To say that Already Dead is one of the most productive, genre-traversing tape labels there is would be so friggin dumb. They are thee most productive, genre-traversing tape labels there is. And each year they are kind enough to make up a compilation, a mix tape really, featuring label alumni, buds, and whatever they think we should hear and enjoy. Comp number VIII just came out, so we dove in for a bonus ep.
New Batch – Tymbal Tapes
10.3.18 by Ryan Masteller
I’ve been accused of almost everything: being a nice guy, having impeccable taste in music, writing with the flair and panache of a neon motorcycle zipping flawlessly and fluidly through the gridlock of vocabulary. But I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of cronyism – at least not until today. And I haven’t even been accused of it yet, but I’m totally expecting the backlash. See, in the interest of full disclosure, Scott Scholz, owner and operator of Tymbal Tapes, is a valued contributor to Tabs Out, even teaching me about a thing or two in the process (like tape decks!). But we as an internet presence are also aware that we have to tackle the most interesting and magnificent musical releases on cassette, because that’s what we do, even if “one of us” is the entity ejecting those tapes into the marketplace. So we have to cover the new Tymbal Tapes batch for two reasons: (1) it is unflinchingly awesome, and (2) what the hell else are you gonna do while you wait for “Space Age Pressure Pad #4,” listen to podcasts or something?
Mosaics – they totally piss us off completely, as if we’re supposed to see images within the placement of like a billion tiny tiles. (OK, that last one’s cheating.) I mean, I don’t even know what the hell this is a picture of! And yet mosaic is a legitimate and recognized art form by at least one reputable (I think) institution. … Look, I’m just kidding about the mosaics, because they’re actually pretty rad (I see you, Philly), and they’re even more impressive when you recognize the detail that goes into them. Now, apply that concept to sound design and you’ve got a GOLDMINE on your hands! That’s where Joshua Stefane comes in, who you may know better as Endurance (what with the back catalog). On “Celestial Governors,” Stefane’s usual pastoral synth smears take on new levels of definition, especially in light of the revelation that “architecturally it’s made of a brazillion [sic] tiny fragments of sound, mostly produced by getting his equipment to glitch out” (thanks Scott!). Said Joshua himself to Scott, “I especially liked the idea of artists leaning over their work desks, blinking through magnifying glasses, and arranging thousands of pieces of colored glass into a scene.” “Celestial Governors” is most certainly the audio equivalent of that, as sonic elements have clearly been deeply considered and labored over to a remarkable degree. This is intensely layered music, grand and enveloping from a macro perspective, but bursting with incredible specificity the closer you get.
There’s a lot I’ve already said about “Cinjusti,” Mortuus Auris & The Black Hand’s new tape, which was once limited to CDR release and which I got my hands on a little over a year before this new iteration. As such, I’m gonna point you here for my initial thoughts on it, but I implore you to approach it with a fresh ear and perspective, because it’s just a fantastic trip, as is the rest of the MAbH catalog. I was also reminded by Scott that I put him in contact with Peter Taylor, the man behind MAbH, just after the CDR release of “Cinjusti” – I had honestly forgotten about that. So – yeah, that whole cronyism thing. We’re a bunch of peas in a pod.
Maybe it’s the intense introspection engendered by artists like Endurance and MAbH that throws something like Budokan Boys into stark relief. The faux wide-eyed innocence and the playful no wave trolling the New Orleans duo displays almost feels like total satanic blasphemy after utilizing the previous two tapes to center myself in some way. Well, all that centering was a complete waste of time now that I’m being confronted by this cockeyed playfulness, this “That’s How You Become a Clown.” With synthesizers burping away like they were trying to complete the alphabet and a heady and obvious delay on almost all vocal intonations (as well as an appropriate overreliance on pitch-shifting), Budokon Boys put the “fun” back in “What in the fuck am I listening to?” (trust me, those letters are all in there), which just so happens to be a seasick barrage of commentary on some stuff, like the clown thing and active shooters. I love it so much, it has made my year-end shortlist.
