1.30.20: Glass Jelly Souffle
Tabs Out | Various Artists – Dead Decade: Already Dead 10th Anniversary Compilation
Various Artists – Dead Decade: Already Dead 10th Anniversary Compilation
1.30.20 by Ryan Masteller
We’ve barreled headlong into 2020 now, haven’t we? I can’t even tell anymore. It already just seems like 2019, but worse. It’s only January as I write this. How will I/we survive?
Maybe we can look to Already Dead Tapes as an example of perpetuating our longevity. Who would’ve guessed that a tape label started all the way back in 2009 would’ve made it to 2020 un-(or at least only partially, probably)scathed? Yet here we are, on the threshold of a stinking new decade, and we’re looking at catalog number AD324 from these wascally wabbits, now based in the “Delta hub” city of Atlanta. Over ten years and 324 releases, Joshua Tabbia and co. must’ve done something right along the way. Otherwise, why would 21 of the label’s closest friends band together for this hootenanny of a compilation?
They do it for the love of it, because Already Dead deserves to have been existence for ten years. These twenty-one artists only scratch the surface of what it is AD’s been consistently bringing us, and it’s an incredible cross-section of their roster. The snaky noise-rock/post-punk of Complainer leads it off perfectly, duh, but there are so many of my favorite underground artists contributing to this thing. Trip-hop dreamers The Binary Marketing Show make an appearance, as does misfit electro composer More Eaze, 2019 year-end-list-makers and hip hop visionaries The Hell Hole Store (not to mention experimental hip hop maestro Mu Vonz), and BOB BUCKO JR.’s The Myriad Ones. Tabbia himself drops a Cop Funeral track here (because OF COURSE), as does his wife, the inimitable lo-fi songwriter Victoria Blade. NULL|Z0NE’s Michael Potter is the king of psychedelic guitar jammage and serves as our spirit guide. Claire Rousay knocks our socks off with an experimental percussive palate cleanser.
There are so many more artists on here, and there are so many other AD family members whose catalogs should really be seriously delved into. It’s almost unfair to confine this kind of release to a single tape when there’s so many other connections to make out there, so many other releases to mention when talking about the estimable label. When the history of Already Dead is written, it will be dotted with risks taken and triumphs achieved, like an inventory of unlocked bonuses in a video game. Tabbia and team should be lauded not only for their intense perseverance but also for their ear for the unusual and the exciting. That’s what they’ve built their reputation on, and that’s why people keep coming back. There’s no fixed aesthetic other than excellent releases. “Dead Decade” is merely a tease, an introduction to the rabbit hole. Now you can dive down it.
And 2020, you can ALREADY suck it. “Dead Decade” has made your failings obsolete.
Tabs Out | Christopher Brett Bailey – Sax Offender
Christopher Brett Bailey – Sax Offender
1.29.20 by Ryan Masteller
I first had mixed feelings about Christopher Brett Bailey’s “Sax Offender,” a title so off-putting that I almost didn’t even give it a chance, what with its proximity to this MF-ing Bleeding Gums Murphy record (he looks so sad!) and probably also Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream” (that lady looks less sad). Also the track titles are all double entendres – “Sax Pest”? I wish! And then there’s the jail-cell sleeve this thing comes in, giving the whole thing a very retro, outdated vibe: “Maybe I should be in jail … lock up your saxophones …”
But OMG – could that be the point?
Bailey, a London-based writer and artist otherwise (and with that fantastic haircut, what else could he be?!), is a sax caresser, the opposite of a sax manhandler, but in a totally non-creepy way, which makes the whole “Sax Offender” thing a bit lighter, a bit winkier and noddier than some people may realize at first. He’s certainly not heaving “saxily” into that mouthpiece and hoping the spit valve holds out for the duration of a performance. On the contrary, he’s running his instrument through “reverb, octave, and three loop pedals,” layering sound upon sound and drone upon drone until the soup’s so thick you can eat it with a fork. This is EXPERIMENTAL saxophone playing, and not even remotely close to Colin Stetson or anything like that.
So Bailey sets the mood, and maintains the mood, over five fairly lengthy pieces. Only the sub-two-minute “Sax Criminal” ventures into “traditional” playing, with a fairly straightforward (albeit effect-drenched) run tiptoeing into standard noir territory. But the rest is a fever dream, a Black Lodge mist of proto-Badalamenti swamp tone that swirls around itself until you’re not sure where you are or what year this is. Somebody get Dean Hurley on the phone. Bailey’s playing is as natural as breathing, and it will mesmerize you until you can’t tell friend from foe, or even if there were any friends or foes to begin with (there didn’t have to be).
You still weirded out? Don’t be. Get hip to Christopher Brett Bailey. On Pastel Heck. “Only 50 copies available!”