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7.31.19 by Ryan Masteller

Maybe we can finally and actually, once and for all, have this funeral for “sex” that everyone’s been talking about. Nobody wants it, right? So let’s put it in the ground. Sex Funeral itself wants a sex funeral, if their new tape, “All Teeth” on Gay Hippie Vampire, is to be believed. And why wouldn’t you believe it? Sex Funeral wrote it. They’re the experts here, not us.

Crushingly inventive even at their most laid back, the duo of Bob Bucko Jr. and Matthew Crowe are at their most laid back on “All Teeth.” Normally a progressive free improv/blistering noise maelstrom of drums and sax, Sex Funeral this time are master tinkerers, fiddling with synthesizer knobs and percussive elements beyond drums, all while retaining some of that sweet signature saxophone for emphatic use. To call “All Teeth” creepy would be to sell it short. It’s tense and unusual, coiled like a wild animal, probably ready to strike if the need arises. 

But the need does not arise.

Bucko and Crowe refuse to take the bait and shred – their patience is enormous and complete and warranted, and the result is nothing short of a fascinating head trip at every moment. It’s the freshest they’ve sounded in years – which is a weird way of suggesting that it’s only because they likely didn’t work up much of a sweat on all these tunes. Their sound is always fresh, but they also usually sound like they’re really sweaty. Which is fine, if that’s the mood you’re in.

Only seven left of the original run from Gay Hippie Vampire. GHV says, “Thoughtful[y] dubbed over a found tape with a Sony 950ES (it sounds great, trust me).” Why wouldn’t you?

7.30.19 by Ryan Masteller

My cousin got a new Tesla, and it’s pretty sweet. It’s certainly much better than your car or my car, and not just because you really do feel the Gs when you stomp the gas pedal (it’s like a roller coaster!). It can also drive itself, meaning you can text and drive all you want, or eat a sandwich, or read a book. Actually, now that I think about it, why the heck aren’t all cars self-driving at this point? Or fully electric? Or can get updates via a cell connection like your phone?

Before I snap in rage, let’s talk about Hylopath, whose “Driverless-Human” is a revelation. Not sure how a driverless human is like a driverless car, but stay with me, maybe we’ll figure something out. (At any rate, it’s a nifty idea!) London-based electronic artist Rupert Cole has basically put together the perfect human/AI relationship album, a baroque future-pop delight populated by personalities that range from almost human to sort-of human. The spoken text-to-speech voices that inhabit Cole’s world speak their stories and strive to emote, which makes the endeavor itself even more tragic. As in, poor AI! Trying to act human! So, so sad.

But it’s way more complicated than that, which is what makes this work so compelling. The stories’ backing tracks being intensely catchy certainly doesn’t hurt. But it’s the way that the AIs’ fractured viewpoints and corroding circuitry mirror humanity that hits hardest, as if we’re in a distant future place, and humanity’s gone, and even the machines couldn’t learn how to properly avoid extinction (or at least drama). How on earth could they not compile enough data points to evolve beyond emotional response? It’s heartbreaking to see it come to this, to a place not too far beyond where Ferraro’s “Human Story 3” or something along those lines ended up.

And still: fascinating.
While we’re all waiting for our new Teslas to arrive and figuring out what a “Driverless-Human” is, let’s spend some time on the internet purchasing this Hylopath tape from Adaadat. Stream in full there too.

7.25.19 by Ryan Masteller

A somnambulist is one who sleepwalks, and I used to be a pretty good sleepwalker back in the day. My mom told me one time in junior high or thereabouts that I had stood on my bed and stared banging my fists on the wall, yelling, “Mom! Let me out of the garage!,” etc. I remembered none of it. I’d like to think this story ended with my mom and me laughing about it, but I can’t be sure. She may have been scowling at me, or looking at me in a sidelong way, like I was a burgeoning supervillain or something.

Warren Ng is multiple Somnambulists, and the passages that he creates on his guitar are drenched with reverb and delay. Being far more interested in the tonal qualities he can extricate from his instrument, Ng embarks on lengthy excursions along the fretboards, letting the results of his experiments guide him. If “From the Field to the Factory” was going to soundtrack something, it would soundtrack a vigorous sleepwalking jaunt, such is the trancelike quality of its drawn-out tracks.

And of course you can’t get heady with your languid post-blues riffs without punching up the content with a little social commentary. See the title track, for example, for a reverie on the worker. “The Streets Were Paved with the Blood of Saints” conjures some vicious anti-religion protest. “Poem of Struggle” sounds like it’s from the pen of a tragic Dostoevsky hero. And if “We Are Children of the Ahistorical,” what then have we inherited? Nothing but the dead flag blues, if you ask me.

Even if you do it unconsciously, head on over to Zum Audio and grab a copy of this one. Edition of 100.

7.24.19 by Ryan Masteller

This here “alto saxophone/electronics/modular synthesizer/mixer” shindig from Ryan Wade Ruehlen, “Time Agnosia,” was recorded in Denver and Boulder, Colorado, in March 2019. In July 2019, I was rushed to the emergency room in Denver, removed from my connecting flight because I was having difficulty breathing after sprinting fifteen gates (and fast-walking the remaining seventeen) to make sure I got on the stupid plane to begin with. (OK, I so it ended up being more of a gentle ambulance ride filled with pleasant conversation with the paramedic and me being diagnosed as a sea-leveler, but why ruin a good story?) 

