Tabs Out | Birchall / Smal / Webster – Drop Out

Birchall / Smal / Webster – Drop Out
7.5.17 by Ryan Masteller

birchall

Kids, you know me, you’re old pal Ryan. You know I always say, “Stay in school,” because it’s important. Education is the key to a fulfilling life. You won’t get anywhere without hard work and some good, old-fashioned book-learning. Keep your nose to that scholastic grindstone, and you’ll go far, yes siree.

Well, uh, heh, I might have been a little bit wrong about the 100% necessity of all that. So I guess maybe some of you can throw that advice out the window? I dunno – David Birchall (guitar), Rogier Smal (drums, mastering), and Colin Webster (saxomophone) make a compelling point that you may only need to practice your instruments really hard, then that sweet, sweet Astral Spirits dough will start rolling in. You want to go to music school, like that idiot in Whiplash? Sure, get a cymbal chucked at your head, you’ll NEVER be Bird! But you can be Sonny Sharrock. Easy as pie, as dropping out, as picking up a guitar (or a sax, or some drumsticks) and shredding like your life depends on it. Because it does! Your life absolutely depends on getting gigs in amazing trios, like the Birchall/Smal/Webster trio.

Like Sonny Sharrock mind-melding with Sonny Stitt on, what, fifteen hits of acid each? – and that’s before they invite Gene Krupa to the party – Birchall, Smal, and Webster are in total sync, and they have to be to create the utterly insane mind flagellation of, wait for it, “Drop Out,” two sides, twenty-two minutes of the most ferocious free jazz you’re likely to hear this side of Juilliard. There’s no way to describe it, other than, holy crap, did you hear that? Wow. Not only do the players follow each other through the most difficult terrain, but Drop Out shifts on a dime from one excursion to the next, coming off more as a suite of tangential pieces than monolithic sidelong events. Which is just fine by me – the more eye-popping the musical gymnastics, the better!

Now, about that dropping out of school… seriously, kids, don’t do that. It’s really important. But feel free to “Drop Out” as much as you want. This public service announcement was brought to you by the Betsy DeVos–led Department of Education. [Barely contain laughter… now.]

There are 150 copies of this sick little puppy available. Get your mitts on one today!

Tabs Out | Adderall Canyonly / Ak’chamel – split

Adderall Canyonly / Ak’chamel – split
6.2.17 by Ryan Masteller

split

Dang, Adderall, why the long face? I mean, I guess things aren’t super rosy these days, not like they used to be anyway. But when you preface your promo material with “It’s a bit sad and angry maybe…actually it is. Fuck this shit,” maybe it’s time we had a chat. See, we’re so used to the interstellar blasts of synthesizer goodness you usually transmit our way from the inside of whatever quasar you happen to be inhabiting at any given time that anything other than the norm is met with a raised eyebrow. We certainly don’t begrudge your branching out and experimenting– my god man, do what you feel! – and SINNER GET THEE READY, your side of this split with Ak’chamel, is fourteen minutes of engaging and all-encompassing mood, but we do want to make sure you’re doing OK. The darkness that “Sinner Get Thee Ready” and “But If Not” wallow in is positively Godspeed-ian in its menacing intensity. Both are slow burns to ear-shredding blastoffs, but instead of cosmic awareness our result is the bleakness of oblivion. Heady stuff, there, Adderall, and if you decide you like how this shoe fits, we’ll be happy to see you wander around for a while in it.

Maybe in the wastes of Texas? In fact, Adderall, I think you’ve been hanging out with that bad seed Ak’chamel a little too much, haven’t you? I know you have – that’s why this split exists (DUH, internet, I am so smart, S-M-R-T!). Listen, I know it’s easy to fall under the spell of that cult, what with their ramshackle hymns to The Giver of Illness (or, erm, as the Ecstatic Brotherhood of Anima Mundi?), and the hypnotic acoustics of their two-part live performance on Rice’s KTRU station in Houston are peak desert nightmare fodder. In fact, I think I’m falling under their spell myself: sun’s clouding over, spirits tumbling, despair redlining – is there salvation at hand? Probably not, which is why paeans to dark deities exist, I guess – wicked mantras such as these. So in the end, Adderall, I don’t blame you. In fact, as this split has inspired me to do, I may join you in rending my clothes, putting ash on my head, and gnashing my teeth in anger and disgust for a while, perfectly normal actions considering the status quo.

