I’ve written about so much German Army stuff in so many places, but I just realized that I’ve NEVER written about a straight GeAr release in the hallowed web archives of Tabs Out.* Peter Kris? Sure, plenty of times. Germ Class? Absolutely. Q///Q? Does Baked Tapes use weed instead of bubble wrap to stabilize their packages? (Actually, that’s a real question I have, but I did write about Q///Q.)
So I figured, what better way to break in the project here than with a massive 3xCS collection? It’s as good an intro as any I guess. There are literally scores of GeAr releases at this point. Literally.
If German Army’s intention was to overwhelm you with sheer volume of content, then they have succeeded with “Salary of Stagnation,” an intensely loaded compendium consisting of 34 tracks split over six sides. Never ones to shy away from an almost constant release schedule (spread over NUMEROUS labels, rarely going back for seconds – although they did in this case), the GeAr duo has outdone themselves on this one. Have I mentioned how big it is, how full of German Army material in a discography already overflowing with riches? I have?
Speaking of overflowing with riches, no German Army release is complete without a central conceit, and this one’s got to do with money, aka “the root of all evil,” aka probably the underlying target of every injustice GeAr’s records bring to light. When the world economy is so clearly top-heavy and unsustainable, some brave soul is going to have to call out that inequity and point to the average person’s income, which ain’t getting any bigger. And by “some brave soul,” I mean another brave soul adding to the feverish shriek that is collective anger at general disparity. God knows we can’t have enough brave souls joining that ever-strengthening chorus.
So “stagnation” doesn’t exactly engender feelings of hope or progress (in fact “stagnation” is an ANTONYM for “progress”), and neither does German Army’s dark hybrid of industrial and ambient. Once you get past the relatively light dub of “Emotional Cleansing,” there are actually quite a few passages of murky electronics, smears of grisly blue and black like if someone ran their hand across one of those thin blue line bumper stickers that was drying on the press. Sure, there are returns to more buoyant moments throughout (see especially “Falling Towards Forget”), but there are twice as many downers as there are uppers – they just all vary in pacing and timbre.
“Salary of Stagnation” is easily a milestone in the GeAr canon just because of its size and scope. Still, the utter heft of this thing serves as a potential deterrent. Take it from me, though: don’t let that stop you from digging your little paws into it and burrowing through its secrets and passages. The more you listen, the more it rewards – “stagnant” this certainly is not.
This triple cassette is limited to 60 copies from Barcelona’s Cønjuntø Vacíø.
Can one justify awarding thee most prestigious designation in the cassette community to 101 Notes On Jazz?
Nope.
Luckily I don’t need to justify it. I can just sorta do it. But maybe I’ll try to convince you a little bit? Maybe you’ll agree with me that this tape from Suite 309 feels like no other tape feels. Sure, mountains of ferric oxide were inscribed this year with LUSH drones, HARSH walls, and RARE synthesizers, but only one includes tips on buying hat feathers or “the horseless taffy alternative” and it’s 101 Notes On Jazz. Only one presents itself like an inside joke that no one is in on and it’s 101 Notes On Jazz.
Raymond C. Scott III’s bogus radio bumpers are delivered casually and at a steady clip, all anchored in an AM jazz station zone. His diction could not be more sincere as he rattles the absurd collection off. I hesitate to use a reductive Tim & Eric comparison here, even though that may be pretty spot on. You feel it hard during moments of Raymond announcing a shoe left behind at the hot dog roast and his bad relationship with tap dancing, and with his buttery, Wareheim-like voice, but a focused listen to 101 Notes (as silly as that sounds) finds something more.
An excerpt from the 40-second track New Duck Whistlers unwinds ”That was Melt Me Tender by The New Duck Whistlers. Tommy Duckson on the trap kit. That’s Kit Tenderloin in the drum pit, and it was basically a drum bonanza on that one. Brett “Bandana” Shandling on the triangle.” The word flow of Duck to Duckson, kit to Kit to pit, bonanza to Bandana hits hard. This isn’t just yuk-yuk funny, it’s DIFFICULT LISTENING! True outsider shit. It’s also the best tape of 2019 and I refuse to convince you any more. Go throw butter at the ducks.
