Tabs Out

Matthew Ryals – Voltage Scores

2.28.22 by Matty McPherson

It’s been alluded to consistently that both HQs of Tabs Out are asynchronous, lethargic monoliths. Really only the asynchronous aspect is of any inherent value or truth. May god forgive us for being akin to a message floating freely in a sealed, alcohol free Heineken bottle at the pace tapes are acknowledged. Often as a result of that though, the asynchronicity can spill over into an inkling of the lethargic quality when you see a post like this: one that confirms some soul (me, it’s me!) finally listened to a sold out tape from last year.

I’m bringing this up because it’s that month of the year where a bunch of eager beavers trade lists of around two dozen albums they’ve never heard and do 280 character reviews of each one per day. Am I suggesting this is a bad thing? Well I genuinely can’t fault people for wanting to explore music they don’t know. I suppose I feel that the potency of an exercise like this is mishandled when every list I have seen seems EXTREMELY not interested in looking through music coming out on private press tape labels. Should they be attuned to that in a time when people still cannot fathom music existing off of Spoofy? [sic: this is an intentional misspelling] Really, I suppose I’m just a little cranky by that lack of bonkers digging that has practically been a privilege for me. In all honesty, if you have the privilege to listen to a lot of music each day, as long as it’s not a chore, you should do it. Plus, you’re writing and if you do that for yourself another net gain.

As of the time I’m typing this, I’m still fresh in a late 2021 mail bag that is quickly providing a new sense of emotion and internal knowledge that I didn’t have a year back. Emotion in the sense that some shit just makes my blood boil and I have to eject;  you think I have government mandated break time for this? Internal knowledge in the sense that I have a greater sense of what I want when I’m hearing a tape and if it’s connecting. When both aspects combine, the result is likely along the lines of Matthew Ryals’ Voltage Scores.

I suppose I was craving Eurorack. Everyone on the posting website loves to contemplate, tease, quantify, qualify, etc the rack. What is it about this machine that scars all of you? Honestly, I imagine that in an alternate timeline, there’s a Spongebob episode where Squidward teaches him how to use a Eurorack instead of making a marble statue. However, if that existed then we likely wouldn’t have Ryals’ games of musical pinpoint hopscotch double jumps. Voltage Scores is full-blown cybernetic synth shocks and mirrors, unabashedly confident in the pleeping and plonking that it swaggers through. Supposedly, Ryals had been in a free jazz mindset crafting patches that were meant to be captured and improvised in real time. Voltage Scores alludes to this in the form of casually letting listeners in on what take Ryals has captured; most were within less than half a dozen times (and only Lost Connections appears to have been realized on the spot). 

Ryals’ conception of free jazz ethos on a Eurorack does not invoke sudden brass fantasies, just that sound can be as colorful and freewheeling as that era. Both sides brilliantly bounce between small splashes of downtempo clattering downtime that go toe to toe with jittery, bright dopamine-tinged synth bops.  A bonafide standout emphasizing the latter types of tracks is “anthem for socialism (take 9)”. Not only quippy in its title, Ryals’ locates a strangely airhorn-esque, puffy synthesizer that builds and builds and…eventually does become the music of its own self-sustaining utopia, even glitching out into the fray. The cohesion that both sides warrant as well deserves it’s praise, seamlessly hiding those edits where a track may have no longer been realized and keeping the energy up at all times. Tickling my need for bonkers sound and deft pop structure, Voltage Scores didn’t just emotionally grasp me where I like these things to meet. It  practically turned me into a cat with a laser pointer, which is what I suppose a viable Eurorack modus operandus could afford 🙂

C46 // Edition of 50 pro-dubbed tapes. Art & design by Gabriela Del Valle. Sold Out at Source

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Patrick Shiroishi and Jeff Tobias – s/t

2.24.22 by Matty McPherson

“I always happen to be like the inaugural or almost-inaugural release on these tape labels! I don’t know how it keeps happening.” I’m paraphrasing a snippet of a conversation from last time I had a chat with Patrick. It was in regards to the fact that a LOT of tapes that feature Patrick’s dabbling in free jazz have comically low catalog numbers (seriously, do the numbers). It’s a streak that’s more funny and coincidental than anything else, yet it continues with CAT 008 on Topo Press. The latest “low catalog number Patrick Shiroishi free jazz tape” is sometimes hot and swinging, always devious, and perhaps (most importantly,) a real exploration of the duality and tenacity of the sopranino saxophone.

A dueling sopranino saxophone tape isn’t the newest idea under the sun; of course, everyone knows that it’s about WHOEVER is on the bill. And Shiroishi being joined by Jeff Tobias is naturally a bloodbath massacre for the ages. Both are officially seasoned Astral Spirits veterans as much as poly-instrumentalists and their Los Angeles recording session is a premiere time for the two to just cut down to the current state of things and start landing JABS! Hell, the Shiroishi/Tobias sopranino effort doesn’t even open with a stretch break, warmup or round 1 bell. And that’s not a bug nor a feature, just a straightforward blessing! Straight layers of saxophone into sweltering noise not far removed from a cosmic modular synth place us en media res. The first track captures a tad of Shiroishi’s intensity from Oort Smog while Tobias, too, plays on offense. It’s a massive change of pace from Tobias summer effort on AS, no longer playing catchup, but actively countering Shiroishi or actually layering with him to lay down bona fide power combos. The second track is more spread for both players, less offensive and more towards the defense with each other in a friendly sparring manner, actually letting off small doses of playful notes.

So naturally, it all comes down to round 3, but by this point, Shiroishi and Tobias aren’t out for blood. They’ve swapped recording rooms and in the smallest of spaces, they’ve gone nimble with the ambient and textured sounds they can wield on their sopraninos. Pushing for a reserved form of cooperation, it’s an abstracted account of shadowboxing if you will. Quixotic quips of vapors foreground the piece while the occasional, melodic gaggle finds its way to the surface. It doesn’t dance but for a mere few bars and yet the patience is measured, blipping and chipping as the two improvisers find a shared communique to relay. 

If you’ve continued to be in search of a more varied and loose “this is what we’re feeling RIGHT NOW” tape of two A-level saxophonists, yeah this’ll tickle your fancy. Just don’t expect any winner to be crowned out of this dueling feature–twas was never the point! Although rumor has it “the pair intend to record a follow-up sometime in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-two…”

Edition of 50 available at the Topo Press Webstore Page; Streaming on Bandcamp

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