“More Eaze has been a long-time favorite artist around Tymbal HQ,” and I’ll stop you right there, Scott, and add my own unfiltered praise – pretty much each tape I’ve covered by More Eaze has been an absolute blast, a joy to dig into and sift through the detail, the compositional levels, the intentions and the language, gosh, the LANGUAGE. Now “a l4ngu4g3” really focuses on words and their meaning, how repetition and alteration change one’s perspective on connotation. Well, at least the sound of words emanating from a human mouth. “All 4 U” is the master class, fourteen minutes of human speech and strikingly melodic (at times) and hopelessly invasive (at others) programming leading off the tape. The other, shorter tracks follow their own intuition, their own logic, each encoded with DNA designed to invoke heightened visceral responses. Rhythms and samples collide to form conversations you’re having with yourself via ESP, which is how I know More Eaze has made a good tape. He’s got my own brain doing just that, communicating in an echo chamber lined with infinite mirrors while simultaneously rejecting that notion. Everything is meaningless and full of meaning.
You should pony up and get the whole batch while you can – there are only nine bundles left as of this writing, then it’s à la carte hell for you! #cronyism
Ale Hop – Bodiless
10.1.18 by Ryan Masteller
Imagine it. There you are, one minute, corporeal as anything, comfortable within the confines of your own body, then BAM! Everything you know is taken away from you, your body simply gone. Vanished, erased, deleted – but not from existence. Your mind is still there, your consciousness, disconnected from physical form. It peers into what you once recognized as life, but it’s adrift, lost at sea, destined to aimlessly roam. Bodiless.
Along comes Ale Hop, to bring the sounds of this experience to life. The Peruvian musician, based in Germany, has even titled her cassette on Buh Records “Bodiless,” which may or may not be a coincidence based on the event I was just imagining. But where I would’ve stopped chuckling somewhere in “Tron”-land, with the consciousness digitized for laser-bike races, Ale Hop goes beyond the idea, and takes it seriously. Over the course of the tape she sets the scene, beginning with ten minutes of disembodied sonics before coalescing into a narrative that shapeshifts from dense electronics to skewed pop and back, blurring the edges of style with ease, the edges of coherent thought with the utter strangeness of detachment.
Is this a commentary on internet culture and the immediacy of connectivity, like with the touch of a button you can be somewhere else, at least in spirit, without the need for your body to traverse the space between? Or is it an exploration of the inner workings of the human mind in relation to not needing the body so much anymore? Whatever it is, it’s fascinating, and you’ll be questioning absolutely EVERYTHING as you traverse the path, perhaps kissing your own molecules good-bye in the process.
And truly, it could be worse – it could be called “Headless.”
Think about that.
Edition of 50 tapes from Buh Records in Lima, Peru!
COIMS – Centers Parting
9.25.18 by Ryan Masteller
I am COIMS. “I cagoule glazed garibaldi.” “Lo-fi till I die!” shouts the Liquid Library. “Newage garage jazz?” “Newave All-tonal dub?”
Who’s asking these questions? When will we get the answers?
COIMS the great divider parts the centers of our understanding and exposes the gaping chasm that results.
***
[Five hours earlier… or later…]I have questions, COIMS, and you’re not walking out of here a free man till I get answers to ’em! You don’t just show up here in my precinct with a cassette tape and a goofy grin and expect to get away with it. I know there’s more behind these grisly crimes, but I’m not certain how it all fits together. That’s why it’s so gosh-darned important that you tell me what you know.
I mean, we’ve exhausted all our leads. What are we talking here – evil spirits flitting in and out of pocket universes or something? Aliens? I’m grasping at straws here, man! Haven’t you ever seen X-Files? Twin Peaks? I’m at the end of my rope, I’m trying to think outside the box, for Christ’s sake. What’s it gonna take for me to pry the information out of you, huh? I KNOW you know who’s behind this! I KNOW YOU CAN HELP ME STOP—
***
Flash. Time shift.
***
COIMS melts minds. COIMS the great mind melter. COIMS divides. COIMS the great divider. COIMS rips the fabric of space-time. COIMS the ripper of space-time fabric. COIMS destroys your perception. COIMS the perception destroyer.
“Centers Parting” “fungus”-colored tape from Liquid Library. You play it, it distorts everything.
