Don’t they have drones for this now? If you need some overhead footage, all you gotta do is strap a camera on your drone, fire up the propellers, and send it soaring over the landscape. There it can hover, taking in a wide swath of the countryside, recording a panorama and beaming it back to our waiting flatscreens that we’ve set up in the dens of our mansions. Mine’s freaking enormous. The picture quality is superb, and it oughta be – I paid a lot of money for it.
“Schweben” means “to hover” in German, and Philipp Hager, under the solo moniker Schweben, does the whole hovering thing pretty well himself. But instead of using some sort of video-recording technology to bring home the bird’s-eye view of the plains so we can see it, he uses AUDIO instead to conjure the FEELING of the plains. Or at least sketches of them. See, “Sketches of Plains” (nifty nod to that ol’ Miles Davis record) isn’t obvious, isn’t a full color-enhanced and edited representation. Instead, it gives us what it suggests it would, sketches: ideas, impressions, interpretations, off-the-cuff improvisations of what Hager would be viewing if he was on a drone large enough to hoist both him and his synthesizer rig, also with a long enough extension cord. (Wait, he could probably use a hot air balloon.)
Schweben wings it with delicately processed sounds, allowing bubbling melodies to suggest colors and shapes of the surrounding area. Through this he captivates, drawing you into his environment like you’ve strapped on a VR viewer and joined him in the air. But there I go – back to suggesting that you’re SEEING something when you’re actually HEARING it. I guess that means you’ll just have to close your eyes and drift off into whatever imaginary topography you’re glimpsing behind your eyelids.
“Sketches of Plains” comes in a hand-dubbed edition of 40 transparent tapes from Otomatik Muziek, but you’ll have to make like Jamie Orlando and scour Discogs for them, because they’re sold out at the source. D’oh!
That frickin’ orb, like a fully black eye above the pyramid, peers out at us like an even more evil Sauron, but from Central Pennsylvania instead of Mordor. Can somebody please put a lid on that thing? Let it close once in a while? I’m sort of exposed here, petrified by its gaze.
However, it is also the ancient hieroglyph for, “Hey, Orb Tapes has some new releases.” So … here you go.
“Gets Nasty” indeed! Each track is a dick joke, and I try to choke back my laughter as I listen. But then, maybe I’ve got it wrong. Maybe “Gets Nasty” is a commentary on the current state of the “penis,” the oppressive male organ on which we can pin an entire species’ worth of hardship. (Although let’s not literally pin anything to anyone’s penis.) If so, “Gets Nasty” should instead be read as an indictment, a reflection of the “creeping moral decay” of human society toward its inevitable end. Isn’t everybody in power a giant dick-swinging monster whose raging ego and inflamed desire spell utter disaster for anyone who crosses their path? Does the Phoned Nil Trio’s sickening nihilistic manipulation of objects/tapes/electronics/whatever point an accusatory digit at the status quo? I think it does … until I read “I had transported my mismanaged and ungratified and engorged penis across the frozen sexual moonscape of the 1940s” and immediately laugh at the images of Sci-Fi Boner that jump into my head (although I know you’re not going sci-fi here, Phoned Nil Trio!).
Not straying far here, “Butoh Sonics” starts with “Human Rehabilitation,” a long live track that takes up the entirety of side A. Rehab is the worst. I tore a ligament in my ankle once, and coming back from that was the total pits. Granted, I was (am) an athlete, so I was attempting to get back into playing shape, but still! Humans too need to get back into playing shape, maybe playing with each other shape, cooperation shape, kindness shape. It’ll hurt. Butoh Sonics provides the soundtrack, the trio scraping and creaking and clanging as the aches and pains dull and sharpen over time, always in a constant pattern. “Lush and Spare,” another live one on the B-side, blazes out with the heat and intensity inherent in heat/ice treatment, a constant stream of radiant sound threatening to overwhelm you. Imagine the pain of a deep tissue massage, but also that it feels good. This is kind of an aural equivalent.
