Tabs Out

cassette podcast focusing on noise & experimental sounds
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Tabs Out | Nursalim Yadi Anugerah – Selected Pieces from HNNUNG

Nursalim Yadi Anugerah – Selected Pieces from HNNUNG

4.29.19 by Ryan Masteller

I like that we don’t have to guess with Hasana Editions, the tape label based in Bandung, Indonesia. It’s all right out there, right on the cover. The big, underlined title. The artist name. The location of origin, the method of performance, the style of music, the runtime, and even the channel (Stereophonic) are all represented. If I was doing this for Cassette Gods, I wouldn’t even have to search for or squint at how long the tape is to put it in the header like we do there – C52. It’s like a dream.

The presentation itself is beautiful, and the “Selected Pieces from HNNUNG” are majestic and expressive. Nursalim Yadi Anugerah is a composer based in Pontianak, Indonesia (he’s not a member of Pontiak, which I had to do a double take to figure out), and he’s “inspired by the cosmology, sonology, and culture of indigenous people of Borneo.” In fact, look – I’m not going to be able to paraphrase this with any grace, so let me just stumble through a direct quotation: “Adapted from Kayaan people oral literature Takna’ Lawe’, ‘HNNUNG’ is a chamber opera that amplifies the cosmic dramaturgy of Kayaan culture – in which the narrative of matriarchy is essential.”

I’m an outsider experiencing these pieces; I cannot relate to them on a cultural level or grasp their nuance or even interpret the intended audience response. I CAN relate to them on a musical level, and finding myself tossed about on the waves of “HNNUNG” is pretty exhilarating, intoxicating even, despite my remove from understanding. These nine pieces, selected, as the title suggests, from Anugerah’s larger opera, were “performed by Balaan Tumaan Ensemble and Kerubim Choir using various instruments ranging from kaldii’ and sape’ to tenor saxophone and contrabass.” Sometimes it sounds like some sort of experimental improv ensemble racing through a live set, but then the choir comes in and blows up any proper thoughts I may have been forming about it. Other times the eastern compositional flourishes are a welcome reminder that I’m on uneven footing, and that I should prepare to be surprised.

And I almost constantly am! I have no idea what “HNNUNG” means (all I picture is a sword flying end over end in the air until it embeds itself in a tree trunk with a hearty “hnnung” sound), so I am tabula rasa in this environment. “Selected Pieces from HNNUNG” etches itself across my surface. The drama and the tension coax new feelings, enabling mental connections heretofore unconnected. I am drawn further and further in.

Can I get out? Sure, I just press stop. I have to go get lunch anyway.

“Numbered edition of 100. Hand-stamped pro-dubbed C52 NAC cassette tape with recto/verso printed golden card. … Made and duped in USA. Printed in Indonesia.” Thanks again, Hasana Editions, for doing my work for me!

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Tabs Out | Bath Consolidated – Narryer Gneiss Terrane

Bath Consolidated – Narryer Gneiss Terrane

4.23.19 by Ryan Masteller

IF we begin with a Cloister of Trials – and we do – then we’re touching glyphs and shit in a certain order to get at that sweet, sweet magical weaponry. But the power is continuous – it pulses through ancient conduits, ramping up in intensity long after the ordeal is complete. Before long, it is a blinding white light and overwhelming static, enveloping your mind and making you wonder if you were ready to wield whatever power you’ve now uncovered. The answer is probably no … but maybe yes? There’s an undercurrent of reliability that you can latch onto, something that’s still there once the concentration of stimuli mercifully recedes. If you let that elemental energy into your mind, you’ll have all the necessary grounding you need to navigate “Narryer Gneiss Terrane.”

That’s all “Medulla (Cloister of Trials),” the opening bombardment of a track from Bath Consolidated’s new Orange Milk tape, and it’s a doozy, an extended feeling I imagine Tidus felt the first time he summoned a freaking aeon in “Final Fantasy X.” But once the magick is in him/us/them/Bath Consolidated, he/we/they/Bath Consolidated rises/rise/rise/rises to the occasion and allows the power to simmer, to flow through the body, to react to and reach each chakra in a holistic and ever-strengthening whirlwind of perpetual force. But it’s a terrifying ordeal, one that shoves the power wielder out into a visibility that’s incredibly uncomfortable and unexpected.

There’s anger in there too.

It’s not crazy that Noelle Johnson, the human being–turned–mage behind Bath Consolidated, has adopted the stance of superimposing the millennial identity over ancient texts – the Bible, “Inferno” – opting to subject that identity to the ravages inherent in those texts. What happens? That’s what Johnson’s asking, and that’s what we’re discovering. In Philip K. Dick’s “Valis,” the “Black Iron Prison” is what you’d discover if you superimposed the past over the present over the future, ultimately understanding that “everyone who had ever lived was literally surrounded by the iron walls of the prison; they were all inside it and none of them knew it.”

[*Shakes head*] Millennials. They have to figure EVERYTHING out for themselves. They’ll learn this truth soon enough.

(Just kidding.)

But I get why there’s all that “Final Fantasy” imagery. The protagonists in those games are all pent-up, roiling balls of id, angry to the point of bursting, needing guidance (or something) to unlock their potential. “Narryer Gneiss Terrane” illustrates that journey toward understanding … “gneissly.”

I’ll show myself out.

“Narryer Gneiss Terrane” is an absolute stunner, an electronic/noise/death-sample hybrid that fills your mind and your heart like you’d expect it to. Out May 3 on Orange Milk.