Glass House – External Forces
9.21.18 by Ryan Masteller
“The Glass House headspace.” What does that look like? Where does it exist, if it indeed does exist on a physical plane? Is it actually glass? Can you see through it, or is it all frosted, like the window in my master bathroom? Do frogs attach themselves to the frosted glass that you can see from the inside of your master bathroom? Is it hurricane proof?
I feel like I’ve gotten off topic here.
“The Glass House headspace” is gained like an unlockable achievement in Final Fantasy [number forthcoming], where you dig down deep to your inner being and, with the proper (and exorbitant) amount of MP, tap into heretofore unobtainable amounts of personal power, more unobtainable than Unobtainium from Pandora in James Cameron’s masterpiece “Avatar.” With this power you can choose to heal your comrades or deal massive amounts of damage to your foe, which may or may not look like creatures from “Avatar.”
I’m all over the place today.
Let’s all shut up for a minute, and before you start chucking stones at me (there’s a Glass House here after all), we must consider “External Forces.” A sonic feast for those scrounging the barren Bandcamp cupboards for any sort of crumbling sustenance, this cassette tape is a powerful reminder that the Philadelphia/Brooklyn duo is still at the top of their game, even three years after their last tape (“Headlands” on Lillerne). Thick slabs of delectable synth are drizzled with piano melodies, minor-key meditations bloom into serene ambient clouds. If these forces are indeed external, they penetrate pretty deeply into one’s inner being. Listening to Glass House is the sonic equivalent of trying to peer through the frosted glass window in my master bathroom, except on all sides, and as far as the eye can see. Pretend you’re listening to that.
“External Forces” comes in an edition of 50 from Oxtail Recordings – get one now, while supplies last!
Nothing Band – Descension / Digestion
9.20.18 by Ryan Masteller
The following screenshot is of a conversation between me and my wife (read: my wiiiiiiiife). She was at one end of the house watching television with her sister; I was in my office at the other end.
God bless her.
I on the other hand can see through the screeching – or rather HEAR through it. Because it’s not all screeching, not to those who have trained their ears to appreciate the nuance of each sonic decision. See, for people like me – basement dwellers with no real ambition in life other than to pick apart other people’s artistic decisions to make themselves feel better for quitting bands forever after their college math-rock quartet dissolved seventeen years ago and who now weep openly whenever they play June of 44 records (which is almost never anymore because of the constant weeping) – where was I? Oh yeah – for people like me, we just get it, dude.
I like how Nothing Band is described as a “deconstructionist rock project”; the man behind it, Max Nordile, sure can scatter about the elements of traditional rock-n-roll as if they were piles of toys in a child’s room. Then, Nordile-as-child rolls around in the toys, flailing his limbs as he thrashes about, all while his Toy Story Mr. Mike Voice Changer Tape Recorder (only $175) records in the background, capturing every crash and bellow.
But Nordile’s not a kid, and Nothing Band is not a joke, so strangled guitar, Neanderthal percussion, and growls and hollers punctuate the recording, turning Mr. Mike’s happy smile into a terrified grimace. Still, Nordile’s got a great sense of humor – check out some of these amazingly worded subjects of his vitriol: “Mute Crooks Sell Good Luck,” “Hippie Gestures,” “Flag Business” (I stand for the flag!), “Gods Are Food,” “Jar of Piss” (which sadly is not a cheeky full-EP cover of Alice in Chains’s “Jar of Flies”), and “Policy Wonks.” So what you end up with is an abrasively entertaining record from a musician who cut his teeth in “avant skronk-punk bands” and on no wave. Is it pleasant? Well, if you’re asking that, you’re missing the point.
Time to debug your Paypal account and head on over to Decoherence Records to get one of these nasty beauts!
Bus Gas / Amulets – split
9.18.18 by Scott Scholz
Two households, both alike in gritty ambience,
In fair Portland, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grunge break to new unity,
Where tape-loop’d sounds make playback heads unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of Spring Break flows
A pair of star-cross’d droners make their tapes;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Doth with their co-release describe a nation’s soundscapes.
