Tabs Out

Jeff Surak – Eris I Dysnomia

1.22.22 by Matty McPherson

Dysnomia is the only known moon of the dwarf planet Eris and likely the second-largest known moon of a dwarf planet, after Pluto I Charon.

Dysnomia is an aphasia in which the patient forgets words or has difficulty finding words for written or oral expression.

Welcome to the future. We’re here right now, live at the source: DC-based Jeff Surak’s latest tape offering Eris I Dysnomia. Surak’s name is new to me, perhaps new to you, but to the annals of home taping he’s about as decorated and astute as they come. The mail order web page links reviews that reveal “at one point, he was the organiser of the Sonic Circuits Festival” and that he’s still been rweaving a spirally-stricken labyrinth of tapes and digitals out on his own ZEROMOON label. For Eris I Dysnomia, he’s struck up a bountiful piece of ferric for Public Eyesore’s Eh? Imprint that highlights a litany of loquacious droning and sonic detachments. 

Dysnomia is a newfangled big brain word. Naturally it has two distinct definitions (see above) that delineate a location and a feeling that Surak makes a smack-dab layup out of over the C50 here.

Side A is all “Parasite Lost”, a slow burn for a grey day on a black sand beach. Surak is less about piercing,wailing soundscapes than imparting a suggestive, percolative quality to display. Where we start with cyclical motors and whispering winds quickly drones together and mends an image of an omnibus factory just out of reach; by the time we’ve reached it there’s another sound space that we’re circling towards; equally out of reach and yet thrice as piercing. By the time we reach that space, the sounds of  hinterlands seem to push us ahead. Each mome Surak invites listeners on this journey, trusting that each step of the way, each new found low hum or instrument inversion, we’ll stay focused on the present moment, where we are now, not headed.

Side B meanwhile decides to peel back the longform and instead highlight Surak’s own tenacious sound experiments. More concrete abstractions like “Concupiscent Strings” and “Asphalt Muzak” are as present-oriented as “Parasite Lost”. They marvel at their own gristling, precocious sound of the moment. Although for brief flickers, “Asphalt Muzak” hints at a subconscious pop prerogative that “Stuck” actually channels into a vapory, disintegrating two and a half minute detente. It’s a bizarre, but warranted moment on the tape that palette cleanses “16 Hours on Neptune”’s rather blissed out passage to the other side. Needless to say, Surak’s hodgepodge of ideas allude to a career that I can only hope shows further signs in my inbox soon.

Limited Edition Tape Available for Purchase from the Public Eyesore/Eh? web order page!

Related

Expedient Self – Body Man/Facist Game Show

1.20.22 by Matty McPherson

Honestly, I love a good “proof-of-concept” tape. The kind that is purposely put in cardboard instead of the norelco, left with only a singular “cassingle” level message to bear that belts out across a C15. And Expedient Self has managed that without too much trouble on the Body Man/Facist Game Show quickie we have here today. The Brighton, UK based one-piece is just noodling with guitars, yet seems to have quickly grabbed attention with a keen ear towards a balance of melody and noisy that would fit at the local farmer’s market during the witching hour. Sonically, it’s not too far removed from a twisted Astral Spirits release or Kevin Levine’s glass-shards style playing that brought noir aesthetics to PiL eons ago.

Side A’s Body Man twists and turns with detuned, jazzy guitar slinkery. A motif, what I’ll refer to as a consistent pang, pops like one of ‘em cartoon characters whose eyes just went all AWOOGA on another hot cartoon character. It never leaves the fray, yet Expedient Self is quick to layer it on top of cantankerous noise, warm overdubs, and multi-layered strings that quickly become a murderous cacophony. It’s twisted yet sugary, suggesingt a timeline not too far removed from those early days when you could buy Factory Records out of the back of a car (or so I’m told). Side B’s Facist Game Show continues the finger picking odyssey, but is more content to stretch itself out and just see what happens when feedback is introduced. Throw the chap a fiver, won’t you?

Limited Edition professionally pressed and printed cassette tape, Shrink-wrapped (😢), now available at the Expedient Self Bandcamp page