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Tabs Out | Nick Hoffman – Salamander

Nick Hoffman – Salamander
3.13.18 by Ryan Masteller

I live in Florida, so it’s almost a constant daily occurrence to find insects swarming around my ears. You’ll have to forgive me then if, when I strap on my headphones and press play on Nick Hoffman’s “Salamander” cassette, I start flailing my arms about me as if I was being attacked from all sides by tiny biting menaces. I mean, I do have delicious blood, so I don’t blame them. But this sound, it doesn’t come from the beating of tiny wings, but rather Nick Hoffman’s “Salamander” itself. What the hell?…

The A-side, or “head,” of this “Salamander,” another creature we have in abundance here, was “synthesized using custom generative software” – so the buzzing finds its source in the bowels of a computer! Still, this digital spring issues sounds that feel alive, organic, imbued with strange patterns and textures. On the “tail” side, Hoffman switches over to “electric fan motors and metallic objects,” still crackling with unusual life and flitting just as mischievously as the “synthesized” compositions on side A. I sit engrossed, headphones affixed, an amateur sound entomologist, or herpetologist – what am I focusing on again? – studying my subject to reveal its mysteries.

Which somehow relate to Kepler’s great icosahedron, lovingly gracing the pearlescent stock cover. I have no idea how. Do bugs swarm in a great icosahedral configuration? Do salamanders have polyhedron markings on their skin? Nature is full of mysteries. I encourage you to dig into this one from Notice Recordings, pro duped on chrome plus tape stock, edition of 100.

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Tabs Out | Episode #121

121

Engelika and Others – Music From Films of Music (Excavation Series)
Chino Beano – Two Dollar Khaki (self released)
Stickboy – s/t (self released)
Glass Frog – Together compilation (Oxtail)
Primadonahue – Loosh (Stucco Discs)
Mike Dilloway – Hay Bale Paws (Alien Passengers)
Rose – Transference (Constellation Tatsu)
The Dirty Sample – Tuesday Nights On Cardero ‎(Hand’Solo)
Crash Silverback & Max Muthaphukin’ Stax – Candy & Coombs (Hand’Solo)
Black Vomit – Tape Demo (Post-Materialization Music)
Crazy Doberman – Milwuakee / Spot Tavern Summer 2017 (self released)
böhm – Transients (OTA)
ML Wah – Big Air (Flower Room)
Giovanni Lami – Hysteresis V (Null Zone)
Hasufel – Forlorn (El Tule)

  

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Tabs Out | New Batch – Ascetic House

New Batch – Ascetic House
3.9.18 by Mike Haley

Seeing a new batch drop from the drastically prolific Ascetic House is like being served a subpoena. It’s all a bit overwhelming, with a ton of information that needs to be digested and acted upon within a constricting deadline. The A.H. label, which could better be characterized as an artistic cult centered within a larger cult, discharge their tapes (or ‘materials’) in bulk. Their 2018 materials come from 15 frost bitten freaks with unhealthy obsessions and damaged auras. They employ knotted samples, icy synthesizers, and paranoid vocals to muster up high grade nihilistic magic, pulling listeners into their snafu. Individually they are…

UBK – Victoria
Titan Arch – Spiritual Entertainer
Roper Rider – Motion Profile
Rabit – Supreme
PLYXY – Gloryland
Lower Tar – self-titled
King Vision Ultra – Pain of Mind
Kali Malone – Organ Dirges
Jon Edifice – How Much is Your Life Worth
House of Kenzo – Bonfires of Urbanity
Free the Land – Global Ecophony: Audio Transmission from the Exhibition
City – Only Borders
Celular Free – Soft Grunge
Andrew Flores – Sesto San Giovanni
4 – Rows

A loaded up grouping of all 15 was available, but sold out in the 20 hours since announced. They can still be purchased separately from Ascetic House.

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Tabs Out | Dere Moans – Doom Royale

Dere Moans – Doom Royale
3.9.18 by Ryan Masteller

I’m going to be honest with you guys – if I wanted a “blistering torrent of early 2000s nü-metal/death metal samples juxtaposed with 80s/90s pop,” I could’ve just stuck my head in an industrial-sized blender. Because I actually don’t want it. Never did. I could get the exact same effect, probably, from doing the blender thing. Sure, I had nü-metal streak, I went to public high school, but man, that is one segment (now purged) of my record collection that I never want to go back to.