2 V/A – ShopLand World: Music for a Discovery Park of Miniature Supermarkets (Strategic Tape Reserve)
Commerce. It’s stupid and I hate it. More to the point, I don’t like leaving my house, and online shopping is for jerks. Plus, in transactions of commerce, money is exchanged, and I don’t have much of that, or any. In addition to these data points, I’m a terrible grump about virtually everything. keep reading at Tiny Mix Tapes
3 Fire-Toolz – Field Whispers (Into the Crystal Palace) (Orange Milk)
It was proven, it remains proven, that we are all electric narratives covered in varieties of skin, and that perfect sound can forever connect us to the infinite possibilities of being. keep reading at Tiny Mix Tapes
I feel like we’re an official mouthpiece for Strategic Tape Reserve at this point, but it’s not unwarranted. The Cologne-based label is one of the most consistently interesting purveyors of fine cassette-taped goods, and receiving a new STR release in the mail is always an exciting moment – some might even refer to such instances as “events.” I would go so far to say that STR currently sits at or near the top of my favorite labels going at the moment. Never a dull moment with these rascals.
The Tuesday Night Machines is somewhat of a label staple – this is the third release by the enigmatic producer that’s come out on the label, following last year’s “Hawaiian Yurt Music” (which I happen to have also loved).* That tape came housed in burlap. This new one – “Roof Tent Rhythms” – is packaged all up in a piece of hand-cut and folded tarp, held together with a glued-on Velcro tab. It’s … unusual. But so was the burlap.
Here’s the why behind the tarp: TNM made these tunes after packing up “a tiny car with a big tent strapped to its roof, 18 carefully selected second-hand music CDs, an old battery-powered Akai MPC 500 sampling workstation and only a vague idea of a destination.” This sounds great, but when you realize that “Roof Tent Rhythms” was crafted exclusively from samples of early STR releases (and “various free online drum sample collections”), it becomes even more of a labor of love. Awesomely, this “downtempo beat tape” perfectly encapsulates the STR an TNM aesthetics, serving as an overarching reminder of the greatness of the artist and the label, as well as other artists on the label (which is essentially just saying “the label” again, but props where props are due).
Unsurprisingly, the tarp the tape is folded up in is “a piece of the very same tarp which kept the rain from running into the camping vehicle on that fateful day in Montenegro, when glow worms ate our cheesecake.” Seems like a battery-powered Akai MPC 500 is perfect for working on tunes in the wilderness (or wherever there isn’t a plug), and apparently glow worms like cheesecake. Who knew? There’s a song dedicated to that even, track 1. So grab your own cheesecake, lean back in your favorite sleeping bag, pop on some headphones, and drift off into the plunderphonic delights of “Roof Tent Rhythms.” Edition of 25.
* TNM also recently self-released a tape called “Waever.”
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?
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.
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?
Are we living through the woooooziest times of all? I know we’ve had an Ice Age and a Bronze Age, but how about a Wooze Age? I get it – it’s hard to really compare the level of wooziness to times past, where the concept of “wooze” was only for the privileged. Now that we’re all privileged, thanks to the internet and smartphones and blinders toward the rest of the world, a certain sense of languid, eerie calm has descended upon our way of life. It feels sort of … yeah, woozy.
To be clear, I don’t think this is OK, and I doubt qualchan. does either. But that doesn’t mean qualchan. can’t properly comment on it within his preferred idiom … which happens to be quite WOOZY beat-tape extravaganzas. On “the end of all seasons.,” there is indeed a sense of melancholy and contemplation, of reflection (both self- and general) upon personal and social history. Indeed, the opening track is called “everyone has a low.,” which totally points to an overall malaise. And qualchan.’s music itself is of the 3:00 a.m. variety (see “calling the cab at 3am.” if you don’t believe me), all minor-key drift and vapor. Life is a lonely walk in the dark when you can’t sleep for worry!
But at least the tape is awesome – I personally love those short fragments that are all woven together in dream logic, and qualchan. is really good at that. This is easy on the ears, and should you find yourself in a state where it seems like “the end of all seasons.” is wrapping you in a cocoon of gauze, don’t worry about it – just remember that when the tape ends you have some work to do in your neighborhood and community. Also, the secret to this tape should now totally be called “the end of all seasons 2.: the secret of the wooze.” Right? Get it?
