Tabs Out

cassette podcast focusing on noise & experimental sounds
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Tabs Out | Vague Voices – Гробник

Vague Voices – Гробник

6.13.19 by Ryan Masteller

Oh, I was so SCARED there for a minute! The text on this tape by Vague Voices looked like black metal text, and just braced myself for the onslaught for no apparent reason. So despite the fact that black metal certainly informed the work of the duo (Stefan Bachvarov and Angel Simitchiev), there isn’t any yelling or those infernal blast beats that get the cat all agitated so that he goes under the couch and doesn’t come out until I turn off the black metal.

Actually, I like black metal, and that’s a game the cat and I play.

I don’t have a cat.

All honesty aside, “Гробник” is still a creepy ride, just a slow and synthy one down the demonic passageways of dangerous video games. In fact, “Гробник” was commissioned for “Sofia Game Night 2018 – an even dedicated to gaming culture.” Bachvarov and Simitchiev were so taken by the result that they expanded their collaboration and dropped this nightmare of an atmospheric drone tape, synthesizers soundtracking horrifying happenings deep in the woods late at night. Or maybe it’s an alternative soundtrack to “Doom.” What do I know? What I DO know is that “Гробник” is “an old Bulgarian word meanings an elderly person approaching their death, a mythical vampire-like creature, or а grave-digger.” So probably more along the lines of the forest horror.

These ten pieces evoke nefarious dread at every moment, the level of which depends on how vile the deeds are that happen during the track. So “Гробник” plays like an anthology film, a “Black Mirror”/“Twilight Zone”/Brothers Grimm homage, but with super cool synth gear. I would suggest picking one up from Amek Collective, but they’ve sold out their run of 77 already. Looks like it’s to depths of Discogs with you, doomed pilgrim!

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Tabs Out | Dughpa – Discography: 2015-2018

Dughpa – Discography: 2015-2018

6.12.19 by Ryan Masteller

The collected recordings format is a special thing, whether it’s a greatest hits compilation or a career-spanning box set or a clean-out-the-hard-drive b-side dump (which is also often box set treatment). The placement of so much material side-by-side can offer a glimpse into the artist’s creative process, and can juxtapose one era of innovation with another. So even if you’re faced with a hundred alternate takes of “Whole Lotta Love,” you’ll know way more about Led Zeppelin at the end of it than you might ever have thought possible. You superfan, you!

Swedish electronic artist Dughpa has a superfan in Austin, Texas, label Night Rhythms, who have here packaged “Dughpa” and “II” together in a lovely little set for the discerning synthesizer music consumer out there. I mean, just listen to this effusive praise that came to me ready-to-post in the body of the email!: “Minimal retro-futuristic biology film synth… or space library musikk [sic]… or… intercepted outsider transmissions… or… some of my favorite ambient of the last five years…” That’s all exactly what I would have said, if you had ONLY GIVEN ME THE CHANCE. At least we can agree on it.

Dughpa’s headspace is definitely retro Zelda or retro Asimov or retro Herbert, even “Retro Puppet Master,” which I somehow caught the Rifftrax version of recently, but has a soundtrack vibe similar to Dughpa’s. Don’t read anything into that though – surely just coincidence. But when you’re consistently coming up with minimal melodies that could perfectly accompany the “Twilight Zone”-ish action of any thinky sci-fi or horror production, you’ll just end up with too much music to go around. Some of it will have to be wasted on the “Retro Puppet Masters” of the world.

Now – when Night Rhythms’s website is back up, you can go buy one of these. Till then, check out both albums included in the set streaming below.