7.23.19: self released
Tabs Out | Neil Scrivin – Stars and Rumors of Stars
Neil Scrivin – Stars and Rumors of Stars
7.23.19 by Ryan Masteller
I haven’t watched “Stranger Things” season 3 yet, (2 eps in, gimme a break), but I’m getting that vibe right away from the Jcard font on “Stars and Rumors of Stars,” a “finally-seeing-the-light-of-day” release from Neil Scrivin on Fonolith. And let’s be clear – the only reason I noticed the font in any way is that I somehow glanced away from the brilliant full-cassette-shell artwork (variations of blue-screened autumn tree branches), and I probably only did that because the kids next door were playing baseball and a ball went over the fence and conked me right on the noggin while I stood, mouth agape, on my porch looking at this thing, the rest of the mail forgotten in my other hand. But yeah, it’s that retro Stephen King novel font. I like that font.
This tape may have been initially recorded in 2004, but let’s be clear: this is totally a 2019 release. (Literally and stylistically.) To circle back to those scamps from Hawkins, Indiana – not so scamp-y (and certainly not scampi) anymore, I guess, what with time marching on and all – they’d probably be totally down to listen to Neil Scrivin during a D&D sesh, the moody synth pulses and electro beats just downtempo enough to not overpower the room. The Duffer Brothers should be popping this into a cassette deck near them, and the S U R V I V E dudes shouldn’t go another day without enlisting Scrivin for their next tour. That’s the power of “Stars and Rumors of Stars.”
Playing off the biblical “wars and rumors of wars” warned of in the book of Revelation, Scrivin eyes something equally dangerous/rapturous in the skies, and he plays to his imagination of it. For example – is that supposed to be a UFO coming down over the night fields by the house on the cover? Given the King nods, my unyielding “Stranger Things” talk, and the tense dark synthwork proffered by Scrivin, I wouldn’t be surprised. It could also just be one of those titular stars, shining down through the clouds, teasing knowledge of mysterious deeds. The mystery is the fun part.
“Full-face UV printed cassette tape in black library case” available from Fonolith. See, I told you you’d want one, if only just to look at!
7.22.19 by Ryan Masteller
Tabs Out | Church Shuttle – Mind Leash
Church Shuttle – Mind Leash
7.22.19 by Ryan Masteller
“I won’t be, like, tethered to nothin’!”
So says Church Shuttle as he casts off the “Mind Leash,” filtering everything that’s trapping him through loops and cassettes and synth pads and all other sorts of crazy nonsense and compiling it into this document. For Chris Durham, the Michigan mind behind the ’Shuttle, putting together “Mind Leash” was the “equivalent of gathering all of my angst into one place and then firing it into the sun” (*quotation mine, not Chris Durham’s, because that’s what I imagine him saying about “Mind Leash” when asked about it for a feature Spin interview). Regardless of who put words into whose mouth, there’s still half a C100 here (weird, right?) filled with garbled noise loops and rhythmic pulsations that’ll leave you bobbing in a life raft in the middle of a plasma sea on the surface of said sun, for at least the millisecond you’re still conscious before the awesome power of our closest star pulls all your molecules apart.
If you were to press play on this Church Shuttle tape in the vicinity of a galactic disturbance or even just in front of the most convenient magnet, the results would be the same: total disintegration, of loops of sound sources, of intent, till only the sounds of the destruction itself become the ambient foci. That is, until the voices pierce the mix. Then it’s like you’re standing on the bridge of the Event Horizon and watching the awful videos of people eating each other, or whatever that was. But again, that’s all part of Chris Durham’s plan, all part of the great expulsion of bad thoughts and sad energy, the casting off of the shackles of the Mind Prison. The “Mind Leash” is UNleashed, UNattached, INeffective in its purpose of keeping the average person down. And that’s what makes it a fascinating listen – one person’s angst is another person’s treasure. Something something empathy.
Grip a copy of this bad boy from Anathema Archive, edition of 100 pro-duped tapes. Remember, though, it’s only on one side!