Tape is sold out already from Strategic Tape Reserve (why did you wait so long?), but maybe you’ll get lucky on Discogs.
Daydreams, conversations, interaction, imagination. That’s what “3rd Track” has going for it, a fluid and expressive concoction from Moscow, built upon a “collaboration between Lena [Tsibizova] and her friend Sasha, during her visits to Saint Petersburg.” I wish I had the wherewithal to travel to Moscow or Saint Petersburg and spend some time there to get the sense of everyday life and to immerse myself in the culture there, but it would probably look funny, what with our big, moist president and Russia’s president all buddy-buddy, etc. I’d be under pretty intense scrutiny in the press, I’d imagine. (No Collusion!)
All is not lost, however. Tsibizova infuses “3rd Track” with so much detail that you get a real vibrant sense of place regardless of whether or not you’re actually there or have been there or have dreamed about being there or will be there in some capacity in the future. Wherever she is, there you are, whether it’s subterranean microgrooves or drifting ambient or crushing electronic slo-mo mayhem. Why not throw some napalm-burnt trip hop in there? Might as well – everything else is happening all at once.
Whatever the style that’s thrown at you, “3rd Track” finds its own identity that weaves itself throughout the pieces. It’s at once melancholy and playful, chilled and revved, breathless and at rest. Tsibizova definitely has a flair for the dramatic, and she couches her work in mystery, restraining the secrets of her craft while amping up the tension of every moment. Like a wolf in the wilderness, as fittingly depicted on the cover, Tsibizova thrusts herself into rugged conditions and survives, coming back with a document of gripping artistry.
Edition of 70 “duplicated by Headless Duplicated Tapes in Prague, Czech Republic.” On Baba Vanga!
I don’t wanna be the bearer of bad news, but it seems like Ingrown Records might not be around for much longer. In fact, next year’s going to be their last in operation, unless of course they feel the tug of nostalgia to open up their doors again somewhere down the line – let’s set the over/under to 10.5 years. Was this news officially announced somewhere? Who knows. Maybe I’m telling tales out of school, and I apologize if I’ve hurt your feelings, but all good things must end. Entropy and so on. Death. Decay.
Sigh.
But let’s do like they do at funerals and celebrate a life, OK? Let’s celebrate the life of Ingrown, which has released countless (you can probably count them) tapes and records, etc., by a wide variety of crazy experimental artists, all pushing the limits of composition and utility, all meeting at some central point where awe meets delight. If it weren’t for Ingrown, I wouldn’t have discovered Meme Vivaldi, Plake 64 and the Hexagrams, Corsica Annex, or Marc Aubele, not to mention the four artists releasing tapes this fine autumn of 2019. Thanks to Ingrown, we’re allowed to have this special treat. In fact, I offered my son the choice between this new Magic from Space tape and some of his Halloween candy that’s still somehow sitting around. He chose the candy. But still!
MAGIC FROM SPACE – 🎶 4 HSP ć ASMR vol. 2
It is made clear at the outset that the tracklist for Magic from Space’s “🎶 4 HSP ć ASMR vol. 2” is NOT in alphabetical order like vol. 1 was (not to mention those old Pixies live sets!). Doesn’t matter – we wouldn’t get it anyway. When I waxed rhapsodic about that previous tape I mentioned Chevy Malibus and Everlasting Gobstoppers and Chuck E Cheese ball pits (aka disease factories) and extraterrestrial intelligence, but all cloaked in the guise of “magic” from “space” because understanding anything that we can’t stumble against or fumble with or drop things on is just too much for us modern humans. Enter MAGIC FROM SPACE (all-caps added by me), the grooviest MIDI popster(s) this side of an Andy Loebs release, ready to wow us all with glowing, fluorescent, beeping funk bombs that we can’t possibly turn our attention from. We like shiny glowing things, we drooling humans, our intellect and capacity for understanding the abstract a massive disappointment to not only whatever Magic from Space really is but also to us ourselves, because, again, we can’t be bothered to understand tricky phenomena without plastering it with terms like “magic” or “fantasy,” or “demonic.” What we CAN do is move in spastic activity, our arms, legs, and heads jostling to rhythms as they pulse through the floor we’re slouching on, the involuntariness of it all an actual frightening phenomenon as treble notes arrange themselves like candy to our earholes. Magic from Space has us right where they want us: in a dazed thrall so they can conquer us. And we deserve it!
