New Orleans is a slithering hot bed for minimal synth grinds and industrial jet set rippers. Along those lines beaming out of a cackling wurlitzer jukebox is Nail Club (Sara Nicole Storm). Her cassette releases spanning the last decade are long oop, with many nuggets stored throughout. I know this because Hot Releases re-issued the 2020 Collected Works on tape earlier this year. It’s a Tascam 4-track odyssey and sonic journal of an artist perpetually in flux; the tape’s sequencing purposely time travels through her catalog with an ear more towards mood not chronology. And with good reason, seeing as Storm treats the pulsing rhythm as an ecosystem that sounds like a rickety machine running on 1% battery charge sputtering out an ancient algorithm. Meanwhile, sly synthetic slinkery leverages a springboard for detailed mind palace considerations underneath all that 4-track fuzz. It’s a sound that scales up from the boombox to the grand halls of our nation’s many sewer systems that skaters reside within and one that doesn’t tire.
When trading favorites with Mr. Foxy Digitalis back in May, Brad Rose confessed that L’âge de l’absolutisme was one of the most awe-inspiring releases of 2021 to date. And indeed, when the tape came around, it HIT on the soundsystem and turned me and a pal into literal goo; a fantastical post-rock hybrid and a mongo act of self-realization for MMMD* (pronounced Muhammed). The Athens, Greece based duo of Illos (Dimitris Kariofilis) and Nikos Veliotis have spent 12 years on Illos’ Antifrost label with over a dozen albums. In that time, they’ve decided to make a mad investment in the low end. Beyond the theoreticals and theory, just straight into the veins with the LE oscillators (Look at that back j-card–how you goin’ big on big?). For 2021’s dispatch, Alem joins the duo, to perform a series of baroque stone cold classics that he does with finesse and stateliness you’d expect from your grandfather’s mutant Phillips C60s. To great effect, MMMD brought the choir, the cello and those oscillators to create a “gigantesque basso continuo” that operates as a second skin running under Alem. Baroque Drone wasn’t on my tape 2021 bingo card, but its appearance is worthy of the bubbly–or at least a mad hangover cure. Even as a tidy C30, the three pieces are unnerving in their own cunning and fascinating morose elements to lie into and suck out the impurities. A sublime cleanse.
99Letters has been working in and around (what I believe to be) the Kansai underground scene for over a dozen years, racking up releases with THRHNDRDSVNTNN and Seagrave back in the mid-2010s, in between the occasional DJ mix or other one-off. However, 99Letters has been quiet for a bit since 2018, only recently kicking things back into focus with two releases this year, the self-released Shirankedo and the Cudighi Records distributed Ibuki. Both releases have a bit of a reflective melancholy bubbling through them. 99Letters’ own take on these projects has been influenced by COVID and the Kansai scene’s own slow decline as a result of COVID. It’s changed the approach to tracks, with 99Letters using Ibuki as a springboard to explore the “familiar parts of Japan to show the importance of living powerfully as a work”, crafting songs from traditional Japanese instruments and even using the tape cover as an opportunity to highlight Shozo Michikawa’s ceramic arts.
The resulting set of tunes are patient, subterranean house bops. It’s perfect music for lingering liminal moments as much as rain stricken urban plant life gazing, especially ”Saikai Zyoushiki / 再会常識” wails, with its crisp level of digital ambience (a feature found throughout the 11 tracks) saturating the frame. “Baniku Oishi / 馬肉美味” reminded me of hard hat zones with its 4/4 beat, while a stringed instrument takes the center of the track, imparting a longing and lurching character to the clatter. Of course, you can keep your head to the ground and strut those shoulders in the club if you want, which a track like “Ponzu / 酢” practically encourages. On that track, the percussive tones of those traditional instruments are still mechanistic, yet airy and dynamic enough to bring its loop to the forefront.
99Letters’ approach could be said to be rooted in deep listening practices, a unique manner of enacting the process. Although, I feel more assured noting the way these tracks pull out flow states from these instruments. Certified Downtemp Bop “Mousou Samurai / 妄想侍” exemplifies that. It slinks with its hi-hats that become the track’s guiding base, with the sudden unexpected appearance of a singular, repeated sample giving it a bit of gusto that ties the whole thing together; there’s a dance move to be made out of that one. That feeling is also warranted towards “Tamakorogashi / 玉転がし” which especially amps up the spacious qualities and surprise drops a melodic set of key chords–the bubbly kind that practically signify when you’ve opened a secret chest–that crescendo and crest over and over again. It’s a tantalizing rhythm, nestled deep in an album that channels a soft, radiating power.
Limited Pro Dubbed Cassette Tape Available from Cudighi Records
