Tabs Out

Tranquility Tapes Winter Preview
1.28.15 by Ian Franklin

I know; Winter time sucks. It can be downright miserable. There’s approximately 14 minutes of sunlight remaining when you get out of work, the weatherman’s forecasting your imminent doom, and your socks are wet. Good lord, why are the socks wet all the time?! But look, Tranquility Tapes doesn’t give two hoots about all that biz. They’re all set to drop another batch featuring OLD SVRFERS, Witchbeam, and Quicksails goodies guaranteed to make you lose those winter blues. We’ve gotten the go ahead from Tranquility and are very pleased to premiere a video made by Glass House’s Eric Brannon for the batch. Feast your eyes and ears:

Well, I was lucky to peep some sounds from this batch so I thought I’d tease y’all a little more:

Awash with underlying currents of melancholic drone, oily rhythms, and deep sea exploration, OLD SVRFERS’, the duo of Josh Mason and Brad Rose, “Ain’t Scared of Shaka” (C41) floats through a maze of tasty sets and swells. This little beauty is a tried and true submersible with extensive battle tested capabilities, both Mason and Rose have had lengthy solo expeditions, but here the two forge a passage through dense formations of sequential zones, stretches of misty foggy lagoons, past all possible escape routes and down into the depths itself. Some of the stretches on this release are so absolutely magnificent. Wide open seas that extend infinitely with a cool breeze at your shoulders and a fading sunlight through the dotted white puffs of cloud vapor. You can close your eyes and they’ll still be there. But the ocean beneath you is large and there are many creatures just waiting for you to sink below. Bubbly acid rises from the volcanic floor and spreads a thick woozey dub across the whole ocean bed. Shadows play on the walls of reefs and capsized vessels; layers of crevasses never touched by sunlight. Twisting your way through streams of syncopated synth stanzas and pockets of warmer drift you’re carried upward, rushing to the surface in purposeful exhilaration to reach out and crash upon the stoney shore of a territory outside your own. Joyous, and dark, and turbulent, Ain’t Scared of Shaka is one to set your compass by.

On “Shadow Musik Vol. 2” (C30), master of ceremonies Witchbeam blasts through dubbed out synth frequencies and dense clusters of harsher rituals. Driving columns of bass drum echo through the cranial walls while supremely fuzzed bass crawls over the skin. The spacing and pace of the album are fantastic: Witchbeam uses alternating forms of dissonant drone and structured destruction to hypnotize the listener into altered states of awareness: hypnogogic trip metal for the masses. The synthesized tones on this release are so vibrant: whether plucky wooden tones, resonator oscillator drift, crunchy fuzz nugs, and everything in between. Witchbeam is a true craftsman at work.

Quicksails (Ben Billington) cuts a rug on “Spillage” (C34), using a bevy of digital obfuscations in rhythmic models while mixing in some exposed melodic yearnings. A multi-instrumentalist but a-lot-of-the-time drummer, Billington uses his knowledge to accentuate the ferocity of his rhythmic explorations: movements in mitochondrial samba, laterally twisting swashes of synthesized glisten, fragmented microtonal galaxies dancing in digital playgrounds. He slices perfectly the juxtaposition of ambient sections and sequenced patterns, alternating their emphasis and importance, atop a healthy dose of exploration with respect to composition. Taking playful melodic samples of acoustic piano and digital synth, Billington slides beautifully wrought passages into small spaces while then turning around and burying it under a mass of crackling dissonance and resonator bellows. So many zones to traverse on this but the journey is the reward.

All three releases are housed in the artwork of Caroline Teagle, as is customary for all Tranquility Tapes releases. Don’t sleep on these; Tranquility releases are of the highest quality and this might be the last batch for some time. They should be available reeeeally soon from. They might even be up now, have you looked?