Tabs Out

Winter Sleep – Return to Dream City

7.19.19 by Ryan Masteller

To quote the runaway television hit “Game of Thrones,” “Winter is getting closer.” And by “winter” I of course mean “Winter Sleep,” a fresh-faced Philadelphian named James Webster, who took his moniker from the hibernative qualities of the castle of Winterfield nestled snugly in the north of Westeria beneath the shadow of the mighty Ice-Formed Wall. It’s not for nothing that “Game of Thrones” garnered all those Emmy noms for their final season – the ultimate events of said series were universally showered in acclaim.

So Webster rides the wave of popularity and releases music with a tenuous connection to the show.* Like the Three-Eyed Blackbird, he peers into multiple aspects of human life, documenting what he sees from that dreamlike perspective and envisioning vast multidimensional composites, of which he focuses on minute details in order to explicate their intricacies, absurdities, and sheer banalities. In other words, Webster makes music about what he sees when he wargs through his dreams. And what he sees is both strikingly human and equilibrium-shiftingly odd.

Thus Dream City, and its “Return to” so hauntingly alluded to in the title. Wordlessly, Webster gathers his tools – I dunno, synthesizer? Sampler? – and dives into future nu-scapes only glimpsed through the fog of slumber, the haze of unconscious vibrations. Dream City is a place that’s easy to imagine if you’ve ever caught yourself in a self-aware moment within a dream, the impossibly familiar surroundings suddenly seeming to expand endlessly in a labyrinth of avenues and passageways. All is crystal and liquid metal and smooth pastel. It’s as reassuringly benign as it is brimming with adventure. Truly Webster has crafted a visionary mindspace where future, present, and past combine, and distance and meaning are relative and unstable.

The question really is, can Webster see the Dead Ice Emperor in these extrasensory warg travels of his? 

… How should I know – do I look like Steve R. R. Martin to you?

“Return to Dream City” came out at the tail end of 2018 on Ghost Diamond, but you can still head there for a fresh copy if you so choose! (And you should so choose; honestly, you should also just grab whatever they have in print.)

*He doesn’t really have anything to do with GOT – I’m just jerking your chain.

New Batch – Third Kind Records

7.18.19 by Mike Haley

Stephen King warned us in short story form back in the 70’s that sometimes they come back. He repeated that warning in the 90’s in feature length movie form. I ignored both instances because, with the exception of The Langoliers and it’s groundbreaking animation, I don’t appreciate King’s rude attempts to spook people. No thank you. That might explain why I wasn’t prepared for Third Kind Records to [jump scare] COME BACK!

It was a paltry hiatus that Third Kind took, lasting only seven month or so, but it’s all behind us now with three new (non-scary, quite limited) tapes.

South City Hardware – Redirected Midi

One would assume that South City Hardware is not associated with the South City Hardware And Sanitary Store located in India, which is the first Google result their name turns up, but I could be wrong. Hardware and sanitation are analogous in this situation. Hardware could be producing the vertigo’d footwork and woozy, crytpto melodies that wall-to-wall Redirected Midi. And a sanitation issue would explain the oozy sheen on each rapid clickpopclickpopboomsampleboomclick.

Nicholas Langley – Nix Six New Plus Two

Langley’s Nix Six New Plus Two appears to be six new tracks plus two more, which is… One moment here… Eight tracks. Mostly short lil’ buggers, taking up only 15 minutes worth of magnetic tape, these self-described “too cute” ditties mine the fantastic fields of character select screens by way of overly vibrant synthshine. The tapes come packaged in (dishwasher safe??) Bottle Buddies© (see above).

All Cats Are Beautiful – a​/​c​/​a​/​b e​/​p​/​3

All Cats Are Beautiful, a name that plays on the more accurate All Cops Are Bastards, deal level-headed experimental dreampop comparable to LEDs wobbling their light in a dark room. The 30 minute recording is held together by the lush urgency of layered vocals dosing dreamy keys and strings. Almost enough to relax the brain during humanity’s current nightmare scenario. Almost.