Tabs Out, Author at | Page 170 of 1032

October 6, 2020October 6, 2020

Tabs Out | Ryan Wade Ruehlen – Nervous/Splintered/Circular/Breath

Ryan Wade Ruehlen – Nervous/Splintered/Circular/Breath

We’re all in the same boat. Everybody’s been stuck inside the house during this unprecedented time of isolation, so we get it – we understand each other. We’re all still in our pajamas; our hair is way longer than it should be, and don’t get me started on the beards. Oh, the beards! If your face is anything like my face, then you wake up daily going toe to toe with a follicular nightmare that barely registers as anything other than a crumb-filled bath mat. You could wipe your feet on my face.

Ryan Wade Ruehlen is one of the lucky ones, because he got outside – he made it, like he was busting out of jail and hopping the first train to anywhere other than here. Of course he had his saxophone and laptop and effects pedals and whatever else he’s using all tucked away in his hobo bindle – surely he wasn’t planning on artistically expressing his frustrations with our current situation without his primary tools. He also probably needed to bring a generator or some kind of apparatus that provides electricity – the desert doesn’t have any outlets.

Yeah, he did this from the Sonoran Desert and Tucson, Arizona. Got his sax and his gear all out in the middle of nowhere. Then he cooked up some serious pieces for what he’s calling the Decentralized Sonic Quarantine Network (DSQN), livestreaming the whole thing, then taking the audio from the stream and presenting it to us here. The cool thing is that it’s an ongoing project! But the tape in my hand is a finite object, so I guess I get what I get. Which, thankfully, is a lot! The four pieces are all damn long, ranging from almost nine minutes to over twenty-four. And there’s a LOT to chew on – Ruehlen starts with saxophone, utilizing circular breathing techniques, and adds on his electronic and loopy accoutrements. The result is sort of noise, sort of electroacoustic, sort of jazz, sort of modern classical, all experimental excellence.

Somebody’s gotta keep us sane throughout this pandemic. Might as well be Ryan Wade Ruehlen! The tape is available directly from the artist under the imprint Desert Spell Recordings, which I imagine is his own thing.

Tabs Out | Bill Orcutt – Warszawa

Bill Orcutt – Warszawa

10.1.20 by Ryan Masteller

Bill Orcutt played about forty minutes away from my house not that long ago (pre-COVID), but I missed it. Actually, I didn’t so much miss it as I just didn’t go, considering that the show was going to end just past my bedtime at like ten o’clock or so, and then I would have had to drive that forty minutes back home. So really, because it’s my own fault and all, you really shouldn’t feel too bad for me. Not that that’s what I was going for with all this, but still, there it is.

I guess in the end this is a terrible story considering I’m spending all this time telling you what I didn’t do. I could lie and make something up, I guess, but you’d see right through it. So I’ll just have to live vicariously through this tape, then, “Warszawa” on Endless Happiness. The two sides contain two live Orcutt pieces, just the man and an electric guitar, onstage at the Avant Art Festival, Spatif, Warsaw, in 2019. And if “Warszawa” is any indication of what I missed when Orcutt passed through my neck of the woods, then I blew it big time. This is some straight up fairy magic we’re dealing with right here.

Orcutt lays the groundwork for his playing with some lovely pastoral improvisation (think William Tyler but wilder, more windswept), then lets it rip. You know how it goes: Orcutt lulls you into thinking you’re just going to lay on your back and watch clouds wisp across a clear blue sky all day, but he intersperses these sublime moments with arpeggiated jags and surprise twists and turns, then lets you lay back down and try to do it all over again. Each side is sixteen minutes long. He does this for thirty-two full minutes! It’s heavenly, and it doesn’t last nearly long enough.

Truly one of the modern guitar masters, Orcutt has another winner here with “Warszawa” – 50 with a blue shell (sold out!), 50 with a gray shell (not sold out!). And yeah, I’ll catch him next time around (vaccine permitting!).

September 30, 2020September 30, 2020

Nocktern – NoStalgia

9.30.20 by Ryan Masteller

September 30, 2020September 30, 2020

Tabs Out | Nocktern – NoStalgia

Nocktern – NoStalgia

9.30.20 by Ryan Masteller

Of course something called “Nocktern” could only happen at night, because despite its spelling, Nocktern is pronounced exactly like you would pronounce “nocturne,” a composition about or inspired by the night. And you’d be doubly right to head down this easy path on the way to psychiatrically explore Nocktern, as “NoStalgia,” the single, twenty-two minute track that appears on both sides of the tape, debuted at something called “Amek Bummer Nights 2019,” which … sounds pretty awesome. Honestly, if you’re familiar with Amek and its solid stable of artists the label releases, then you would be really keyed up for a performative series called “Amek Bummer Nights” – imagine all the deep, unsettling drone and ambient and synthesizer music you could hear in person!

I won’t get into what that experience probably would be like – you can imagine the beards and the hoodies and the cluttered effects tables – but you can hear it already, can’t you? It’s in your head, the low rumble of static or subtle feedback, the pops and clicks if disruptive percussive elements, the plaintive melodies begrudgingly wrangled from various devices, some with keys. The wildly arpeggiated sci-fi electronics strobing from this base. Wait, what? No, I wasn’t thinking about that either, but here, as I’m listening to “NoStalgia” and getting settled in for my own virtual bummer night I’m hit with that awesome retro vibe, and it’s an incredibly welcome diversion.

See, if this thing is called “NoStalgia” – that capped “S,” suggesting “No Stalgia,” an absence of “Stalgia” (what the heck is “Stalgia”?) – then it’s not going to allow us to tap into the experiences we’ve already had, it’s not going play by our rules. It’s going to break from mopey ambient, and it’s going to make us enjoy what it’s sending our way. Because even though, yes, this still would qualify for perfect “Bummer Nights” entertainment, it’s got a hook that will demand attention rather than let you sink into a lonely malaise. And there’s even a third part! The sci-fi synth drops out in favor of solo piano, which itself whips itself up into an electric loop before gradually tapering off and slinking back into the darkness, reminding you that you are, indeed, part of a “nockternal” experience.

See what I did there?

Fifty copies of this one available, grab it from Amek!