OARIANA – A Pear on the Wind
A pear on the wind goes “splat” at some point, once it hits an immovable object or loses its energy as it resistance takes its toll. “A Pear on the Wind,” on the other hand, soars continuously, like the musical equivalent of a perpetual motion machine, and somewhere Newton turns over in his grave and also does a little jig to the sauce that Oariana’s slinglin’. Perpetual motion machine! We will NOT be suggesting that the hallowed laws of thermodynamics are threatened here, but gang, Devin LeCroy is a friggin’ madman. This fractured one-person synth-prog opus is a study in a baroque synthesizer mastery, one where Bach made his way back through Bill and Ted’s phone booth and got locked in the Moog lab at Cornell. Wouldn’t that have been something! Or maybe he just cruised San Dimas with Socrates and Napoleon and the rest of them, and went bowling and ate ice cream and found a piano store. At any rate, “A Pear on the Wind” is a melodic treat, a light and airy confection that belies the density of its composition. It sounds like its j-card cover: colorful, full of shapes, going in crazy directions, not really from this planet. In other words, a perfect Ingrown release.
GUT FAUNA – Magicicada
If there’s any fauna in my gut, it’s of the hamburger variety, am I right? High five! Seriously though, Gut Fauna’s a somber affair. It starts out like that “samurai movie where the samurai kills a guy and then figures out he has a cat and falls in love with it and is holding the cat while he fights guys all the time. It’s a very fun movie with a name I forget. I’m also playing the new Star Wars video game.” So says my friend John, who was discussing the first episode of “The Mandalorian” with me via text. But it was all happening simultaneously, while I was listening to “Alexa Daydream” open up this sucker, this “Magicicada,” which, I hope, is NOT in my gut, because who wants a magicicada buzzing around down there when you’re interviewing for that dream job at Capitol Records? Not me. I don’t even want it down there while I’m sitting here on the couch with a computer on my lap. But the eastern vibe of “Alexa Daydream” spreads out to encompass much more, like the afrobeat-meets-Space Needle vibe of “Original Sin Forgiver” and the surprise acoustic folk number “Hesitation Blues” (the traditional tune). The freak folk flags continue to fly through static and synths and samples, but all grounded in an earthiness and that acoustic guitar. Gut Fauna’s got toes and thumbs and heads shoved all up and in so many various genres and inspirations that it’s virtually impossible to pin them down. Fortunately, there’s no need to when the music’s as vibrant and interesting at a constant clip – you just ride along with it and don’t care about that categorization stuff after a while. Now, when’s episode 3 of “The Mandalorian” out again?
J HAMILTON ISAACS – Circumzenithal Arc
Oh thank god! I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thinks about light when they’re listening to (or contemplating or composing) music, wondering how it interacts with each note as if the music itself was a physical construct that could, indeed, actually interact with light. J Hamilton Isaacs “became fixated on an atmospheric optical phenomenon known as Sun Dogs. You’ll see them when there are ice crystals in the upper atmosphere and light from the sun is reflected and bent to form a halo at 22º. At the top sometimes an arc of light that looks like an upside down rainbow is visible. This is called the circumzenithal arc.” Sometimes you just gotta calls em like you sees em, and J-Ham does a mighty find job calling it for all of us. The synthesizer blazes an arpeggiated path for twelve minutes, leaving you hanging on the edge of your seat as everything around you converts into energy and energy converts into matter and vice/vice versa, all up until the point where the narrative completely changes. Which it does. The second half of the tape consists of “musical interpretations to 5 large outdoor sculptures selected from [the Denver Botanical Gardens’] Spring 2019 exhibit entitled Human Nature.” Equally compelling, these short passages are self-contained sonic structures interpreting every nuance of the physical construction they’re meant to represent. As such you can almost see the electricity of the music flit around in 3D space and suggest geometric forms as you listen. Do those forms look like the outdoor sculptures? Who knows, but somebody better get cooking on making whatever it is I’m seeing in my head right now – it’s glorious!