Shakespeare paraphrases aside, this new pair of jams might be better described as a tale of two cities. For many years, guitar- and tape loop-drenched cassettes drifted out of Austin as Randall Taylor’s solo project Amulets grew and developed. A day’s drive due north, a rotating cast of bearded characters in Lincoln, Nebraska were performing and recording as Bus Gas. In the last few years, both acts relocated to Portland, Oregon, where their paths would intertwine both geographically and musically.
The music on this “companion release” (a great way to describe a split that uses two tapes instead of splitting sides on one) would certainly make two fine independent releases, but Spring Break Tapes knows a good thing when they hear one, and there is an undeniable synergy found in bringing Bus Gas and Amulets together within one double-tall Norelco case. There is a shared approach to music, integrating live instruments and tape loops and processing to the degree that it’s sometimes impossible to guess the source of these pensive sounds. And the albums are further connected through a brilliant approach to artwork, designed by Bus Gas veteran Eric Nyffeler who combined images from 9 contributing artists, featuring a series of diecut panels whose fragments can be rearranged into new visual corollaries to the music.
The Amulets tape for this set, entitled “Mountains Past,” will feel familiar to fans of Taylor’s previous releases. A lot of the material is made from virtuoso-level manipulation of homemade tape loops, while synths create gentle pads and guitars sometimes rise through the surface ambience to articulate gentle melodies. Nobody is better than Amulets at making evocative, sometimes symphonic textures out of loops, while letting the grit and low-fi sounds of the machines working become part of the narrative. Some of the guitars, particularly on the title track, remind me a bit of Bus Gas journeys in the past, nicely connecting the albums.
For their part, Bus Gas connects right back to Amulets with an overall more subdued approach than their last few albums. “Immortal Yeller” is less post-rock and more ambient, with fewer guitar melodies and more emphasis on slowly-evolving textures and chordal work. Outside of occasional guitar arpeggio sections, it seems like guitar work here has either been rendered unrecognizable by effects, or transformed into samples that all three members of this latest lineup can deploy as needed. While synths and intermittent piano parts take a more assertive role, I must admit that my favorite pieces here still lean into guitar: “Hell’s Cape” has some heavy guitar playing that would be right at home on their last album, and album closer “Still Lifeless,” one of my favorite pieces in their catalog, takes on a tried-and-true post-rock shape, building to a climax about 3/4ths into its running time before coming to rest on some lovely fingerpicking passages.
It must be said that both Amulets and Bus Gas make perfect sense together as companions in a relatively uncrowded scene, somewhere between post-rock and ambient, gradually assuming the gravitas of minimalist classical influences. So many tapes that come my way fall relatively neatly into “modular blips” or “noise improv” or “synth zoner” camps, which is great, but these folks don’t sound like anybody else while being quite complementary to one another. Companions, indeed. I’ve long thought of both artists as lending themselves to a certain air of nostalgia, with their use of subtle noise, grit, and distorted/re-recorded materials evoking “aging memories” like fading photos and peeling paint, but I must admit to sensing an urgency in spirit now. In “these troubled times,” as it were, the stakes seem higher, trouble is looming around the corner, and I can’t help feeling like they’re exposing tensions and anxieties just beneath our collective contemporary surface this time around. But you’d best decide that for yourself: This double-tape sold out at source almost immediately, but you can still find copies at the respective Bandcamp pages of Amulets and Bus Gas right now. The release date is Friday, and you can still get in line for the zeitgeist.
New Batch – \\NULL|ZØNE//
9.17.18 by Ryan Masteller
A mad scientist once told me that if you don’t have any imagination, you’re never going to get anywhere. Then he turned his back to me and got back to work on whatever invention was occupying his attention at the moment, touching nodes and rods here and there, which caused his already explosive gray coiffure to frizz out even further. But that advice, and that insane look in his eye as he relayed it to me—that intense stare into my soul accompanied by uncontrollable muscular twitches and facial tics—made me think long and hard about what I was doing with my life. Was I a failure? Had my imagination evaporated to the point where I could no longer appreciate anything beyond hard data?
