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New Batch – Midnight Circles
5.15.18 by Ryan Masteller

Midnight Circles is a sound-art tape label based in Germany, not that you didn’t know about it or anything, because look at that deep Bandcamp catalog dating all the way back to 2014. Do you remember what you were doing in 2014? For me, life was a blur of fatherhood, which it still is, although I’m probably about 20 pounds heavier than I was four years ago. I’m not proud of that. I’m an athlete.

Speaking of athletes, if there was a decathlon for ambient music, Midnight Circles might win it. Their “focus on sound and occasional music” opens up all sorts of possibilities, and they’ve roped in all sorts of artists over the years from all sorts of backgrounds and disciplines to contribute to the output. Actually, there are exactly ten different possibilities, if in fact I’m going to continue with this decathlon metaphor.

Which I’m not. I’m done with it.

MATTHEW ATKINS – THE SUBTLE SCIENCE
The London-based Atkins haunts his tape, “The Subtle Science,” like a ghost. Like memory. Wind drifts through sampled objects, and everything is shaped into discrete passages. But although each track has its own identity, over the full course of the tape the picture crystalizes, until you’re left with what is essentially an artfully shot black-and-white film in your ears. I guess you could count Atkins among the auteur group – the more you listen, the more you realize he belongs among them. Each time you press play, new discoveries emerge, and it’s clear that Atkins is fully in control over the outcome. Now, if only he could hurl a discus properly…

DALE CORNISH – ETIQUETTES
Dale Cornish just has to be different. Not content to solemnly drift through time and space like some of his peers, he instead cooks up an array of short pieces to satisfy all the different experimental itches that crop up. Utilizing rhythm more obviously to generate distinct patterns, Cornish samples both electronic and acoustic sources and reworks them into less-than-recognizable forms. This is the fun of “Etiquettes,” as you can almost play “Guess the Sound Source” and actually have a good time doing it. But the fun also exists in the surprises along the way, as there are fourteen distinct pieces here, each filled to the brim with whimsy and bursting with kinetic energy. Even the more serene pieces vibrate with life.

Now let’s equate the “Etiquettes” tracks to a bunch of hurdles you have to jump over to reach the finish line of an auditory competition. You know, like in a hurdle race.

CATALAN COAST – BAYOU
I guess we can throw “Bayou” by Catalan Coast into the mix here at the end. It’s not technically part of the March 2018 batch (it released back in December), but it showed up in the same package, so, fine, we’ll make some room for it. Good thing, too, because it’s definitely a keeper. Because who doesn’t love minimalist synthesizer loops that are 100 percent mood and 0 percent anything else, like fat? Lean and mean, this “Bayou.” The nature of the ambience even shifts from one side to the other, with the clean tonal lines of side A becoming blurred and smeared and static’d on the flip. Highly recommended for any sort of chilled-out moment you may find yourself in, like calming down your heartbeat after sprinting 100 meters.

I totally kept up that stupid metaphor, didn’t I. It was unintentional.

I. It was unintentional.

Kibble – Lapses
5.11.18 by Ryan Masteller

Bonding Tapes drops a lot great beats, but sometimes they just release a tape into the world that sinks its canines into the soft, meaty flesh of your thigh and decides it’s pointless to let go, like, ever. Or until you take it to the vet and have it removed, and then you have to get your rabies shots, which is NOT PLEASANT, let me tell you, from one rabies sufferer to another. Still, this is a metaphor, so let’s all calm down for a second and revel in the absolute jam that is Kibble’s “Lapses,” the aforementioned proverbial tape that sinks its teeth into stuff.

And “Lapses” my ass – there aren’t any mistakes or slip-ups here, as Kibble navigates through (checks math, because roman numerals) XIII bona fide jammers, a start-to-finish headtrip/party/headtrip that may as well serve as a slurry mixtape through all these weird cocktails I’m downing at Chili’s. At times instrumental hip hop filtered through a VHS player, at times new wave smeared across a microscope slide, at times damn near electronic shoegaze, Kibble, to beat this thing into the ground, has a death grip on my attention span, a stranglehold on my waking life, and … er, the key to my heart. Meaning I love me some instru-electro-hop-gaze, the genre I’ve coined right now (patent pending!) and that Kibble specializes so distinctly in.

You can still procure one of these Hot Pockets from Bonding Tapes, along with any number of other rad party jams. I’m going to recommend the ZOD1AC as well, and not just because ZOD1AC recommended the Kibble! I really do actually happen to like “The Zodiac Tapes Vol. 1.”

New Batch – Czaszka
5.10.18 by Ryan Masteller

Pst – wake up. It’s morning in Edinburgh, and you know what that means. That’s right, it’s another tape batch from your favorite purveyors of ambient sound art, Czaszka (Rec.)! … To be clear, I don’t mean to suggest that Csaszka releases a batch of tapes every day before you even have that first cup of tea or suck down that first scotch egg. They at least wait until after you’ve had your breakfast to drop that daily dose of sonic architecture on you.