Still, Dere Moans… you intrigue me, you whippersnapper, you. What does the answer to the question (more an exclamation) “You only listen to ONE heavy metal song at a time?” sound like? (By the way, thanks for that great perspective, Houdini Mansions, I wish I’da thunk it.) I have no idea, and as terrible an idea as finding out might be … let’s frickin’ find out! The Minnesota producer, fortunately, doesn’t follow the lead of a project like Splice Girls, where the samples are really obvious and the result aligns more with pastiche (and I enjoyed “Spliceworld,” don’t get me wrong). Nope, on “Doom Royale,” I can’t pinpoint a single song. This realization – that I wasn’t THAT deep into the macho nü-metal quagmire – ends up doing more for my sense of self-worth than I had any right to expect from Dere Moans so… bravo, sir?

The repurposed metal samples clang and bash against the insides of speakers like electrons with roid rage, revving their motors and spinning their wheels in the sand until smoke begins to pour out of the engine block. And just to throw another metaphorical log into the stew, the snippets glitch out like Max Headroom in paroxysms of wordless Tourette’s. You guys remember Max Headroom? God, I’m old. But I had you at “glitch” and “wordless Tourette’s,” didn’t I?

So what DOES it sound like? Noise? …Sort of. Industrial? …Maybe. “Digital hardcore”? …Um. Nü-metal? …Oh, guys, this is so hard. It’s certainly nothing if not a brain scrambler. Give it a spin and buy a copy if you like it. Only 20 available from Bad Cake Records…

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Tabs Out | Germ Class – Dimensions of Value

Germ Class – Dimensions of Value
3.7.18 by Ryan Masteller

I had a Spirograph as a kid. There was something inherently mesmerizing about the repetitive swirling of the cog within the wheel (were they called cogs and wheels?), and I had one of those pens where you could click down a bunch of different colors, so, like, nine-year-old me could easily work himself into a psychedelic spirally heaven. And now I’m holding in my hand “Dimensions of Value” by Germ Class, and each cassette (edition of 50) comes with a unique hand-Spirographed cover by Fernando Brito. I don’t know about you, but the now-none-of-your-business-year-old me has a pretty deep itch, a hankering, an overwhelming twinge of muscle memory to meet up with that nine-year-old kid I used to be and Spirograph the hell out of my mom’s notebook paper.

Fifty unique covers! This is OTA, aka Ostres Amigos, after all, a lovely tape label out of Portugal imprinting their releases with a totally singular aesthetic, a great idea to separate themselves in the tape game. I’ve got a few of their cassettes, and each one is a work of art. Germ Class is no different, and “Dimensions of Value” is the perfect sonic accompaniment to the artwork. A German Army offshoot featuring Peter Kris, Germ Class also features Stephanie Chan of Dunes on vocals and “NH” on “Programming” – look man, I could wander the internet all day, but it just says “NH_Programming,” and I already did the other two. Like Dirty Beaches with a drum machine and a Cocteau Twins fetish, Germ Class pops dark, slinky noir tunes in the microwave with some electro beats and hits the 30 second button. Sparks flash, imprinting themselves on your corneas, and the resulting visual disturbance looks not unlike Spirograph shapes flashing across your field of vision. Hope the damage isn’t permanent.

So I have some bad news – although “Dimensions of Value” came out in November, it’s already gone from the label. But! There’s one available from this guy on Discogs, just don’t fight too hard over it. Or you could always download the record and tape it, then make your own cover. That might be fun to do, actually, on a rainy afternoon.

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Tabs Out | Passive Status – Papier

Passive Status – Papier
3.6.18 by Ryan Masteller

This is what I get: halfway into Passive Status’s “Papier” I’m hallucinating the alien vessel from “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” the one trying to communicate with humpback whales. The Polish dark ambient artist has strung me along to this point, dragging me through various tactile environments by my ears until I’m suggestible enough for him to implant visions in my listening experience. Seeing weird crap through sound. Violent bouts of synesthesia.

