was the organiser of the Sonic Circuits Festival” and that he’s still been rweaving a spirally-stricken labyrinth of tapes and digitals out on his own ZEROMOON label. For Eris I Dysnomia, he’s struck up a bountiful piece of ferric for Public Eyesore’s Eh? Imprint that highlights a litany of loquacious droning and sonic detachments. 

Dysnomia is a newfangled big brain word. Naturally it has two distinct definitions (see above) that delineate a location and a feeling that Surak makes a smack-dab layup out of over the C50 here.

Side A is all “Parasite Lost”, a slow burn for a grey day on a black sand beach. Surak is less about piercing,wailing soundscapes than imparting a suggestive, percolative quality to display. Where we start with cyclical motors and whispering winds quickly drones together and mends an image of an omnibus factory just out of reach; by the time we’ve reached it there’s another sound space that we’re circling towards; equally out of reach and yet thrice as piercing. By the time we reach that space, the sounds of  hinterlands seem to push us ahead. Each mome Surak invites listeners on this journey, trusting that each step of the way, each new found low hum or instrument inversion, we’ll stay focused on the present moment, where we are now, not headed.

Side B meanwhile decides to peel back the longform and instead highlight Surak’s own tenacious sound experiments. More concrete abstractions like “Concupiscent Strings” and “Asphalt Muzak” are as present-oriented as “Parasite Lost”. They marvel at their own gristling, precocious sound of the moment. Although for brief flickers, “Asphalt Muzak” hints at a subconscious pop prerogative that “Stuck” actually channels into a vapory, disintegrating two and a half minute detente. It’s a bizarre, but warranted moment on the tape that palette cleanses “16 Hours on Neptune”’s rather blissed out passage to the other side. Needless to say, Surak’s hodgepodge of ideas allude to a career that I can only hope shows further signs in my inbox soon.

Limited Edition Tape Available for Purchase from the Public Eyesore/Eh? web order page!

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