Tabs Out | RM Francis – Hyperplastic Other

RM Francis – Hyperplastic Other
6.25.17 by Mike Haley

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I’m horrified of automation. All of us should be! At best I give it 69 months before machines handle every function in society and decide to melt us hu-mans down for fuel. In the meantime I still use the self check out at the grocery store, so sure, I’m a hypocrite. But maybe I don’t want to be judged for buying a Party Sized bag of habanero-pickle flavored chips. Well, it turns out the good ol’ self check out isn’t even a safe space for gluttonous purchases anymore, because now even the machines are judging us. At least that’s what it sounds like is happening on this RM Francis cassette.

“Hyperplastic Other” is a series of binary barbs, converted into MIDI blips and snips that sound like attempts at putting the toothpaste back into the tube, tumbling through the internet of things. This is apparently the best way for your Nest thermostat to talk shit on you with the neighbors SmartFridge™. We bags of organic mess hear “zip.. ziiiiip. zipblipblap bloop. ting. vyoooom” but those super gossipy appliances are actually making fun of me needing to run the AC at the slightest sign of humidity – My hair gets puffy, give me a break! RM Francis goes into detail about the creation process of these rolling sounds in the liner notes on the Jcard: “Hyperplastic Other was composed largely using a two dimensional array of 17,040 computer-generated values between 0 and 1, which was divided into 71 parametric paths. The array values were scaled and converted to MIDI messages; the paths were arbitrarily assigned to individual parameters of……” but all I hear when I read that is “zip.. ziiiiip. zipblipblap bloop. ting. vyoooom.” And that’s okay. I don’t think RM Francis will be the least bit concerned if you decide to approach these recordings appreciating the science behind the glitch or simply for the glitch itself. Hell, there was a chocolate cassette version of this! INDULGE! You’re vacuum is going to look down on you either way.

Grab one of the 100 non-chocolate copies of “Hyperplastic Other” from Nada’s Bandcamp, which is probably sentient at this point and already knows you want one.

Tabs Out | Look At These Tapes #12

Look At These Tapes #12
6.23.17 by Tabs Out Crew

look at these tapes

Look At These Tapes is a monthly roundup of our favorites in recent cassette artwork and packaging, along with short, stream-of-thought blurbs. Whatever pops into our heads when we look at/hold them. Selections by Jesse DeRosa, Mike Haley, and Scott Scholz.

 


Tabs Out | Comfort Link – The Sedated Tones Of

Comfort Link – The Sedated Tones Of
6.22.17 by Ryan Masteller

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I don’t have a lot of time here, so I’ll get right to the point – my plane’s taking off in just over an hour, and I REALLY don’t want to sweat through a long TSA checkpoint line. I mean, if I’m really cutting it close, I might get all drenched in that nasty old stress sweat, the kind that stinks, you know? At least that’s what the deodorant commercials tell me. But here I am, rambling on, wasting my (and maybe your – who knows, you might have piano lessons or soccer practice or church group or something) time, not getting to the point even though I don’t have the luxury to do so. But there’s a reason why I’m chuckling to myself as I engage you here on these electronic pages. See, I’m not actually worried about the plane, if I’m being honest with you (and god knows, I’m always honest with you). I’m not worried about the lines or the inevitable luggage search (I have really weirdly shaped luggage). I’m not gonna sweat. Why, you ask? I’ve got a secret.

The reason that I’m all hopped up on zen right now is because of my old pal Comfort Link. No, it’s not because of “The Celestial Music Of Comfort Link,” although I completely understand why you’d think that. This time around we’ve got “The Sedated Tones Of Comfort Link,” a way different expression of minimal composition than that old tape – that was like three fiscal quarters ago. This one features ghostly organ and samples recorded onto decaying tape, giving it an otherworldly quality as it slowly emanates from your headphones and fills your body with its ectoplasmic sonic goo, dulling any sense of urgency you might have into a soft, fluffy internal hum. The A-side, “Sedate Tones for Tape and Organ,” drones consistently as you find yourself getting lost in it, details emerging from the stasis like ghosts of dreams that gently, ahem, comfort you before disappearing into the ether. The B-side, “Sedate Tones for Tape and Found Sound,” whispers like a scene from a faded black-and-white postcard from a time when things were simpler, when life was easier, and days were less rush-y to planes and nonsense like that. There’s a reason why I mentioned Basinski, Jeck, and Kirby in my previous review. Their spirits still linger over the Comfort Link sound. The recording is immaculate, projecting an aura fit for hushed cathedral meditation before petering out of existence at its finale. I can think of no better way to face the hurry-up-and-wait existence of modern life than with SEDATE TONES all up in my Walkman.

So in the time it took me to write this all to you (like, way longer than it took to read it, trust me), I missed my flight – but that’s OK. I feel like I’ve imparted some wisdom and pointed a few of you in the right direction, the direction you need to go, which is to the sPLeeNCoFFiN website. There you can purchase any number of sundry items to assist you in your travels, but please, make sure you pick up one of those five-dollar Comfort Link tapes – it’s like half the price of a bottle of water.