So it’s an adventure, then. I can handle adventure. Even if it’s not going to lead me to faraway space stations or back in time to save the human race. Hey, I’m still along for Passive Status’s wild ride. That’s just how I like it these days. …And previous days, too, actually. I admit, I was always a thrill seeker.

The nine tracks on “Papier” establish miniature worlds within themselves, each one a specific oddity to which you must reorient before immersion. They don’t last too long, none much over five minutes, so you’re constantly shifting your balance, needing to ground yourself before you get too lost in the mix. But that’s the fun part isn’t it? Go on, then – get yourself lost! Don’t worry about preparing for what’s around the next dark corner, what’s hiding in the next dark shadow. Be surprised, and, sure, a little freaked out maybe. Weird stuff’s happening – OK – but it’s the ride that’s important! Don’t waste time worrying about things you have no control over, like Klingons or Ferengi.

I’m still hallucinating, aren’t I…

Edition of 50 on the Plaża Zachodnia label, ships straight outta Kolobrzeg.

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Tabs Out | Odd Person / Cool Person – Odd World, Cool World split

Odd Person / Cool Person – Odd World, Cool World split
3.4.18 by Mike Haley

So which is better to be: A cool person or an odd person? The internet suggests that being a cool person is being someone like Brad Pitt. On it’s face that appears to check out, because Brad Pitt was in the movie Cool World. But that movie was sort of odd. A search for the world’s oddest people brings up folks that can puff their eyeballs out or fit a remarkable amount of golf balls in their mouth. But those talents sound pretty cool to me. Cool can also refer to temperature. Is the coolest person just always a bit chilly? No, that would be odd. Odd also describes a number that leaves a remainder of one when divided by two. An example of that would be 69, which is practically the coolest number.

Turns out it’s not a competition. To prove that once and for all Odd Person and Cool Person teamed up for this here split on the Permanent Nostalgia label where the pair get odd in cool ways. On the Odd Person side August Traeger gets a stew going, his crock pot modded to rapidly change temperatures. The meal bubbling inside is a tangy sitar soup, found and fragmented, seasoned up with recalled Mrs. Dash mystery powders. Traeger’s “pure data + field recordings” snag as they simmer, all stringy like a bad piece of celery, resulting in abscessed loops. The Cool Person side see’s a temperature change with “Yamaha synth-jazz” served up in a virtual walk-in freezer. Contended, sharp notes tumble out like ice cubes, often melting into puddles of glistening sounds. Hot/cold. Odd/cool. Win/win.

66 copies (NOT an odd number) are available now.

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Tabs Out | Tatras – Yerevan

Tatras – Yerevan
3.2.18 by Ryan Masteller

“Ararat” begins “Yerevan” by Tatras with fifteen minutes of creaking timbers, like those of a large wooden vessel on an endless empty sea. Not unlike those, in fact, of the ark, the ship God directed Noah to build to weather the totally real and not fake at all biblical flood. In the ark’s hold dwelt two of every animal, male and female, so that Noah and his menagerie could populate the earth again after the floodwaters receded. I bet those animals were getting totally freaky cooped up in there. Aww, yeah.

Ararat is the mountain in present-day Turkey where the ark supposedly and finally ran aground, thus tying my narrative nicely together. For years scholars have speculated on the whereabouts of the ark, even going so far as to provide photographic evidence, like this, or this, or this surprising and astonishing and absolutely true image. In this one you can actually see Noah’s head after he and God decided to move the ark elsewhere for safe keeping.

Tatras is a little more serious than I am, imagining that ancient sea, the tension of one superstitious man not knowing whether he’ll survive the ordeal. “Ararat” is gripping in its stasis, its gently rocking ambience a reminder of upheaval and destruction.

And there are other tracks too, mountain-y ones even: “Vardenis” is named after a town near the Vardenis mountain range, located close to the Armenian capital of Yerevan, which … hey, that’s the name of the album! “Gndasar” is also named after an Armenian mountain, Gndasar Lerrnagagat’, and Tatras, the very name of this project, was itself inspired by the range separating Slovakia from Poland.