Oh no, four of you? That’s not fair – it feels like I have extra work to do or something. OK, enough complaining, let’s get it moving. Ahem. Ledge Walker jams the sound of distant trains down your earpipe while subtly teasing rhythm. The timbre changes and shifts in intensity challenge the listener to keep quiet and still and not scream as it overtakes all sensory inputs. Misnomr forgot the “e” but NEVER FORGOT the “Head on the Tracks” – and who could blame them? Five pieces devoted to an unthinkable discovery, each more terrifying than the last, especially with all that synth and static and disembodied voices piercing the synth and static. And speaking of terrifying, is there anything more dread-inducing than a Misery Ritual? No there is not. As such, Misery Ritual fires walls of unreal sound that splinter and shatter into millions of hellish fragments that pierce your mind like digital shrapnel. And of course there’s Burial Weavings wrapping the whole thing up like a funeral shroud, creeping up like a distant whirlwind, getting ever closer like an approaching funnel cloud, its roar increasing as it comes closer. By the time it’s upon you the klaxons and alarms are sounding, but it’s too late. It rips the roof off your mind and scatters your brain to the four compass points. How’s THAT for a wrap-up!
BUBBA CRUMRINE – How Brightly Can You Burn? (The Death of Youth)
Like I needed the reminder that I’m getting old, that my youth is receding faster and faster by the day (no hairline jokes – mine is still pretty good). Clearly referencing the “burn out” / “fade away” fork in the ol’ life-choice road, Bubba Crumrine wonders that about himself. And although I answer the question with “Not very brightly – I’m doing the sloooooow fade thing quite well, thanks,” he may have a different take on it all. In fact, he may be fading too if this dark take is any indication. Comprised of what sound like a six mini hymns (indeed, one is even called “Returnal Hymn”), “How Brightly Can You Burn?” is a methodical approach to self-dissection. You can even hear Crumrine sawing away between introspective haunts, as indeed “Burial of Ridges” sounds as though he’s sawing away at his own head to literally get at what’s inside there. But beauty often intrudes on the violence, even if it’s cathartic or decaying beauty. And you gotta take the bad with the good anyway. Maybe the question is, why even burn or fade? Just frickin’ light up the night sky with your internal beacon – we’ll observe and report back whether it burns you up or you survive it.
I feel like I haven’t heard from Nate Wagner in a while, and I’m not sure if that’s my fault or his, but it’s sure nice to see a Leaaves tape in this set. And as I’ve come to expect, Nate bridges this world and the next in effervescent and radiant synthesizer. This is a departure from the rest of the Orb Tapes ogres noted earlier, with the exception of Bubba Crumrine perhaps, but Nate’s delicate touch stands in stark contrast to the heavy metals dripping soullessly down the fronts of your speakers. I don’t mean for that to sound like a bad thing, it’s all just … different. And so “Death Metric” confronts death too, the rapture, drowning (ahem), being lost, and, how can we ignore them, chemtrails. Everything takes on a dizzying spectral hue when Nate Wagner’s around, even when he’s “Drowning the Neighbors Out” with his Unikitty version of unceasing noise. Who am I kidding – the only thing drowned out by Leaaves is unpleasantness, and I just want to hug “(I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for) Chemtrails,” not only for its delightful title but also for its sheer overall delightfulness. Those synths are just gorgeous, like rainbow-colored clouds across the pinkest sky. Or like chemtrails.
I mean, everybody dubs tapes, right? It’s a no-brainer, no-duh situation. You place one tape in one tape deck, you place another tape in the other tape deck, and you do the whole press play/record thing. Done. Boom. Tape is dubbing. That’s how you disseminate music via the cassette format.
Oh wait – London’s Dubbed Tapes isn’t just telling us what we already know. In fact, they’re taking old tapes and DUBBING over them with new sounds, not just taking a blank one and making duplicates. They’re actually RECYCLING, minimizing landfill space, actually working to save the environment in the process. Huh, yeah, recycling. That’s something I can get behind. OK, let me start over.
