Tabs Out

New Batch – Park 70
12.6.18 by Ryan Masteller

You might recognize Park 70 from their releases’ physical aesthetics alone: the Knoxville-based label drops everything enclosed in a lovely letterpressed O-card that includes a heavy card stock insert containing a replication of the outer cover art and additional information. The tapes themselves are clean and unadorned. Park 70 tapes are the very definition of minimal beauty.

I’m writing this at the tail end of November (you’ll read this months, maybe years later, I’m sure), so the time is still right to note that the Knoxvillains (haha, as opposed to Knoxvillians) have quietly slipped a new batch of their trademark wares into the world. You’ll not be surprised, then, that their sonic aesthetics also remain consistent, heavy on the serious long-form drone/noise/ambient and light on the jokey banter that you come to expect from us around here. I’m … sorry to disappoint you.

 

Sparkling Wide Pressure – Find a Frame
Another Tennessean, Frank Baugh has done his Sparkling Wide Pressure thing from the confines of Murfreesboro (where my brother lives, cool!) for quite a while now. “Find a Frame” continues his exploratory psychedelic ambient path, mixing snippets of found sound into a proto-vaporwave sludge that sounds like equal parts deconstructed noise and shamanistic desert jams. Meticulous and dynamic, sincere and weird, Baugh riffles through his inspirations and comes out the other end completely on his own terms. He even deigns to allow his own voice to be heard at times, giving “Find a Frame” a particularly personal feel. But there’s so much going on, and so much changes from track to track, that repeat listens are a must to pin everything down

 

Calineczka – The City Behind the Fence
Alicante, Spain–based artist Calineczka here presents “two miniatures on analog modular synthesizer” collected under the title “The City Behind the Fence” and dedicated to National Security Complex Y-12. Let’s … um … dig into all that a little bit, because there’s more going on here than the insistent drone Calineczka’s transmitting to us. First, these are not miniatures – each side presents a single 28.5-minute monolith of unfiltered tone. Second, the Y-12 National Security Complex is a “United States Department of Energy national Nuclear Security Administration facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.” True, “The City Behind the Fence,” which is likely in reference to the facility, feels like it’s penetrating you at a subatomic level, so there’s probably some nuclear fission happening that you may not be aware of as you listen. Third – are there magnets in nuclear physics? This sounds like really powerful magnets if you think about it. If your head was made of metal, “The City Behind the Fence” would pull it apart.

 

Grant Evans – Ephemerals
What is it with these guys? Grant Evans is also prolific, with a generous back catalog that you can sift through after you read this and listen to “Ephemerals.” There’s so much music between these artists, it’s just unbelievable. On “Ephemerals,” Evans, like Calineczka, has produced two sidelong tracks, each a fifteen-minute slab of roiling, tactile noise. “Grave” recalls digging in the night, nefarious work, unholy activity – or maybe just dirty work, without the whole wicked connotation. Who’s to say? Who are we to judge? I judge “A Green Lampshade Beside the Door,” because that color just doesn’t go with the rest of the décor. Green lampshade! Not in MY house. The more you stare at it, the more you listen to its namesake cassette track, the more it begins to make sense, though. It wavers, emanating its greenness from within, seemingly dosing you with its lampshadey vibrations. Not in MY house, lampshade! Not in… my… house… I love you lampshade.

Paula Matthusen and Olivia Valentine – Between Systems and Grounds
12.5.18 by Ryan Masteller

My mom used to sew a lot when we were kids; she had an electric machine, and with all the holes me and my two brothers put in our blue jeans over the years, that sucker got a massive workout. I can hear its mechanical buzzing now as its needle rapidly runs thread over patches and reapplies zippers and pockets and belt loops or whatever we happened to rip off our wardrobe. One thing I can tell you – it had a kind of irritating noise, certainly nothing that you could peer further into for any sort of deep intellectual resonance.

My mom didn’t do any lacework – I mean, she had three (championship-caliber) athletic sons to deal with, she wasn’t dabbling in anything frilly. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just, you know, where’s the time? Lacework is the foundation, though, on this new tape by Paula Matthusen and Olivia Valentine – yeah, I said lacework is the foundation of an audiotape! You’re looking at me funny, kind of like my mom used to do when I’d bring her a shirt with a sleeve off. But Matthusen and Valentine begin with the place and action of Valentine’s work and extrapolate from there, with Matthusen recording the sounds of the lacework and the setting and providing accompaniment – or filtration, or whatever – via electronic means. Basically, this involves capturing the audio of both act and environment and turning it into a kind of mad scientist art project.

Totally simplifying, there, sorry. There’s way more at work here, including intense documentation as well as capturing real-time sound or manipulating recorded sound within self-imposed time-compressed strictures. For example, here is track 1’s title, which includes date, time, place, and sound sources: “I 07_12_16, 4_00 pm, Rabun Gap, GA (real-time [insects, summer breeze, bobbins, feedback]).” (By the way, kudos for the correct use of those nested brackets.) All of the elements listed in a track’s title are part of the recording, part of its history, and part of the activity of its creation. So, like, insects, summer breeze, bobbins, and feedback are all mixed together in both a mastering program and your imagination, where they sound nothing like what the words represent or even what your imagination is likely cooking up. Which is great. And still, the result washes over you in a type of ambience, an evolved product that stands alone beyond its components.

If only my mom could do THAT.

“Between Systems and Grounds” is available from Carrier Records. Please note that the presentation is friggin GORGEOUS (see image above).