Various Artists – Undercurrents
3.22.22 by Jacob DeRaadt
Tabs Out | Various Artists – Undercurrents
Various Artists – Undercurrents
3.22.22 by Jacob DeRaadt
Okay, let’s make one thing clear: I love field recordings coupled with synthesis, whether they contrast or compliment one another. So it was no surprise that I found most of the tracks on this tape (a benefit for ending violence/incarceration against Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people) to be right up my alley. One of the cliched criticisms leveled at this genre is that “it’s just background music,” to which I’d reply that I use harsh noise and death metal as background music for cooking or working out, so stuff it.
This is one of the best compilations I’ve heard of modern ambient. Come to think of it, it doesn’t seem like compilations are much of a thing in ambient music. While there might not be much new ground being broken here, where tracks by OVRSCN resemble something from a dramatic scene in Stranger Things (I know, lame reference), there are no filler tracks on this one. MP Hawkins’ track, “Shells,” is my favorites on here. A diary entry of melancholic depth resembling a more nuanced version of Alleypisser. And there’s enough sonic variety for my taste. There’s processed instruments and voice on many tracks (raven’s use of cello on “another naive playthrough”) as well as the synth pads that you’d expect. It’s a bit strange how short most of the tracks are, for a genre where most tracks are longer than ten minutes, and some of the tracks feel like excerpts rather than full pieces, but that’s a pithy complaint. Better to be left wanting more, I suppose.
3.17.22 by Jacob DeRaadt
Tabs Out | Viimeinen – s/t
Viimeinen – s/t
3.17.22 by Jacob DeRaadt
Viimeinen loosely translates to ‘rough’ or ‘final’ in Finnish. On this self-titled tape’s A side track, “Dissolved Metal Salts Cloak Your Lips with a Bitter Film,” we’re treated to shifting episodes of static sheets of radio waves swimming around the stereo field. This is a slow descent into a droning sea of TV static punctuated by obscured fog horns. Sudden shifts into slurping tape loops keep things dynamic and asymmetric.
On the B side “Deformed Faces Agape at You From a Tangle of Limbs” opens with some haunting bowed reverberations and organic tape mulch textures that dissolve into hypnotic loops, like industrial machine belts seizing up in odd time signatures. There’s a nice usage of crescendos at various points in this release, as well as a few jump edits and slow track fades. Straddling the territories of harsher textures and manipulated field recordings, this tape hits all my sweet spots. Recommended!