11.8.21 by Matty McPherson
Tabs Out | Asemix – s/t
Asemix – s/t
11.8.21 by Matty McPherson
“Where I End and You Begin” is both the title of a Radiohead track as much as it is the perennial descriptor phrase when talking about Asemix’s legendary debut Asemix. More Eaze and Nick Zanca came from two vastly different spheres. They may have never met in the flesh to date, yet they’ve struck up a collaborative partnership over COVID, intermingling through the ol’ Slovenian TMT-affiliated outpost Warm Winter Ltd. Their debut features both of their respective sound palettes (Zanca has left heady breadcrumbs regarding the pop and sonic influences) in such a seamless lock that radiates a luminescent quality to it.
The blurring of the lines between the two leaves the album in a floaty, spacious black hole. It’s a space where improvisation and rehearsed composition, as well as minimalism and maximalism could be one and the same. Their long form pieces were crafted out of field recordings and synth odysseys and other various dirges thrown through digital patches. When it came out on the other side, it unexpectedly carries that feeling of a dialogue from a distant starship’s black box. One that is all shiny and computer controlled–but just absolutely on the fritz of collapsing in on its own coded responses. Scatterbrained, in the good way.
It even recalled Dainel Wyche’s “The Last Flight of the Voidship Remainder,” but that was a loud guitar-based sonic music–and my comparison is more chance coincidence than surefire fact. Zanca and Maurice are DAW-heads and their synth oriented bleeps n’ bloops can more often than not move down tantalizing low-end oriented pathways. The way a ghostly aberration forms out of the lights of “Phantom Lung,” how those synths rupture and bubble on “Rehearsal Earthquake,” how an underlying bass line channels into a crescendo on “Communal Nude,” even the overarching manner as to how damn whirly the tape sounds! It all moves it beyond a mere monotonous exercise and into a subconscious deep listening exercise. There is a brevity and curiosity imbued that makes it one of the most enticing emo-ambient listens in recent memory.
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11.5.21 by Jacob DeRaadt
Tabs Out | Kadaver – Mouthful of Agony
Kadaver – Mouthful of Agony
11.5.21 by
Jacob DeRaadt
While I was listening to this tape, released on Syracuse’s Cruel Symphonies back in the summer, the fan unit on our air conditioning unit began to draw in air that reeked of burnt rubber. Perhaps it was a nasal analog to the thick auditory assault crumbling about in my headphones.
After hearing a Kadaver / Astro split and watching some YouTube videos, it seems the project employs two different tactics on releases:
-Thick, slowly deteriorating bass-heavy slabs of crackling static that avoid the “wall” tag
or
-Pounding decayed industrial / post-mortem electronics
The first approach is on display here. It helps that the duplication and mastering on this is decent, allowing a clear perusal of a very muddy painting. Two-thirds of the way through the first side the muck starts to break up, and bits of incinerated flesh, torn by mechanical threshers, start falling to the ground. A mangled sample of female vocals cuts all of this short. Dead Body Love and OVMN come to mind after giving these textures a few listens. I’m most engaged with the material when it feels like it’s coming apart at the seams rather than dredging up miles of bass muck.
Some parts of side B hang out for a while and don’t do very much for me, although the sputtering ending that ends with disembodied vocals immersed in a soup of high-end static is right up my alley.
10.28.21 by Matty McPherson