New Batch – f:rmat
8.1.17 by Ryan Masteller

As the Big Bang initiated the capital-U Universe as we know it (followed by SIX LITERAL DAYS of intelligent design, or so I’m told), so too do hundreds of tinier, less violent Big Bangs beget cassette tape labels. It seems like every week an apple-cheeked upstart with home-dubbing tech (or pockets full of doubloons to pay for pro duplication) emerges from the woodwork or between the cracks in the masonry, or simply converges from the leftover starstuff that happens to coalesce at a singular point. This time we get one from Glasgow, that mysterious city in Scotland, where your cheeks really get apple-y in the winter time, especially when the wind blows. (I should know, I’ve experienced the frigid January gales in that wonderful country.) This new label, the niftily spelled f:rmat, has brought into being, virtually out of nothing, two excellent tapes, both of which should be listened to with ears wide open to the possibilities of mythological truths. Or, on the other hand, you can just listen to them and get on with your life – either way.

Gäel Segalen’s MEMOIR OF MY MANOR is an improvised juggernaut of sound, recorded in Paris, manipulated and mixed over a period of two years and unleashed in my earholes this morning. Thus, a prophecy, somewhere, is fulfilled. Throughout its seven distinct and fully individualized tracks you’ll perceive secrets revealed through circuits – bent and twisted and skewered and vaporized electronics speak their tongues in full and glorious display while seemingly conjured spontaneously. Is Gäel Segalen some sort of mage, some sort of mystic to channel such heartstopping moments at random? The bubbles, the blasts, the arpeggios, the melodies, all of these seem to know just a little bit more than we know, and the codes to their deciphering are just out of our reach. But as Gäel walks the titular manor in her mind, she grounds the cosmic and combines it with the terrestrial, resulting in a thrill ride through halls packed with memories and the ghostly spirits that tend them.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, where ritual movement and stillness take the place of psychic connection, Hammer of Hathor, the duo from Olympia, Washington, tackle as a concept “butoh,” a form of dance originating in post–World War II Japan that, if I’m reading my Wikipedia entry correctly, [adjusts glasses] “is known to resist fixity” and is “difficult to define.” It is performed in slow, deliberate movements and is meant often as an approximation of the absurd, tackling “taboo topics” and featuring “grotesque imagery” and “extreme or absurd environments.” But before I go any further and anger any good editor who realizes that Wikipedia is a terrible primary source, I have to remind you that all this is to simply whet your whistle for what our Hammerin’ musician pals have to offer. Whacking at various instruments, including detuned pianos and guitars, saxophones, and percussive instruments, HOH does their best to represent in sound a visualization of butoh in all of its mad glory, manipulating their odd array of sounds in fidgety slow-mo in a sort of (but intentional) call-and-response technique. The endgame? Madness. Or the beauty in decomposition as exemplified by low fidelity. Or, um, whatever it is that you’re about to say right now.

Both records have been released in an edition of 30 and come on black Chrome Type II cassettes. Grab one of each before they make like galaxies and expand beyond perception. Or do it quicker than that – I guess I just insinuated they’d be around for a few billion more years, and that ain’t true at all…

roger mpr – Unproductive Muzak
7.25.17 by Ryan Masteller

I lived in London for a time a few years ago, and I always found the City – the financial center of London – to be a weird, fascinating place, not merely because it was a ghost town on the weekends (it was) but also because of the so-called Gherkin. The Big Pickle (that’s what I called it, because I’m stupid) towered (sort of) above/among its surroundings, its architecture always a point of interest to uninformed passersby. I mean, honestly, what was the engineer on who decided that a pickle-shaped building was a good idea? Was it … weed? It was weed. Because why else would anyone decide that a pickle-shaped building is a good idea?

Still, there it stands, a ridiculous monument to corporate hubris smack in the middle of the London skyline. It begs the imagination to fill in the blanks, to conjure monumental and monumentally ridiculous (or simply terrifying) decisions being made in buildings like that, decisions that affect all of us, not just Londoners or Brits. And as you’re contemplating what goes on at the highest levels of business (honestly, just let your mind wander as far as it wants), you also have to contemplate what music is playing in the various lobbies and reception areas that dot the structure. Because this is a music review. You HAVE to consider the music. And fortunately, there’s this guy, roger mpr (with no capital letters – does that make him “anti-capital[ist]” [har har!]?!), who got his hands on a bunch of Muzak CDs and likely asked himself a question similar to this one: “What would it sound like if I turned the idea of corporate soundtracking for narcotization on its head and instead made something terrifying out of it?”

The result is not vaporwave (though no shame on you for thinking that’s probably what you’d get). The result is much weirder, as the Muzak is deconstructed into tones and processed into the aural equivalent of night terrors. It’s like roger took the CDs and ran them through a paper shredder (don’t worry, mine handles CDs), taped them randomly together so that they once again resembled a CD, and ripped them to his desktop. I know, I know, the reconstituted CDs would be unplayable, but if you COULD play them, you’d probably get something that sounds like “unproductive muzak.” Ominous samples? Check. Ghostly glitches? Check. Static, otherworldly intrusions? Check. Basinski-esque disintegration? Check. A soundtrack fit for Lucky 7 Insurance and all its attendant malevolence and barely veiled spiritual interaction? Double, triple, quadruple check. Music made by corporations, for corporations, turned inside out is as weird and unsettling as the source material. Let’s do a reversal, then, and play roger mpr in office settings! See how productive everybody is then. (Hint: The answer is “not productive.”)

I feel like I’ve talked about Hylé Tapes before. So Hylé Tapes, Hylé Tapes, Hylé Tapes, Hylé Tapes, Hylé Tapes. Only an edition of 30 for “unproductive muzak” – and <5 remaining!