As I pondered this horseshit, I pressed play on Uton’s “Pa-Luu Val-oon,” which is the most fun thing to say MAYBE ever (certainly more fun than “cellar door,” thank you very much Drew Barrymore in “Donnie Darko”). I was immediately struck by the Finnish producer’s IMAGINATION, as well as the ability to harness it to ride a wave of experimentation of an intensity heretofore unseen since I left the mad scientist’s lab not five minutes earlier. Indeed, the first two tracks of this tape play out like the sounds emanating from a 1950s supervillain’s super lair, where all sorts of gadgets are being tweaked and beakers are being poured and plugs are being … plugged in. Then the tranquility sets in, supervillain turns off the light, heads upstairs for bed, and everything just kind of goes on reserve for the night. It doesn’t last, the restlessness returns, morphs, shifts, refracts, intensifies, pulls back, and, probably, evolves into a conscious entity, like Vision from DC’s X-Men.
But that’s Uton, not African Ghost Valley, and it’s to African Ghost Valley I now turn, still trying to shake the sheer plastic emotionless egg my outlook on life has become. African Ghost Valley is full of IMAGINATION, a different kind, though. Where Uton stretches out sound and lets it hang, AFG drops in on an idea and quickly abandons it for the next, because he’s not remotely interested in staying in one place for a long time. So yeah, “UNT” is a lot shorter, only seven tracks, over half of which are less than two minutes, but the restlessness belies mad genius at work. In fact, AFG doesn’t even try to act like a proper scientist, plugging the … plugs into open flames and dousing electrical sockets with heavily toxified goo boiled to scalding over Bunsen burners. Sounds come and go, rhythms crust over, and AFG stands back, pleased with the direction his work’s going in.
Wait a sec – I think my imagination’s back! I can see dragons, and spaceships, and rainbows, and ice cream! (*Passes out*)
Never doubt \\NULL|ZØNE//, from which you can purchase these tapes. Editions of fifty, suckas!
Marsha Fisher – Dosed Modular Synthesizer/Tape-loop Improvisations 4-4-2018 (self released)
Marsha Fisher – Dead Maze (self released)
Budokan Boys – That’s How You Become a Clown (Tymbal Tapes)
More Eaze – a l4ngu4g3 (Tymbal Tapes)
Memories Of… Lake Nabugabo (self released)
Phono Ghosts – Photons in Fashion (Fonolith)
Suko Pyramid and moduS ponY – Echolalia (Strategic Tape Reserve)
Mukqs – Slug Net (Unifactor)
The Sheen – Trash Hazard (self released)
Aether Jag – The Universal Veil (Hot Releases)
Shone Furcottes – Feral Dog Mother (Timesuck)
Bolt of Void – Live Snakes!
9.12.18 by Ryan Masteller
Look, you’re only going to be disappointed, as I was, when I opened up this Norelco to find a grand total of zero live snakes. There weren’t any dead ones either, like Bolt of Void tried to live up to their promise but failed, not realizing that snakes need air and water and food and stuff like that to live. They can’t live inside a tape case or an envelope. No animal can.
Crushed with disappointment, I popped what was ACTUALLY in the case – a cassette – into my cassette player, ready to just be in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Fortunately, although the tape itself didn’t live up to its name, the band sure did! Like an electric shock of negative energy interacting with dark matter, Bolt of Void’s screeching skronk-fusion blasted out of my speakers with enough energy to power a small city for a few hours. Like Charlotte, North Carolina, or Wilmington, Delaware.
The trio recorded “Live Snakes!” live (duh) at 3 Kings’ “Weird Wednesday: April” in their home base of Denver. They utilize a typical free jazz setup plus more: Ryan Ruehlen plays alto and baritone saxes, plus megaphone and “FX”; Kari Treadwell the bassace, plus “vox”; Nyal Ruehlen (a likely relation to Ryan) knocks about a drum kit, as well as “sampler.”
I don’t live in Denver, but I want to see Bolt of Void live. Seriously, people, the energy – imagine experiencing this in person, let alone the cassette artifact of it (which I’m experiencing today). I’m even almost over my snake disappointment, that’s how much my outlook has shifted.
Still, it’s worth reiterating this disclaimer before you buy one of these tapes directly from the band (which you should): there are NO live snakes contained within, so don’t get your hopes up. Edition of 50.