“Chatin” is, what, Chatin Sarachi I guess? He was an Albanian painter.

So there you have it – some history, some geography, some intense cassette-based sound art. You never know what you’re in for at the old Tabs Out Podcast website.

Tatras crafts compositions like cloud formations among all these Eastern European and North Asian mountains, mysterious to us awestruck and faraway westerners. Listening to “Yerevan” is like traveling to the far reaches of the world in your mind. The tape itself features beautiful artwork and comes with a thick cardstock o-wrap. Edition of 25 from Knoxville’s Park 70, its only release on a sparse Bandcamp page.

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Tabs Out | New Batch – Umor Rex

New Batch – Umor Rex
3.1.18 by Mike Haley

My grandpa loves to corner me while I’m playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater on my Zune and grumble about how difficult shit used to be when he was my age (ie: a teen #youth). One time he said that television used to be black & white, and that there were seriously only four channels! I gotta admit, I was kind of shook. Then Umor Rex released this latest batch, and #Whad’yaKnow: Four tapes, all black and white, with sprawling energy that could go on for months. Years! Hell, I may NEVER grow weary! SO maybe this “Greatest Generation” or whatever they call themselves just didn’t have the fucking gumption that Umor Rex is sporting. So sorry all you could come up with was Howdy Bootie puppets and racist portrayals of native people to entertain yourselves. Cause we (ie: the teen #youths) have Byron Westbrook, LogarDecay, Kohl, and Rafael Anton Irisarri at our disposal.

In total seriousness, this latest batch from Umor Rex is weighty as hell, with artists never leaving the clouds of smoke they create. Also I’m nearly 40 and only found out about these tapes by searching “Kohls.” I got some Kohls Cash expiring soon and need a nice pant. Enough about me, let’s dive into this batch…

 

BYRON WESTBROOK – CONFLUENCE PATTERNS

Byron Westbrook is an artist and musician based in Brooklyn, NY. His work focuses on dynamics of perception using sound, lighting and video to interact with architecture and landscape, often pursuing routes that involve social engagement. Confluence Patterns is an eclectic collection of recordings, containing both the sharpest and most pastoral material Westbrook has released. The pieces range from the textured drones of “Vanishing Action” to the Tony-Conrad-plays-Black-Sabbath riffing of “Perception Depth” to the Maggie Payne-influenced “Fractal Shift II”. Westbrook is interested in how sharp contrast can shape the perception of a sound. Working with texture and frequency in relation to listening duration, he considers sonic analogies as to how an afterimage affects the experience of sight. For example, the pillowy “Drifting Well” has a particular softness after experiencing the fatiguing frequencies and activity of “A Continuous Slip”; and the density and detail of “Glorious Mess” plays in a particular way after the static textures of “Vanishing Action”. Westbrook considers these sequential contrasts as integral elements of the work and has performed this sequence as a live set numerous times in recent years. Confluence Patterns is his third music release –after previous works in Root Strata and Hands In The Dark– and his first one in Umor Rex.

LOGARDECAY – FRGL

Leslie García and Paloma López (Mexico City) have been working for several years around the intersection of music, art-installation and science, with sound being the primary objective of their analysis, acting their roles as composers/creators and observers of the physical phenomenon. Their work ranges from experiments with bioelectrical sounds created by living organisms like bacteria and plants, to the use of custom-made sets of hardware they call ontological machines. They usually operate within their own platform Interspecifics, and FRGL is their second release under the moniker: LogarDecay. The sounds contained in FRGL might be their more musical work to date. It is not far from sound art, yet the bright accidents coming out of their improvisations seem to exist in the limits between harmony, rhythm and pure noise as a construction. Its tension sometimes soothes, sometimes mutates into a state between drone, ambient and abstract techno. FRGL is an exercise in transparency that does not seek to hide their errors but to maximize them and turn them into an aesthetic statement.

