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Ashan – Air & Ether
8.18.17 7y Ryan Masteller

Speaking of Sean Conrad, it’s never unhard to not be in the mood for one of his releases (I’ll let you sift through those negatives – it comes out positive, trust me), and that’s equally true for “Air & Ether,” his latest release as Ashan on Elestial Sound (Gainesville, represent!). First impression – whoa, beats! Sean usually traffics in the totally ethereal (see his and others’ work on his inimitable Inner Islands label), and while he’s no stranger to more propulsive work, “Calling” opens up the tape with hypnotic beats straight off my 1996 MTV AMP compilation. (Well, like half of it anyway.) That’s a bright, welcome direction for the Ashan identity, and the mood carries throughout the entirety of the tape. It’s so easy to listen to, in fact, that electronica heads and ambient fiends alike will find some common ground here, and I know that’s a difficult thing to do in the wake of severe genre compartmentalizing (thanks a lot, mainstream media!).

While he’s wiggling his keister with reckless abandon, Sean’s still never very far from the outer regions of the galaxy (that’s the “elestial” talking here, but with a “c”). The trance is the key, and the repetitive structures and glistening effects are totally otherworldly – or INNERworldly, depending on your perspective. “Calling,” “Wind,” “Temple,” and “Fragrance” are track titles certainly befitting a terrestrial attitude, but why start there if you can’t shoot off into the stratosphere and beyond? Sean does, cutting through Air, cutting through Ether, frictionless in his composition, effortless in his execution, operating as if he were in the vacuum of space and quasars were his only source of metronomic precision and sonic inspiration. But it all comes back to the Self – “Air & Ether” just FEELS good, doesn’t it? It’s like your blood pumping through veins unimpeded by psychic junk – and maybe even better because you can hear it.

That’s “Air & Ether” in a nutshell. Love ya, Sean – don’t not never change.

But, uh, feel free to change when it suits you. We can handle it.

Guys – I don’t know how many of these tapes were made. It’s a “Limited Edition,” but your guess is as good as mine as to the run. Still available though, still worth dropping hard cash on.

Former Selves – The Heart Wants
8.14.17 by Ryan Masteller

The heart wants what it wants, and I am not a man to argue with the whims of the heart. I am simple in that regard, a one-dimensional heart-bearer who looks to the blood-pumping organ in my chest for guidance on only the most rudimentary matters. My feelings drift across the surface of my personality, easily perceivable by those who happen to observe me in my natural habitat. And I, like other human beings before me and those who will surely follow (not to mention my contemporaries), regard the whims of the heart, directing a level of attention to them, depending on their importance, and responding in just measure. The heart wants what it wants, and I will provide.

The heart wants a sandwich.

Former Selves out of Oakland knows what the heart wants. Over two stretched-out, glistening sides of ambient synthesizer melancholia, FS explores the deepest desires of humanity, far beyond the base grotesqueries of instant gratification. And really, it’s time, isn’t it – time to dig waaaay beyond the gross, glittering product sold to appease the masses and distract from the real issues everybody has. And Former Selves knows it – that’s why “The Heart Wants” and “What the Heart Wants” exist, two tracks that begin deep within the artist, wrestling themselves through tone and mood, and emerging for us to connect with, even if it’s just for the brief time they’re audible before they disappear again back into the soul. And hey, compared to the eternity of static and nonsense otherwise picked up by human ears, you may want to consider that The Heart Wants is forty minutes of complete and utter respite, a perfect escape to the internal. Is it surprising, then, that this tape was mastered by Sean “Inner Islands” Conrad? It is not. Not even remotely.

Wait! I was wrong – the heart wants to be loved. The stomach wants a sandwich. I get those two confused constantly.

Geology Records is proud to present this lovely artifact, edition of 100, in a Norelco enclosed in a heavy cardstock slipcase so cool, so professional, and so delightful that you’ll just have to say “Damn!” and buy the thing already. Unusually top-notch curation.

New Batch – f:rmat
8.1.17 by Ryan Masteller

As the Big Bang initiated the capital-U Universe as we know it (followed by SIX LITERAL DAYS of intelligent design, or so I’m told), so too do hundreds of tinier, less violent Big Bangs beget cassette tape labels. It seems like every week an apple-cheeked upstart with home-dubbing tech (or pockets full of doubloons to pay for pro duplication) emerges from the woodwork or between the cracks in the masonry, or simply converges from the leftover starstuff that happens to coalesce at a singular point. This time we get one from Glasgow, that mysterious city in Scotland, where your cheeks really get apple-y in the winter time, especially when the wind blows. (I should know, I’ve experienced the frigid January gales in that wonderful country.) This new label, the niftily spelled f:rmat, has brought into being, virtually out of nothing, two excellent tapes, both of which should be listened to with ears wide open to the possibilities of mythological truths. Or, on the other hand, you can just listen to them and get on with your life – either way.

Gäel Segalen’s MEMOIR OF MY MANOR is an improvised juggernaut of sound, recorded in Paris, manipulated and mixed over a period of two years and unleashed in my earholes this morning. Thus, a prophecy, somewhere, is fulfilled. Throughout its seven distinct and fully individualized tracks you’ll perceive secrets revealed through circuits – bent and twisted and skewered and vaporized electronics speak their tongues in full and glorious display while seemingly conjured spontaneously. Is Gäel Segalen some sort of mage, some sort of mystic to channel such heartstopping moments at random? The bubbles, the blasts, the arpeggios, the melodies, all of these seem to know just a little bit more than we know, and the codes to their deciphering are just out of our reach. But as Gäel walks the titular manor in her mind, she grounds the cosmic and combines it with the terrestrial, resulting in a thrill ride through halls packed with memories and the ghostly spirits that tend them.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, where ritual movement and stillness take the place of psychic connection, Hammer of Hathor, the duo from Olympia, Washington, tackle as a concept “butoh,” a form of dance originating in post–World War II Japan that, if I’m reading my Wikipedia entry correctly, [adjusts glasses] “is known to resist fixity” and is “difficult to define.” It is performed in slow, deliberate movements and is meant often as an approximation of the absurd, tackling “taboo topics” and featuring “grotesque imagery” and “extreme or absurd environments.” But before I go any further and anger any good editor who realizes that Wikipedia is a terrible primary source, I have to remind you that all this is to simply whet your whistle for what our Hammerin’ musician pals have to offer. Whacking at various instruments, including detuned pianos and guitars, saxophones, and percussive instruments, HOH does their best to represent in sound a visualization of butoh in all of its mad glory, manipulating their odd array of sounds in fidgety slow-mo in a sort of (but intentional) call-and-response technique. The endgame? Madness. Or the beauty in decomposition as exemplified by low fidelity. Or, um, whatever it is that you’re about to say right now.

Both records have been released in an edition of 30 and come on black Chrome Type II cassettes. Grab one of each before they make like galaxies and expand beyond perception. Or do it quicker than that – I guess I just insinuated they’d be around for a few billion more years, and that ain’t true at all…