If you’re not recycling, you’re part of the problem! Dubbed Tapes is part of the solution, because they take old tapes and reuse them, making them brand new art artifacts in the process. No two tapes are the same! So cool. I wonder what my tapes used to be before Dubbed repurposed them. I could peel back the sticker, but I don’t want to ruin them. I guess I’ll just listen to them, then.
KIRSTY PORTER / C. REIDER – SPLIT
I’m spooked by Kirsty Porter, because she sounds like she’s doing a séance. If she does it right, she’ll be calling ghosts into the room, and that can’t be good for anybody. If it’s just that unearthly guitar and effects and chants and stuff, I guess that’s fine, but I’m not feeling too confident about it. Even with the drums entering periodically, the mood isn’t ruptured in any way. Still, there’s beauty in it, even in the chaos of the noise when it blasts through (“The Dark Period” indeed!), even when Porter’s “Jamming with Alice” Coltrane (not … literally, like in the same room). (Unless it’s a ghost!) C. Reider spends the entirety of side B grinding through “The Science of Inattention,” twenty-two minutes of the gnarliest “abstract electronic, electoacoustic, and process music” that you’ve ever heard. Minute one sounds completely different than minute five, but the shifts are gradual and logical and mesmerizing. There are probably ghosts in his equipment too, maybe the ones Porter’s called into this universe, but more than likely they’re of Reider’s own doing. Maybe they’re just bees bending circuits. You seriously never can tell with this one. Edition of 40.
TENDENCYITIS – MICRODEBRIS
Mira Martin-Gray sounds like she’s making harsh digital drone at the microscopic level, but she’s really just manipulating feedback, which, take it from me, is super fun to do. As Tendencyitis, Martin-Gray sculpts throbbing, monstrous frequencies out of sloppy, heaping globs of sound. It spills out between her fingers, the audio splattering everywhere like clay on a potter’s wheel manipulated by a chimpanzee. But it’s a bright and colorful mess, as the j-card would suggest, brilliant thick beams of gooey light stretched forever. And no, I wouldn’t take a boombox down into the ocean and play the sea life down there any part of the title track, which takes up all of side B – I believe Martin-Gray when she warns that it’s “hazardous to marine life”! Edition of 30.
FURCHICK – RACE AGAINST TIME
Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves an actual noise cassingle, spotted in the wild for the first time in human existence! “Race Against Time” was recorded for WFMU in 2015, and Furchick’s dropping it on us physically, like a brick from the window of your brownstone. Heaving, earnest waves of tension rip through speakers like they were in an antimatter wind tunnel, their almost physical manifestation colliding with your solar plexus and knocking the wind out of you. Furchick’s not messing around people. Pop this in your car’s tape deck the next time someone wonders what the latest hot single is and watch their reaction. (No one’s ever asked anyone that question, I understand, but go with me here.) Edition of 22.
We’ve all been baffled at one time or another, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, bafflement can often lead to understanding with the right line of questioning. On the other hand, if you can’t snap out of it, bafflement can be quite frustrating. It’s all in your approach.
Tingo Tongo Tapes baffles me. Not in the bad way, because whenever their tapes appear in my mailbox, I’m at least always intrigued, even if that intrigue peters out once I listen to them (which, truthfully, barely ever happens, but it has). They baffle me because I can’t pin ’em down. The LA/Oakland label is always uncovering strange and unusual sonic artifacts, pressing them to tape, then somehow selling them via email and … Facebook I guess? Events, record shows? Listen, just email them (tingotongotapes at gmail). I’m sure they’re fine.
So here’s me, baffled and intrigued, ready to dig in to three zany new platters. [Ed: Aren’t “platters” records?] Join me. Or don’t. You may have something important to do.