Tandem Tapes is located in Jakarta, Indonesia, and, as the name of the label implies, it releases strictly splits from likeminded artists. Adderall Canyonly and Ak’chamel’s came in an edition of 25, but only few remain!

Tabs Out | New Batch – Heavy Mess

New Batch – Heavy Mess
6.1.17 by Scott Scholz

heavy mes

Time has flown by this spring, and the latest batch from Heavy Mess has been a constant companion of mine, with a sound for every occasion. Last year’s debut releases from this label tended to be on the mellow side of the listening spectrum, but this latest trio of tapes gets more assertive while maintaining a fresh curatorial sensibility. And according to their Bandcamp page, Heavy Mess is a “discrete” cassette label, which I think means that they’ll ship these analog beauties to your house in an unmarked manila envelope–wait, that’s “discreet.” It means they’re a label of individual and distinct tastes, which even a cursory spin of these tapes will capably back up. Let’s dig in:

Ashan – Fulfilling the Promise Absolute

Inner Islands proprietor Sean Conrad works under several different project names, including Channelers and Orra, but no matter the band name on the cover, you can count on an energizing, rejuvenating experience. His Ashan project is is rapidly becoming my favorite, though, harnessing the considerable mass of heavy guitar work to bring some serious volume to meditative ends. Conrad essentially becomes a one-man band for Ashan, using drums, vocals, and synths along with guitars to create a pair of gentle giants. “Fulfilling the Promise Absolute” is a short album, but both of its 10-minute sides feel much longer than their running times reveal, like Godspeed compositions aimed at uplifting, Voordoms-era Boredoms ecstasy. Be sure to check out last year’s “Death is the New Life,” too, which is also still available from Heavy Mess.

Amulets – Still Lifes

Randall Taylor is a prolific jammer, having dropped over a dozen great tapes on a variety of labels in the last few years. His Amulets project uses a variety of sonic approaches, including tape loops, field recordings, guitars, and circuit-bending gadgetry to build melancholy vistas that always sound great left on repeat. Like “Fulfilling the Promise Absolute,” his “Still Lifes” for Heavy Mess is an EP-length affair that feels more substantial than its length. The pair of pieces here are somewhat minimal compared to some of the more layered Amulets recordings, and guitars dominate these mixes. And what beautiful guitars they are: clean tones are looped and reversed, turning into delicate pads that are eventually overtaken with overdrive. There is a certain delicate quality apparent in these pieces, highlighted by the distorted swells that overwhelm the mix toward the end of “A Library of Flowers,” but they walk a kind of compositional tightrope that finds inner strength from their own fragility.

Macho Blush – Moodshow

Somewhat removed from the more contemplative stylings of her peers in this Heavy Mess batch, there are no maps to safely navigate through the world of Gina Probst’s Macho Blush project. Some urban readers may not be familiar with the tradition of snipe hunting, but around my part of the rural Great Plains, your friends might drive you to a remote wooded area in the dead of night, hand you a large cloth sack, and explain how they’re going to flush the legendary snipe out of hiding with their car headlights, causing a gaggle of snipe to flee right into your outstretched sack. Then they drive back into town without you, and you’re left holding the bag, quite literally, with a long, dark walk ahead of you. You may feel like a snipe hunter during the first few confrontational minutes of “Moodshow,’ but by the end, your bag is overflowing with more fantastic creatures of the night than your friends could ever imagine, and you don’t have any pressing reason to leave the woods any more.

Macho Blush is often described as “outsider music,” and it does mirror the attributes folks might expect in outsider sounds. At times “Moodshow” is brutally low-fi, with recording levels pushed well beyond the red, and the vocal lines are bizarre and jarring, and the music lurches between styles and volume levels without warning. But the more time ones spends with this music, it’s clear that Probst is incredibly deliberate in her composition and performance, applying the weirdness of early Ralph Records and the savagery of no-wave bands with surgical precision. Percussion and delirious vocals dominate most of “Moodshow,” but occasional piano flourishes reveal a fine-tuned musical mind willing to use any tool at her disposal to lure us into a unique world of ritualized sound. One of the best albums you’re likely to hear this year.

All three tapes are still ready to meet your Paypal account. Head over to the Heavy Mess Bandcamp and get yourself messy.

5.30.17: Hello.L.A.
newnew2new3
Hell-T-025: Onry Ozzborn “c v p ii d” C28
Hell-T-026: Curta “Click Bait” C24
Hell-T-027: Ecid “How To Fake Your Own Death” C55