I kid! I just mean that it happens to be a good morning for a tape batch release, that’s all. Any day’ll do. I’m not talking EVERY day.

Jeesh, are you guys are in a mood or what?

 

M/M – “I KNOW YOU ARE THINKING I’VE SAID THIS ALL BEFORE”
M/M, aka Michael McGregor, doesn’t skimp on his tape. Not in the slightest. “I Know…” is two half-hour pieces of deep introspection and gorgeous nostalgia, ghosts of the present obscured by our attention spans. Memory wisps spark false déjà vu, and conversations fracture and recombine out of order. Through this we are taken “to the Deep Blue Sky,” where we are washed in atmosphere while hovering in an ocean of nothingness. From the great wide space of the outer to the microcontext of something as seemingly insignificant as light reflecting off a cobweb, M/M plugs into the breathless infinite and illuminates the unknown corridors of human truth. That he recorded these two sides a year apart from one another (December 2016 and 2017) only emphasizes their coherence across time.

QUALCHAN. – “ONE HUNDRED YEARS”
Qualchan. is no stranger to us. He’s been dropping releases on his own Peradam Tapes label and others for at least as long as I can remember, and I can barely remember what happened a week ago, so take this statement for whatever it’s worth to you. On “one hundred years.” (what is it with this guy and periods?), Qualchan. combines his trademark “synthesizers, field recordings, and tape loops” (quoted because I have no idea what anything is anymore; I assume it’s all a single synthesizer) to craft another gorgeous sound environment. On “the lost world (a song for davy ray callan).,” the mood shifts from a sudden rainstorm to the delicate aftermath, then continues through explorative patters and tones. This continues on side B, “this too shall pass.,” until rhythmic patterns emerge to inject a playful tension. It all resolves into a more atmospheric aura, left to whisk our unanswered questions away into meaninglessness. Which is fine, I wasn’t really expecting any answers anyway.

MT ACCORD – “POSTCARDS FROM A DREAM”
(Disclaimer: Mt Accord is Adam Badí Donoval, my homie and fellow writer at Tiny Mix Tapes. Whatup, Adam!)
What’s cool about “Postcards from a Dream” is that it’s a repurposing of older Mt Accord music, looped into new forms and functions and emanating from a place beyond all sense of real consciousness. Hey, it’s called “Postcards from a Dream,” after all, and these three tracks drift in through the mind’s open window to stimulate imaginary vistas and unearthly landscapes. I actually want to receive postcards from these places in the mail, then I can hang them on the wall in my office and look at them while I’m listening to Mt Accord. Short of receiving these phantom postcards from unreal locations, I can certainly visualize them with the help of these three passages, each one a “repetitive, meditative, eerie” experience that sinks beneath your skin and enters your bloodstream, pulsing ever so gently with each heartbeat until they become part of your waking life. So basically Mt Accord has succeeded in superimposing his will over every aspect of my day – at least while I’m listening to this tape. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I FEEL VERY GOOD ABOUT THAT, MASTER.

Lavatone – s/t
5.7.18 by Ryan Masteller

The warped ambiance of an unforgiving prairie night on the Texas panhandle captured to cassette tape for secret gatherings around secret fires, “Lavatone” should never have even been discovered and pressed here in the present day. Indeed, its origins date from 1994, almost twenty-five years ago, an eternity in the music biz, a footnote in the modern era famous for … what? MLB’s labor strike? Please. Although I guess if there aren’t any Ranger games on TV you could do worse than recording some music. That’s what “drummer and noise cartographer” Drew Holder did as August raged outside and gave way to September, an equally horrifying month to be wandering around anywhere outdoors in Texas. It’s the reason buildings often have air conditioning.

On “Lavatone,” Holder mucks about in his Amarillo studio, matching up drum patterns against heat-warped sonics. These uniquely Texan experiments are like big-sky séances trying to raise the spirits of thunderstorms, which approach from across great distances with much advance warning. A thunderstorm even makes an appearance here, its field-recorded rumbles and raindrops a nice touch as they kick up the dust in their passing. But it was sheer luck that we even have the pleasure of hearing Holder’s “Lavatone,” as a wayward Amarillan musician named Hayden Pedigo stumbled upon what he calls “Stone Face” in Holder’s current studio, which just so happens to be the same studio in which Holder recorded “Stone Face” in 1994. What are the odds! Probably not too bad, actually. But the good folks at Full Spectrum, meaning Andrew Weathers, remastered this sucker and released it once again. It’s like a lost child has come home to my ears … which, somehow in this metaphor are the child’s parents?

Let’s leave it.