LAZER BLADE – ALL VENICE ALL THE TIME
Not even gonna lie – Taserface was the first thing I thought of when I saw “LASER BLADE,” but this isn’t about the MCU, this is about smashing the smashing-through “The Wall,” taking Floyd down a notch, rending every physical barrier with a mythical energy weapon. (Love the cover, LASER BLADE.) Since this is the West Coast, we can’t begin to talk about the shreddy hardcore punk on “All Venice All the Time” without mentioning SST, the paragon of early American hardcore and clearly the antecedent to LASER BLADE’s antics. Over six short tunes, the band’s pummeling riffage and shouted mantras kick up so much dust that you’ll be looking all over your body for boot prints from the fictional pit you just exited from. But you won’t find any, because this is only a tape… [Cue “Twilight Zone” music.]
PINK ABDUCTION RAY – WARP CANAL
“Dubstep, eh? I dunno … isn’t that whole scene a bit … iffy?” I don’t know what to tell you. I’m feeling pretty good about it actually, and I don’t even really know how one defines “dubstep.” I guess this is as close as anybody’s gotten, and it’s pretty spot on in some ways. Pink Abduction Ray certainly has the in-your-face electronic bludgeoning down, and the BPMs are pretty high on “Warp Canal.” It’ll certainly make you move in jerky, uncontrollable motions, and the constant battering over the two long sides of this C45 allow no respite, except when you get up off the floor from your prone position to flip the tape over. “Warp Canal” is nothing if not a visceral experience, and the electronic faceblasts hit with such intensity that you’ll be combing your body for actual shrapnel. But you won’t find any, because it’s all digital, and this is only a tape… [Cue “Twilight Zone” music.]
SCARED OF SPIDERS – MANGELOID EP
Sure, why not split the difference with “Mageloid EP” by Scared of Spiders? Smash LASER FACE’s hardcore right up into Pink Abduction Ray’s electronic grill, et voilà! “Mangeloid EP.” Another quick burst (only thirteen minutes, this one) of EQ abuse, this one bringing back that “digital hardcore” epithet that Alec Empire popularized [Ed: Word choice? Check reference.] all those years ago. Fast, sadistic, primal, “Mangeloid” is a runaway truck aimed at your unsuspecting eardrums. It probably wouldn’t stop but for the fadeout applied to several tracks, and even then it’s like a violent takeover, like somebody other than Scared of Spiders grabbed the knob and turned it down. A roommate perhaps. Maybe a disgruntled cassette podcast host.
Breakdancing Ronald Reagan – Harsh Noise (Self Sabotage)
Bridle – Forward Motion Plus Volume One (self released)
Shredded Nerve – Attempting an Exit (Thousands of Dead Gods)
Channelers – Entrance to the Next (Inner Islands)
C. Reider – …A Trustable Cloud (self released)
pal+ – Kinetic Dreams (OTA)
connect_icut – No Darkness? (Aagoo)
Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising (Sub Pop)
Naturescene (South Carolina Commercial Music)
Huxley Maxwell – Bummer City, Dude (Warm Gospel)
Mdou Moctar – Pop Music from Republique du Niger compilation (Autotune the World)
Acegawd – Funeral Time Come (Dancehall Neil Tapes)
\\NULL|Z0NE// . We wish we understood you. We wish we could pin you down. We wish you were more predictable so were ready for you. We wish, we wish, we wish.
But that’s not even true. Not by a long shot.
One of the things that makes this Athens, Georgia, label a favorite is its unpredictability, and our baffled and flailing attempts at keeping up are a comedy of intense personal errors. What’s the point if we’re force-fed the same thing all the time? Michael Potter, who runs \\NULL|Z0NE//, would never cave to sameness – he’s a slave to variety. And for that we as listeners and paragons of the underground and the outsider, cheerleaders of artistic freedom, trailblazers of taste and cultural cache can rest assured that there will always be something valiantly interesting from Potter’s camp.
I’m actually sort of embarrassed for anyone who thinks like my first paragraph up there.
