Dinzu Artefacts June 2023 Trio
6.6.23 by Matty McPherson
I’ve found myself finally coming out of a bit of a crunch period, recovered and back to hearing esoteric sounds with gusto once more. Being in touch with label pals also helps, but the recent era of Dinzu Artefacts has been notable for its consistent peaks and tantalizing potential that the batch promises. Unifactor used to hold this power more so, but I truly cannot anticipate what Joe’s curation with the artists he’s working with will happen to build off a mental crumbs or notions of what dedicated tape label curation can afford us. For the 2023 June batch,m Dinzu Artefacts calls to certain “otherness” found within geological accidents, both manmade and of natural evolution, ending up with a definitive era peak.
Mattie Barbier – This is What People Think Mountains Look Like
San Diego’s marine layer was in full force during the month of May. Enough so that it appears to be staying into a traditional “June Gloom”. The kind that imparts a morning mist, rather unfavorable laundry drying conditions, and a long standing call for the slowest of cinema. Your “El Sur”s and Leviathan (2012, although 2016 is upstanding work). Mattie Barbier has successfully concocted the kind of drone akin to the diving rod of the former, as much as the camera cinematography of the latter, within this one outstanding piece, This is What People Think Mountains Look Like.
40 minutes of sustained trombone drone is going to seem like an appetizer when you’re coming off of 3 hours of pondering just whether or not Spring Does Hide Its Joy. But over recent evening, I’ve come to desire keeping this in rotation. Barbier’s recording, dated from June 2021 a the Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangley, Coloado, is an unequivocal production dream. It also just happens to reflect a fragment of 20th century Americana repurposed into something beyond this mortal coil; a futurist silo of sound. What could have been turned into scrap metals, saved by a consortium of local & east coast composer and deep listening music enthusiasts, has become an “impossible sanctuary of sound on Colorado’s remote desert, perched atop the oil fields about 90 miles north of Grand Junction”.
The Tank itself has a lovely website listening many of the activities, although I suggest further reading the AP web piece which provides many other insights. This space can be a mecca for the artists that with which the famed underground Cistern of the Deep Listening Band is unattainable. And to think in its local history of the Rangley area, its history as a sort of pilgrimage site for teens and ne’er do wells, before becoming the venue that it is today, feels eternally cool.
Anyways, Barbier’s trombone is just beyond engrossing. There’s a majestic, stately tone to a few of their early blasts, the kinds that mutate and swirl in a quixotic blend until its alien garble. It’s sets up the 41 minutes that follow as Barbier pushes towards metallic textures and slight tonal changes and strange rattlings that make the heart skip a beat. It sounds of garbled radios or giant locust crushes; insect buzzing and rocks tumbling on the high desert. It’s a type of drone that in spite of its naturalistic title, both the sound and tape cover reveal Barbier’s underlying rural psychedelic approach to the mountains. Perhaps that’s why coming off an early Plotkin cd and the FSA/Roy Montgomery collab, this tape hasn’t left the boombox so easily. Heady trance depths indeed, especially on side B.
David Donohoe – Fen
The dirty little secret about freeform radio? We’re suckers for a good hour of field recordings. And when we have none to offer, the computer is loaded with bird sounds. The Dublin, Ireland based sound practitioner, David Donohoe likely would feel the same way just based off his latest surprise treat for DA. Fen opens like a podcast, as Donohoe takes his Bandcamp liner notes and recites them directly to the listener. It’s a nifty act of priming the listener for what the tape is to hold: “Grasshopper Warbler, Sedge Warbler (both Summer migrant breeders) and Snipe (resident breeder), alongside tuned percussion and synthesizer textures,”. Donohoe is earnest about seeing an otherness and eerie factor to these birds that mimic 20th century developments in editing. He chose these particular birds noting their capacity for exceptionally alien sounds; the kinds that human electronic music of the 60s and 70s happen to mesh with splendidly with low synthesizer bass rumblings and percussion noise.
Thus, if you come to Fen with a particular desire not for bird sounds, but to see how Donohoe fuses it into a soundbath, then you have likely come to the right place. These are the kinds of songs I imagine the Birds of Maine in Michael DeForge’s latest donate for their library system–both wholesome and uncanny yet wit. There are periods of actual bird sound and environmental rainstorms that practically call to the immense pleasure of having something outside typical time conditions. Although, the tape is best for pitch black level listening, appreciating the timbres ability to create electronic esque tones. As the tape goes on though, greater focus on Donohoe’s electronics do take shape. Yet, the birds remain precarious and reveal how well Donohoe has achieved matching his sounds to their frequencies.
Merzbow – Hatomatsuri
On Hatomatsuri, Merzbow fetches the bolt cutters.
Tapes Now Available at the Dinzu Artefacts Bandcamp Page