With shimmers bursting from the edge of my vision, I was in the appropriate frame of mind to appreciate “Time Agnosia.” “Science fiction,” mentions the Shadowtrash Tape Group site as a plausible categorical description. “Topographical disorientation.” Got me there. “…Quicksilver movements in sudden formation. Inability to recognize. Lost in familiar environments.” Sheets of high-pitched ambience lay the groundwork for the saxophone meditations, and program glitches and shorting nodes accompany the slow march toward completion. Tones hangs in the atmosphere in humid ambience, the sax slowly stirring them until they curdle. All of this penetrates my mind and adds to the feeling that nothing is real, nothing makes sense, not till I get another hit from that sweet, sweet oxygen canister. Even then, “Time Agnosia” coats my mind like some jackweed is all up in it with a can of puke-green paint, coating my senses till I’m in a state of perma-semi-blackout. 

Only in Denver!

Anyway,  you can grab a copy of the tape from Shadowtrash Tape Group’s Etsy site.

And don’t worry, I’m fine.

7.23.19 by Ryan Masteller

I haven’t watched “Stranger Things” season 3 yet, (2 eps in, gimme a break), but I’m getting that vibe right away from the Jcard font on “Stars and Rumors of Stars,” a “finally-seeing-the-light-of-day” release from Neil Scrivin on Fonolith. And let’s be clear – the only reason I noticed the font in any way is that I somehow glanced away from the brilliant full-cassette-shell artwork (variations of blue-screened autumn tree branches), and I probably only did that because the kids next door were playing baseball and a ball went over the fence and conked me right on the noggin while I stood, mouth agape, on my porch looking at this thing, the rest of the mail forgotten in my other hand. But yeah, it’s that retro Stephen King novel font. I like that font.

This tape may have been initially recorded in 2004, but let’s be clear: this is totally a 2019 release. (Literally and stylistically.) To circle back to those scamps from Hawkins, Indiana – not so scamp-y (and certainly not scampi) anymore, I guess, what with time marching on and all – they’d probably be totally down to listen to Neil Scrivin during a D&D sesh, the moody synth pulses and electro beats just downtempo enough to not overpower the room. The Duffer Brothers should be popping this into a cassette deck near them, and the S U R V I V E dudes shouldn’t go another day without enlisting Scrivin for their next tour. That’s the power of “Stars and Rumors of Stars.” 

Playing off the biblical “wars and rumors of wars” warned of in the book of Revelation, Scrivin eyes something equally dangerous/rapturous in the skies, and he plays to his imagination of it. For example – is that supposed to be a UFO coming down over the night fields by the house on the cover? Given the King nods, my unyielding “Stranger Things” talk, and the tense dark synthwork proffered by Scrivin, I wouldn’t be surprised. It could also just be one of those titular stars, shining down through the clouds, teasing knowledge of mysterious deeds. The mystery is the fun part.

“Full-face UV printed cassette tape in black library case” available from Fonolith. See, I told you you’d want one, if only just to look at! 

7.15.19 by Ryan Masteller

Christmas punched me in the mouth waaay early this year, because it’s July and not December. (I know some of you do that “Christmas in July” thing, but it’s wrong, not to mention sinful.) But I woke up this morning and my tree was up (fake tree) and the decorations were hung and there was a single small present beneath the tree. I was in disbelief, and I had a split lip from the punch, but I decided to roll with it and approach this miracle as something that was truly meant to be. I approached the brightly wrapped package and took a look at the name on it. “The World,” it simply said. Who am I to disagree? I ripped it open.

To my complete non-surprise, it was a cassette tape. The size gave it away, plus I happen to do a bit of writing about cassettes, so there you go: non-surprise. What WAS surprising was the fact that said cassette tape contained an unreleased Adderall Canyonly album, and you know events like new Adderall Canyonly albums should be treated with the kind of respect you reserve for something like Christmas. AC moves in mysterious ways, and sometimes those ways include allowing material to gestate over a long period of time. Such is the case with “Influenza 10,” recorded in Portland, Oregon, in 2010 with a Tascam and a bunch of other likely obsolete electronics that have probably been sold for scrap at this point. That’s just the Adderall Canyonly way – all those electronics combine to form future wastescapes where robots have claimed Earth as their own and Snake Plissken can’t get off his island. Obsoleteness is not an obstacle.

And no, “Influenza 10” is not a re-release of some classic album on a weird anniversary – it’s not “remixed and remastered” but “finally mixed and finally mastered,” seeing the light of day after all these years. It bears all the delightful hallmarks of AC’s work: tortured electronics, ominous tones, queasy rhythms, and fractured viewpoints of futures dangerously close at hand. Did I say “delightful”? Yeah, I meant “delightful,” especially if you’re into stuff like “tortured electronics.”

So be vigilant: you too, like me, may wake up one day with a Christmas sock to the kisser at the wrong time of year; I bring you this warning as a public service announcement. Always be prepared! “Influenza 10” is out July 23 via Personal Archives in an edition of 50 (pro-duped, white shells/black imprint, 2-sided 3-panel j-card). Listen to “Floating Master” below to wet your whistle.