You can cop one of these tapes from Full Spectrum, edition of 100.

Catching up with Third Kind Records
5.4.18 by Ryan Masteller

This isn’t really a batch, more of a catching up with Brighton, UK, all-star tape label Third Kind Records. You’ll note that the release dates don’t exactly match on all these, but can you blame me for that? I don’t have a wall calendar, I have a Philadelphia Phillies page-a-day tear-off calendar, so if ever want to go back and figure out what happened on a day in the past, I have to dig through my garbage to find anything. And it really only works for a week, because of trash pickup. Wait, I have a calendar app on my phone? Really… Hmm…

Doesn’t matter. We’re only going back a month and a half or so for Third Kind. Some stellar releases in the interim, gotta say. Might be that ocean air that just opens up the breathing passages, clarifying the internal, making label honcho Nicholas Langley a bit more attuned to the quality submissions coming his way, just a little more ready to pounce on the next sublime tape. Did I say “sublime”? I meant SUBLIME, in all caps. (Not the fake reggae band.) I highly recommend getting your hands on any and all of these. Act now, or that shady back-alley music Craigslist – you know, Discogs – is the only place you’ll be able to find any of these in the near future.

 

LINDEN POMEROY – “SPIRIT REPLICA”
Let’s start here, because this one’s the newest, out April 21, 2018, the very day I’m writing this. Nick referred to Linden Pomeroy’s “Spirit Replica” as a cross between “Jim O’Rourke style songs, post-apocalyptic shoegaze, and ‘Selected Ambient Works II’-leaning ambient tracks.” I mean, that’s almost three of my favorite things right there! (O’Rourke comes in a close fourth to Totino’s Pizza Rolls.) But in reality, “Spirit Replica” is a sprawling sound world that you simply must immerse yourself in or it’s going to go right over your head. And that’s just the best kind of album, in my opinion, the kind you have to listen with headphones, door shut, eyes closed, start to finish. This thing is so clearly labored over, and so multidimensional that turning your attention away from it for even a second will likely ruin the whole experience for you. No, check that – probably impossible to ruin this experience. Just dive back in there somewhere.

 

KYLE & WILBUR – “SPRINGTIME COMES TO EVERY HOUSEHOLD”
I don’t know what “Huxian Farmers Painting Exhibition Hall” is, but I sure as heck know how to get there, thanks to the Bandcamp page for Kyle & Wilbur’s “Springtime Comes to Every Household”! So if I’m ever in China, I’m good to go. Kyle Clangin and Wilbur Armislow’s stylings have a Far Eastern vibe, certainly, in their careful and deliberate compositions. With Wilbur on flute and Kyle on electronics and “occasional” zither and violin, the stage is set for haunting atmospheres and melodies clearly inspired by rural Chinese life. Totally Zen, and the flute often takes on the characteristics of imagined bird flight, an idea that plays right off the lovely painting on the j-card. Hey, is it a Huxian Farmers Painting?? I don’t even know!!

 

ENDURANCE – “THE WANDERING OF DAYS”
There’s a reason I chose a photo of this tape for main post image. Just look at it! If we were still doing Look at These Tapes segments here, this would be a contender. And Endurance, Joshua Stefane himself, took the photography for this thing, as he usually does for his own tapes. The “Canadian bioethics researcher living in Japan” (I have wasted my life…) is back with another round of tense and sprawling ambience, the best kind of ambience if you ask me. Dubbing this a kind of “music for memory” (unlike, say, Caretaker’s “Everywhere at the End of Time,” which is sort of the opposite), Stefane injects the very essence of the life of the mind into these tracks, infusing them with a universal aspect that serves as a very easy touchpoint for entrance. Again, headphones probably required, but there is no better (or weirder) place to get lost in than your own mind. “The Wandering of Days” sets you up for hours of mental adventure (if you put it on repeat, that is).

Cloud Dweller – Winter
5.1.18 by Ryan Masteller

You really wanna rankle me? Here’s how: specialize in crafting mood pieces in relation to events surrounding the locale of Allentown, Pennsylvania, a place where I have spent entirely too much g**-dam*ed time in my life. That’s me eyeballing you, Glenn Nelson, aka Cloud Dweller. Better yet, you could house your tape label’s headquarters there, probably in some hovel at the a$$ end of Linden Street or something. I am glaring straight in your m-effing direction, Endangered Species Tapes. Am I close? Thinking about Allentown from the safe distance of like 800 miles away is still like trying to scratch off every square inch of my skin because it’s itchy.

