Tabs Out

cassette podcast focusing on noise & experimental sounds
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Tabs Out | Lucas Abela – Making Corner / Full Body Promise

Lucas Abela – Making Corner / Full Body Promise

9.20.22 by Jacob DeRaadt

On this tape we find Lucas doing something completely fresh and new, which keeps me wondering how many tricks he has up his sleeve. Yes, we think of a caveman howling into a contact mic’d shard of wartime glass, but this is an affair altogether psychedelic and manic in a way that reflects Abela’s use of technologies broken down. It reflects a hyper-tonal universe of rubbery tones that confuse and fascinated for much of the first side.

Surprising bright tape manipulation gets out of control bouncy with raw sound jumping out at odd points in the stereo field. At some extremely choppy moments I find myself thinking of some sounds that remind me of my favorite parts of Skozey Fetisch. Hyperdelic shifting music concrète/synth squelch stretches in-and-out of tape manipulation techniques that are constantly shifting.

It all becomes very human with the inclusion of a sudden voice in the mix.  

We’re constantly shifting between different sound perspectives that range from bells, the human voice, oscillating tones, string abuse(?), a mashing mixer making thudding rhythms that fade in and out of the mix. Interrupting vocal tape scratching punctures the bubble and things begin to move around in asymmetrical fashion, dissolving back into kindergarten twinklings sparkling behind the dark mass of other tape manipulation. Truly confused by what’s going on here and I’m very happy with that… Raw sounds buzzing around the stereo field towards the end with expert control, violin stabbing into liquid space. 

Side two goes beyond this into some sustained spaces of looping fragmented voices warbled by a mutant tape device. The signal dissolves from view and is replaced by a thick soup of interrupting ticks: an ADD nightmare routine. A severely individual realm of sound manipulation opens a pulsating new drive of the glitching tick that holds us to the accidental rhythms band departures that the sound takes from its original form as it encounters different acoustic treatments. There’s more of an emphasis on a grooving throbbing loop of material that quickly dissolves into the signature midi doorbell equipment sound, Abela signaling that the experiment is over. Great tape. Great evolution. Luca is no one trick pony. Copies still available as of this review, don’t sleep on a good one. 

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Tabs Out | John O’Neill – Cine/Hollywood Tow

John O’Neill – Cine/Hollywood Tow

9.19.22 by Matty McPherson

Earlier this year the Tabs Out East Coast CEO went ahead and premiered a novel invention for noise practitioners. A simple paper sheet, designating set time lengths and genre variation, that should help the scene with schedule organization and variations. At the local noise coffee shop where I frequent, all the trendy noiseniks have been hailing the invention as a boon, the thing that will start an earnest dialogue about what the perfect set length is. We all want this. Admit it, you do too.

I suppose though that there will always be artists that can subvert the need for such paper sheets by sheer talent. The ones who internally understand that when their piece is done, well it is done and no sheet will designate otherwise. John O’Neill is one such fella with a finger on the pulse there. The LA-based artist has remained uncollected for quite a while, that is until Hot Releases finally made a cold call and copitulated to a perfect “no fat or lean” C28 back in January. Cine / Hollywood Tow is 3 whip-smart variations on a theme: “meditative yet solitarily vibing” more or less. Exactly how it is to be achieved comes through the three live performances that make it clear there is no singular manner to the endeavor.

Side A is completely dominated by “Backyard at Zoey & Craig’s 5/27/21”, which finds O’Neill quickly digging into towards stateless, “open-zone” ambient. There’s nary an undercurrent of brooding anger or simmering rage gestating within the just-shy of 15 minutes performance. Ponderous, brisk synth fog, mousy electronic squeals, and small haptics drone into a Pacific Northwest night walk; low to the ground, deep in the soil–chilled and billed. Even a crow that makes a brilliant stage debut; enough that made me turn my back to check if the garage was open. As the piece draws up, a strange sudden quivering pulse comes through, as it to foreshadow the b-side.

Two tracks here on side-b are wisely cut new adventures down in LA. The UCLA-recorded experiment, 69.000.1 startles at first with the change up in palette. O’Neill still finds comfort in abrasive droning textures and sine wave low frequency oscillation. At piercing volumes, it takes me back to anti-gravity rides at the county fair as much as those dreaded “room of mirrors.” Soon though, we’re inside a wild chainsaw demolition derby in Los Angeles with Station to Station (AM Band). Bouts of generator noise, radio hellscape noise, and evil robot blacksmith” field recording noise all intermingle into a playful final boss form. Yet as time moves, a pulsing drum beat moves to the forefront as the noise drone decays. It’s a fusion that provides the industrial strength backbone and excitement. His noise bashes become more smart bomb-oriented. They honk and wail, even sputtering like a Squidward robot trying to fire off lasers or an arcade machine that wants to offer free change. It never bores over its 11 minute run-time; perfect length from what all the noiseniks are saying at the coffee shop.

It was only released 8 days into this year; sadly sold out for a long time but perhaps not a long time?

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Tabs Out | Ypsmael – Box of Black

Ypsmael – Box of Black

9.10.22 by Jacob DeRaadt

Ypsmael – Box of Black

Box of Black by Ypsmael is really well-crafted, modern noisy experimental electronic music with ambient touches in parts that encapsulates a lot of the newer digital aesthetics as well as the abstract. Wails of guitar-as-sound-source approach that sometimes lend themselves to melodic phrasings or repetition, but abruptly cut off. Other songs give an electro acoustic dissonance that sustains tension within bursts of high end feedback sends.

Microphones shake… Four track sliding fuckery of odd popping and rubbing sounds with what sounds like low level voltage stabs under the slowly building layers… The layering in parts is what sustains the tension and fills negative space while not filling them up entirely as a whole.  Muffled voices in the background… Moaning organ sounds against tuned water droplets in a lake or a vast cavern…

The Box of Black shines in the dark, glows with dark messages from other chaotic realms. Different zones get mined throughout a single tape.

Available from Public Eyesore Records who says “Sounds used are guitar, no-input feedback, voice, sipsi, slidewhistle, amplified objects and claves fed into pedals for effects, live loops and textural layering. All were arranged in rural Baden-Württemberg in 2021.”