Tabs Out

cassette podcast focusing on noise & experimental sounds
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Tabs Out | Sum Say – Another View

Sum Say – Another View

12.11.19 by Ryan Masteller

I’m right in the middle of going through the Top 200 tapes of 2019 with Mike, but he must have stepped away from the computer because he’s not responding to me in the chat window. That’s cool, I’ll just take this time to do even more work for him – like write another one of these tape reviews. I mean, let’s face it – somebody’s gotta do it, and it sure ain’t gonna be Dave Doyen. It’s gonna be me.

Already Dead has had a pretty fantastic 2019 if you ask me, and Sum Say’s “Another View” is like a cherry on top of that calendar cake. But in this instance, the cake is also quite moody, as if it were rained on while being hauled from the car to the table, and the whipped frosting has started wilting, and when you cut into it you realize it’s mostly still batter anyway because the oven burnt out halfway through and ISN’T THAT JUST LIKE LIFE, well I bought you this cake, you better eat it. And even if I didn’t just zone out there in a fit of regret and remorse, “Another View” would still be just as moody and you’d still have to get through it.

Because it’s still intensely enjoyable.

Sum Say is gloomy instrumental hip hop, the kind that DJ Shadow does (used to do?), the kind that shows up on Planet Mu, the kind where the static of the samples sounds like a steady rainstorm outside your window. A dank, dreary energy permeates the tape, its languid pace picking up its own steam and making a steady go of it. This is not music for sunny days. This is music you can curl up and drink some tea to. And if you’re like me, that sounds like maybe one of the best things ever, something you’ve waited the whole year for (because it’s perfect for autumn), something you just can’t wait to get yourself in the middle of. I’m exactly like that. Doesn’t matter if the tea cake’s wet or not.

Also, the j-card image is the exact opposite of the mood contained within. A sly prank?

Edition of 100 available from Already Dead. 

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Tabs Out | Sugar Pills Bone – Lumb

Sugar Pills Bone – Lumb

12.10.19 by Ryan Masteller

Much like Jerry Lee Lewis’s (and later Tyler Perry’s) “The Nutty Professor,” the duo of Boney Dog Davis and Sleepy Sugar Thompkins make their own version of plunderphonic flubber they like to call “Lumb.” “Lumb” is a sort of viscous material, but there’s enough old computer parts and diodes and fuses and motherboards mixed in so that if you touched it, you’d probably cut your hand on something metal, and then you’d get an infection, and you may be facing the doctor and his amputating blade before you know it. Old radio and television broadcasts are mixed in there too. In the “Lumb.”

“Warning: Contains an irresponsible amount of nostalgerol. Prolonged exposure may cause gravy-ear and other sautéed ailments. Consult your plumber immediately if Lumb lasts longer than 4 hours.”

Thus we’ve been warned by Sugar Pills Bone themselves, and with that warning we dive in, then we stand up because we realize we’re only knee deep in this sludge, and we’re already feeling the effects of the multiple infections we’re certain to have contracted. “The Bone” brings the sleaze, packing grotesque, mostly brief concoctions with samples and noise, instruments and loops, and all kinds of ephemera guaranteed to curdle your stomach. In fact, the duo has defined exactly what it is they’re doing on the j-card itself, making up genres (and even words!) as they go along: “Academic highbrut Slurpwave in schizophrenic Sty-Fi Buttersound.” Folks, things don’t get more apt descriptions than that. Feel lucky.

“5-year butter warranty available on all pre-damaged merchandise. Offer excludes but is not delimited to practitioners of the following methodologies: hypno-pediatrics, subliminalism, ridiculophagy, and sadofuturistics.”

I see what you’re doing! You’re trying to confuse me with baffling double-talk and whispered small print! But I’ve got news for you – I don’t need a warranty, I’m ready for Sugar Pills Bone. I’m ready to be confused and sickened and infected and amputated, ready for the deathwave of sonic slurp that’s been pouring out of my speakers for the last four hours or so. In fact, I’ve got my head screwed on so straight, I bet I can wade through this minefield of sticky detritus and make it to the other side without even a scratch …

Ow.

Anybody know how to apply a tourniquet? Make that several tourniquets.

Grab one of the 50 copies available from Orb Tapes. 

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Tabs Out | Adderall Canyonly – Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Adderall Canyonly – Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

12.5.19 by Ryan Masteller

It’s not just because “Flow My Tears” is one of my favorite Philip K. Dick novels, nor is it because Adderall Canyonly makes some of the most intense and excellent kosmische synthesizer music out there. It’s because, somehow, the two concepts became entwined via Bibliotapes, that crazy UK label specializing in releasing library editions of imagined soundtracks to stupendous novels. This artifact is breathtaking. It’s a work of art, marrying two artists and two media that I hold in remarkably high regard. I give “Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said” my highest seal of approval. And the tape’s pretty good too!

Popular megapersonality Jason Taverner lives in somewhat of a police state in the near future where universities have ceased being universities and house students in underground organizations in opposition to the state. Taverner finds himself in a version of the present where he is no longer recognized – he is in fact no one! Now what? How does he make it through the various checkpoints and bureaucratic red tape and function as he normally does? And does this sound like it’s something that could possibly happen in the near future anyway, like FOR REAL for real? I shudder to think!

Adderall makes it go down easy (er, Adderall Canyonly, I mean), and he’s the perfect foil to PKD’s dystopian futurisms. Like Vangelis did for “Blade Runner” or Wendy Carlos did for “Tron,” Adderall Canyonly’s soundtrack to the novel feels like it was meant for the big screen, and maybe one of these days we’ll get Taverner et al. in a Hollywood (or pick-your-streaming-service) version of “Flow My Tears.” AC captures the encroaching sense of dread at finding yourself transported out of your daily life and into the midst of an impossible situation, all while hope frays until there’s barely any left and confusion intensifies until you have no choice but to simply give into it and hope you haven’t hit bottom. It’s a creeping tension that slowly suggests terror or madness. Adderall Canyonly smears the canvas with the perfect sonic accoutrements.

Is this even available from Bibliotapes? No idea! Sold out from the AC man himself, though. Check Discogs?