Sahada Buckley’s skinned or sunburnt project allows the violinist to realize her compositions as part of a quintet. Indeed, Buckley’s joined on piano by Brad Bassler, drums by John Norris, clarinet/bass clarinet by Kathryn Koopman, and bass by Jamie Thomas. After a few iterations that lean toward the abstract and experimental, the players teasing out some of the more unconventional predilections, the quintet opens up, really flourishing in the spectral jazz of “ethereal green” as the violin and piano dance around each other over a galloping rhythm. “hab’ galest” is like a German-language chain-gang blues tune, although I’m not sure “hab’ galest” is German. (Somebody check me on that.) But these two centerpiece tunes fracture back out into raw experimentalism once again, with “skinned” tripping back down mushroom-glazed twilit forest paths. Buckley and crew won’t leave the jazz alone though, and “temper tantrum” appears out of nowhere like a #BlackLodge smoky club in a clearing, offering the promise of taking off the edge but more likely enhancing it. The tape ending on strange, unhinged laughter over dissonant piano chords doesn’t help. Gives the whole thing an unpredictability … something we’ve already championed as a good thing around here.
Alex Homan is a psychedelic bodhisattva with an ear for dense arrangement. Freak folk for the spiritually ascendant, “All Hail Yeah” invites listeners in and assimilates them into the all-seeing oneness at the center of the mind, the galactic manifestation of eternity through sound. That’s a fancy way of saying that Homan’s work as Plake 64 and the Hexagrams is far out, man. At times utilizing acoustic guitar and a soothing, multitracked vocal delivery, at others tapping the primal sound sources available within the bowels of various synthesizers (I’m assuming), Homan embraces the – dare I repeat it – unpredictability of his creative whims and crafts a variety of earthy yet mystical zones. By the time he’s ascending “The Mountain” (and then descending it) by tape’s end, he’s fully encapsulated every impulse of his into a single sprawling trek, a fitting and fantastic end to “All Hail Yeah.” Maybe you can hoof it up that magical mountain yourself, get a little inner peace while you’re at it.
I read this book, you guys. At least I think I did. Actually wait – maybe I didn’t, but that cover certainly looks familiar. I’m certainly no stranger to 1960s sci-fi, and the cover of “The Great Krell Machine, Volume One” looks like something I DEFINITELY would have read at some point. I’m just drawn to that look, because you know just what kind of vibe is going to be going on within those pages. It’s comforting and exciting at the same time, and there’s that retrofuturistic nostalgia factor that is simply unignorable. Actually, my interest is piqued – I’m going to start reading this book right now.
What the … This isn’t a book! It’s a cassette tape. Well I’ll be darned … It looks amazing. If it sounds half as good as it looks, we’ll be in really good shape. And what’s this? It’s a Flag Day Recordings compilation? That makes it even BETTER. I don’t know about you, but the raft of quality releases that Flag Day has dropped rivals the output of Isaac Asimov. OK, maybe that’s too far. But we’re in good hands, trust me!
To “The Great Krell Machine”: the tape takes its name from the 1956 film “Forbidden Planet,” which I’ll not delve too deeply into here, because you can look it up. Basically, it is a machine of immense power created by the extinct Krell race discovered by spacecraft crash survivor Dr. Morbius on the titular planet. You can imagine, especially in 1956, its enormity, its vast arrays of light, its analog ambience. It was a time not long before the golden age of Sputniks and space odysseys, when the tactility of control rooms and the blinking lights of consoles and displays captured the imaginations of every human being.
“The Great Krell Machine, Volume One” takes us right back to that time, its nine contributors tapping in fully to the hands-on science of early discovery. They twiddle knobs and flip switches, and it all sounds like someone set up a microphone in a physics laboratory, capturing its ambience. Sure, there are bleeps and bloops, but that’s all part of the immersive experience, getting really deep into the vibe of new scientific frontiers and pristine utopian fantasies. It’s an environment in which I’d like to spend a whole heckuva lot of time.
This cassette came out in an edition of 70 for last year’s Cassette Store Day. Still available!