KOHL – LEANED ETHICS / IMPOSED ETHICS

Kohl is the dub-based project of New York City artist and musician Nathaniel Young. With Kohl, Nathaniel focuses on enveloping melodies and sounds that are often contrasted with subtle and evolving minimal textures and the rhythmic patterns generated from them. The resulting music is contemplative and warm, invoking reflection while maintaining a sense of motion/evolution. The Kohl project is an outlet for personal transformation; it is Young rewiring his understanding of morality and ethics. Interpretations of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Musically, Learned Ethics / Imposed Ethics is a fine collection of ultra-textural ambient pieces with minimal changes like “The Possibility Of The Infinite”, slow tempo tracks like “Moral Supposition”, the dance-floor focused “Resolution (Empathy)”, and “The Inquisition”, which displays Kohl’s signature dub-techno style.

RAFAEL ANTON IRISARRI – SIRIMIRI

The NY-based producer returns to Umor Rex with a new album, in which the musical discourse and the physical form of the release have an equal, crucial importance. Sirimiri is made of four long and mid-length pieces, each composed of different perspectives, processes and identities. However, Rafael seeks to blend subjective time with the listening experience. A sort of loop and repetition, sub-sequence-based sound. Following Eno, nothing happens in the same way twice, perception is constantly shifting, nothing stays in one place for long. The sum of the four pieces is 36 minutes; the cassette edition lasts 72 minutes in total, since both sides have the same four songs joined together. Physically, the format allows us at least two automatic repetitions. In the digital version the songs are independent, but we also include a bonus track made of the 36-minute loop. The desolation and despair (in a sort of positive way) that we got to hear in The Shameless Years (Umor Rex 2017) is present in Sirimiri, but the impression is concrete, with cruder, less rhetorical landscapes. If The Shameless Years was located between beauty and active tragedy, Sirimiri travels inside the beauty and melancholy of an observing eye, a quiet rebel insurrection. Another substantial difference is the distance from general and globalized concepts; in these unfortunate times, Sirimiri looks for personal sorrows, and places its focus on the particular. Even the names of the songs evoke this in small ways, like in “Sonder”, the feeling of realizing that everyone, even a complete stranger, has a life as complex as one’s own. Rafael has two guests in this album; Taylor Jordan in “Mountain Strem”, and Rafael’s hero Carl Hultgren (from Windy & Carl) in “Sonder”. Sirimiri means ‘drizzle’ in Basque, and we cannot find a better word to describe its content.

All tapes come packaged in hand numbered (out of 120) custom, fold-out cases made of 100% recycled paper. Grab them now.

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Tabs Out | Sugar Pills Bone – Slack Babbath Plays Peep Durple

Sugar Pills Bone – Slack Babbath Plays Peep Durple
2.28.18 by Ryan Masteller

What the hell is “lurpwave?” An internet search brings up two pages of links containing the sentence “World-renowned purveyors of Lurpwave are back with their debut ‘Slack Babbath Plays Peep Durple.’” But as everyone knows, you can’t define a term with itself, so… what’s next?

How the hell can someone come “back” with their “debut”? You either debut or you come back, you don’t do both. Coming back implies being there once before. Debuting implies being there for the first time. So… what’s next?

What the hell is “Buttersound”? The obvious answer is this, but I don’t think Chip Butters is a member of Sugar Pills Bone. Sleepy Sugar Thompkins and Boney Dog Davis are, though. Not Chip Butters. Chip Butters would NOT know what to do with a warble stick. Or a rocking chair.

It might be this, actually (although come to think of it, that looks more like video evidence of what I imagine happens at Tabs Out HQ on podcast night). It also might be this.

Um… what’s next?

Why the hell isn’t this a Black Sabbath or Deep Purple tape? I want SO BAD for it to be that right now. But the letters are mixed up, so we move on… what’s next?

I guess you’ll just have to take these incoherent and unconnected thoughts and shape your own explanation with them. That’s what Sugar Pills Bone does, did here, but with sound sources, whipping together a backwoods plunderphonic nightmare somewhere in the realm of “Blair Witch” or “Lord of Illusions.” If you like your outsider noise a little on the weird, paranoid tip, look no further than “Slack Babbath Plays Peep Durple” (which I can’t even say properly in my head, it’s such a tongue twister). Edition of 25 on Orb Tapes.