…

OK, sorry for being so negative. I mean, I’m OG, born in Allentown Hospital and everything, so it stands to reason that getting out of there was the best thing I ever did. Maybe I shouldn’t hold it against everybody that still calls the place home. And to be fair, there are times it can even be beautiful – heck, you can be from anywhere, or currently inhabiting anywhere, and the prospect of encroaching winter whiteout conditions is both exhilarating and awe-inspiring. That’s what Cloud Dweller captures here with “Winter,” based on his seasonal experience in Allentown … well, on side B, anyway. Side A was recorded in like Vermont or something, but we all know winter is winter and a snowstorm is a snowstorm, so quit trampling my narrative!

…

There I go again. Sorry, sorry! I don’t want to lose the thread that Cloud Dweller has a frigid grip on his synthesizer rig, icy tones penetrating the short days and long nights. Seriously, you can curl up under a warm blanket by a crackling fireplace while the wind howls outside and this “Winter” tape will still chill your bones. But that’s one of the best parts about winter, one of the ones I actually miss now that I’m the heck out of there: the cold makes the getting warmer all the sweeter. So turn off the lights, light some candles, and get under the covers while Cloud Dweller drones his “Winter” all around like snowflakes swirling in a gale. It makes thinking about Allentown actually … pleasant?

Random PS: How’s Double Decker’s tape game these days?

Winter’s in a teeny-tiny edition of 25 from Endangered Species, so hurry it up!

Final Cop – Broken Window
4.30.18 by Ryan Masteller

You gotta smash some windows to make an omelet, isn’t that right gang? The opposite is true too – if you don’t want that runny yellow shit getting all over your hands, you lock it up real good, real tight. Don’t let it out, don’t let the cracks show. Perfect order, perfect unity. We are all good little boys and girls, and we will NOT BREAK EGGS. I mean windows. We will NOT BREAK WINDOWS, or jump turnstiles, or spray paint graffiti all over the new bank that just went up downtown.

Final Cop has had enough of it too. The duo of Vern Ore and Peter Kris slings crisp industrial post-punk at your ear holes, the sonic equivalent of throwing an authority fit because they just can’t take all you jagoffs running around like there’s no law and order or anything. Because wouldn’t you know it, the more you get away with the little stuff, the more it builds to the big stuff, like ramming a garbage truck full of cement through the vault wall of the new bank that just went up downtown or something. That’s why Final Cop is here – to prevent garbage trucks ramming through bank walls, and thwarting masterminds who want to cause chaos by making off with that sweet cash. You know as a taxpayer you’re going to be on the hook for the big stuff, the Big Crimes, right?

Or, uh, Final Cop is taking the opposite stance while commenting on the state of urban crime? Or something. I dunno. I’m just head-nodding along to “Broken Windows” in my Walkman till my neck snaps.

Only four tapes remain from Skrot Up! Get em while they’re hot!

Tycho Brahe – s/t
4.27.18 by Ryan Masteller

The REAL Tycho Brahe would never jam like this. This imposter, releasing a self-titled tape on Cleveland noise stalwart Mistake by the Lake, is all like, “Listen to me, my synthesizers rip through your psyche like supernovas rip through the space-time continuum!” Besides being totally wrong about what supernovas do, Fake Tycho Brahe also didn’t lose part of his nose in a sword duel in the dark, like Real Tycho Brahe did in 1566 at the University of Rostock in Germany. Look it up. Real Tycho Brahe also observed an actual supernova in 1572, but everybody thought it was some sort of strange heavenly light occurring between the moon and Earth, because of “celestial immutability” (freaking Aristotle). Real Tycho Brahe dropped some KNOWLEDGE on those fools, “De nova stella,” setting the record straight for, like, decades. But yeah, Fake Tycho Brahe, you just keep making your synthesizer music. We don’t need any new advancements in science or anything. [*Eyeroll*]

Ha, OK, look, I’m not really some sort of stickler for accuracy here. I’m writing about music after all; I’m not aiming for publication in some scientific journal, because let’s face it: research isn’t exactly my strong suit. So let’s focus on Fake Tycho Brahe for a second, because once I got all that junk out of my system, that crummy thirty-thousand-foot history lesson, I realized that this tape is an absolute gem, a stunner, a completely appropriate addition to the catalog of the city that brought you Emeralds. This vibe cycle of oscillations and melody permeates the brain and unlocks all sorts of potential avenues for understanding. Maybe Real Tycho Brahe was listening to the modular lute equivalent of this back in his day, inspiring him to write “De nova Stella.” Maybe Fake Tycho Brahe is pulling a fast one on us by including what looks like a supernova occurring among a forest on the j-card art, suggesting either that he’s in on the reference or just a fan of X-Files-related phenomena. Either way, smash sound and science together into cassette tape form, and you’re in for some far-out elliptical mind-blowery with this thing.

Let’s face it, both Tycho Brahes are real. Grab one of these 48 (or 50 – MBTL isn’t clear on that) tapes while you can, as well as a copy of “De nova stella” (in Latin!) from the fine company Amazon.com.