Tracklist:
Francisco Meirino
Geoff Wilt
PraxisCat
Benjamin Mauch
Guillermo Pizarro
Walker Farrell
Death Lessons
cloning
Todd Barton
Patient Sounds’ releases often capture that time at the tail end of winter when the cold is still sort of firmly holding on but the thaw is right around the corner. They evoke the bleary-eyed malaise of a people and a city – Chicago, in this case – sick to death of that prognosticating groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, who, even when he’s got the ol’ early spring forecast in his book (I forget if that’s because he saw his shadow or because he didn’t see his shadow – my bleary-eyed malaise has rendered me useless in the research department), can’t seem to get Chicago’s weather pattern quite right. We here in warmer, more southern climes start to stretch and breathe a little. Chicagoans hunker deeper into their coats. But the “private press record label and book publisher” soldiers on (pun definitely intended), and because of the seasonal factors and weather characteristics of that windiest of cities, Patient Sounds is in the perfect position to reflect what everybody’s feeling right back at them. How does it make you feel? It should feel like a warm, fuzzy blanket, all the time. Let’s see how these new joints do.
Tokyo-based Will Long may hold the record for most releases ever by an artist. Seriously. The hyperlinked “Celer” just up there goes to his Bandcamp page, and you may spend the next month, month and a half or so combing through it. Maybe longer. Long certainly gets the “patient” thing, so it makes sense for him to finally link his talents to PS. “Vamps,” of course, sounds anything but like what the title implies, as there are no vampires to be found at all in these two sidelong pieces. But oh! The dictionary includes another definition, a verb meaning “to repeat a short, simple passage of music.” This makes more sense, as the quiet piano figures move slowly, ghostlike, gently drifting like snowflakes on the breeze. So even though Will Long’s on the other side of the bloody planet, he’s still able to find that gentleness, that peacefulness that a cold winter’s night can bring, if, of course, you’re not out in it. Imagine that – someone from a faraway place connecting through music to us waaay over here. People aren’t so different after all, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Alisa Rodriguez also observes the snowflakes falling on the sleeve of her coat, which may not surprise you when you consider that Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is her home. Milwaukee is no stranger to the types of polar vortices that also hit Chicago, and in the dead of winter, you really shouldn’t be outside there for longer than five minutes (your eyeballs will freeze). You also can’t play guitar in winter gloves, so Alisa, who moonlights as dream pop project Apollo Vermouth, took solely to software when making “Someone Is Looking Out for Us.” She seems to have gotten the hang of it, as she coaxes dreams of spring from the slowly slushing snow piles. Even on the minutely propulsive “Ocean Itself” she finds hope in the mist and the murk, desperately trying to shake the cobwebs and the blues and emerge into a warmer sunbeam. It’s all hope in the end though – moving forward, finding your way, stretching toward dawn. The last track here’s called “Unconditional Love,” after all! How’s that for breaking out of a slump?
I like that we don’t have to guess with Hasana Editions, the tape label based in Bandung, Indonesia. It’s all right out there, right on the cover. The big, underlined title. The artist name. The location of origin, the method of performance, the style of music, the runtime, and even the channel (Stereophonic) are all represented. If I was doing this for Cassette Gods, I wouldn’t even have to search for or squint at how long the tape is to put it in the header like we do there – C52. It’s like a dream.
The presentation itself is beautiful, and the “Selected Pieces from HNNUNG” are majestic and expressive. Nursalim Yadi Anugerah is a composer based in Pontianak, Indonesia (he’s not a member of Pontiak, which I had to do a double take to figure out), and he’s “inspired by the cosmology, sonology, and culture of indigenous people of Borneo.” In fact, look – I’m not going to be able to paraphrase this with any grace, so let me just stumble through a direct quotation: “Adapted from Kayaan people oral literature Takna’ Lawe’, ‘HNNUNG’ is a chamber opera that amplifies the cosmic dramaturgy of Kayaan culture – in which the narrative of matriarchy is essential.”
I’m an outsider experiencing these pieces; I cannot relate to them on a cultural level or grasp their nuance or even interpret the intended audience response. I CAN relate to them on a musical level, and finding myself tossed about on the waves of “HNNUNG” is pretty exhilarating, intoxicating even, despite my remove from understanding. These nine pieces, selected, as the title suggests, from Anugerah’s larger opera, were “performed by Balaan Tumaan Ensemble and Kerubim Choir using various instruments ranging from kaldii’ and sape’ to tenor saxophone and contrabass.” Sometimes it sounds like some sort of experimental improv ensemble racing through a live set, but then the choir comes in and blows up any proper thoughts I may have been forming about it. Other times the eastern compositional flourishes are a welcome reminder that I’m on uneven footing, and that I should prepare to be surprised.
And I almost constantly am! I have no idea what “HNNUNG” means (all I picture is a sword flying end over end in the air until it embeds itself in a tree trunk with a hearty “hnnung” sound), so I am tabula rasa in this environment. “Selected Pieces from HNNUNG” etches itself across my surface. The drama and the tension coax new feelings, enabling mental connections heretofore unconnected. I am drawn further and further in.
Can I get out? Sure, I just press stop. I have to go get lunch anyway.
“Numbered edition of 100. Hand-stamped pro-dubbed C52 NAC cassette tape with recto/verso printed golden card. … Made and duped in USA. Printed in Indonesia.” Thanks again, Hasana Editions, for doing my work for me!
IF we begin with a Cloister of Trials – and we do – then we’re touching glyphs and shit in a certain order to get at that sweet, sweet magical weaponry. But the power is continuous – it pulses through ancient conduits, ramping up in intensity long after the ordeal is complete. Before long, it is a blinding white light and overwhelming static, enveloping your mind and making you wonder if you were ready to wield whatever power you’ve now uncovered. The answer is probably no … but maybe yes? There’s an undercurrent of reliability that you can latch onto, something that’s still there once the concentration of stimuli mercifully recedes. If you let that elemental energy into your mind, you’ll have all the necessary grounding you need to navigate “Narryer Gneiss Terrane.”
That’s all “Medulla (Cloister of Trials),” the opening bombardment of a track from Bath Consolidated’s new Orange Milk tape, and it’s a doozy, an extended feeling I imagine Tidus felt the first time he summoned a freaking aeon in “Final Fantasy X.” But once the magick is in him/us/them/Bath Consolidated, he/we/they/Bath Consolidated rises/rise/rise/rises to the occasion and allows the power to simmer, to flow through the body, to react to and reach each chakra in a holistic and ever-strengthening whirlwind of perpetual force. But it’s a terrifying ordeal, one that shoves the power wielder out into a visibility that’s incredibly uncomfortable and unexpected.
There’s anger in there too.
It’s not crazy that Noelle Johnson, the human being–turned–mage behind Bath Consolidated, has adopted the stance of superimposing the millennial identity over ancient texts – the Bible, “Inferno” – opting to subject that identity to the ravages inherent in those texts. What happens? That’s what Johnson’s asking, and that’s what we’re discovering. In Philip K. Dick’s “Valis,” the “Black Iron Prison” is what you’d discover if you superimposed the past over the present over the future, ultimately understanding that “everyone who had ever lived was literally surrounded by the iron walls of the prison; they were all inside it and none of them knew it.”
[*Shakes head*] Millennials. They have to figure EVERYTHING out for themselves. They’ll learn this truth soon enough.
(Just kidding.)
But I get why there’s all that “Final Fantasy” imagery. The protagonists in those games are all pent-up, roiling balls of id, angry to the point of bursting, needing guidance (or something) to unlock their potential. “Narryer Gneiss Terrane” illustrates that journey toward understanding … “gneissly.”
I’ll show myself out.
“Narryer Gneiss Terrane” is an absolute stunner, an electronic/noise/death-sample hybrid that fills your mind and your heart like you’d expect it to. Out May 3 on Orange Milk.
