I’ve started spending Saturday mornings at the local media bodega. The image may imply storage warehouse, but it’s really more pauper’s drop: boxes of (the latest in) VHS, laserdisc, vinyl, and deadstock cassettes littered across the floor. This whole ordeal is all about how much you know your 80’s major label tapes, as well as whether or not you think dust particles in your lungs are worth it. Having talked to local Tabs Out legend, M. Sage, a while back about these types of dives, he steered me towards the Windham Hill and ECM cassettes, which I’m always on the prowl for. Needless to say the excess of major labor distribution channels sure did provide an unfathomable range of esoteric, cosmopolitan sounds in the 1980s.
So, my ears had been a little more primed for Henry Birdsey’s Half Dragged. It is a recent release from back in January, a studio session of material road-tested during a California tour from a moment yonder. Yet, it sounds as if it could have been culled from anytime out of those damned boxes I search through. In the past, Birdsey’s label, Other Minds, has been not willing to approach the ferric medium. They’re more of a high quality CD n’ Vinyl kinda outfit. Kudos then to their faith placed in Andrew Weathers (of Full Spectrum Records) whose usually mastery and post-production works transfer this release for BOTH portable Walkman and quadraphonic soundworks. Plus, Other Minds adorns the release with a decked out Birdsey biography, essay, and tuning/production notes; ROIR-level shit!
Turning to those liner notes, author Jakob Battick contextualizes the lap steel as a blues and folk instrument, although Birdsey’s meticulous configuration and tooling of the lap steel approaches a blank zone. Strung up with “close dissonances between neighboring strings” and “competing 5th functions to create a rattling, ominous Dominant drag,” Birdsey pieces are imbued with an assured meditative quality. Birdsey performs them with two violin bows and metal (to keep the lap steel returned) and overdubbed once, which creates the effect of harmonious sound disintegrating; that’s really a scientific way of saying “light water pattering down the pipes.” Sinking down with those sounds is easy. Especially when that endless, spidery deteriorative pattern is enticing, as in the closing meditation of “HD-[2]”!
It gave me a strong throwback to both Phicus’ Liquid and a (real fringe) Windham Hill tape dedicated to Tibetan Chants. Both concurring reflection of utilitarian space design, I suppose.
Dax Pierson’s triumphant homecoming transcends the body. Open the tape and you find a picture of the wheelchair, the station from which this album was concocted in Ableton like it was a flowing rhythm. Ratskin Records, the local Oakland, CA collective, released a single run of hi bias chrome Nerve Bump tapes in February. I’m glad to see it is being blessed with a reprinting that should not go unnoticed. Each of his 8 Nerve Bumps are balls-to-the-walls full of ideas that stick. Pierson finds harmony on the dance floor, as much grace in the peaks and crevices of ambience.
There is greater emphasis towards dance tracks that never feels one-track minded. The marking of this as “A Queer Divine Dissatisfaction” means that it is necessary to revel in zones beyond people, places, and typical boundaries. It’s the synth atmospherics that latch on strongest, working them into anything between the whiplash of bungee bounce (“I Slay the Pain”), screams of an angel (“For The Angels”), and vaporous disintegration (“For 2_24”) that can carry you there. All the while, Pierson sprinkles musique concrete mischief (“Snap”) and trap-drum psychedelia (“Keflex”). Yet, with closer “NTHNG FKS U HRDR THN TM” Pierson decides to take things outside, stretching all those atmospheric touch points of this dance smorgasbord into a UFO calling drone piece. Of course, just when you think Pierson might close on a grim note, those trap cymbals hit back, hissing and leading out in a most featherweight manner.
I’ve never shied from the term “athlete” over the years – if that’s how people want to refer to me, then they’re absolutely free to do so. Be my guest, I say. It’s true that I can run far and fast, I’m a pretty good swimmer, and I probably would have been recruited to several college baseball or soccer programs had I not quit the biz to focus on more artistic endeavors … like music, and writing. Which, I have to say, don’t pay nearly as well as soccer or baseball might have. Just think of the wasted possibilities!
But Huddyglo, regardless of physical abilities, did not have the best experiences with sports, and so he set out to redefine the concept for himself in a way that was more meaningful to him. Still, “Sports” the tape is totally on my wavelength as a jammer, as it gets butts wigglin’ and movin’ like there ain’t no tomorrow. It’s got this disco-fied indie thing going for it, like it should be lined up for a Galtta catalog number but ended up on Birmingham, Alabama, tape jawn Earth Libraries. Huddyglo, aka Hudson Glover (oh!) has us all ready, not for Jazzercise, or Peloton, or CrossFit, or whatever floats your boat, but for a psychedelic, mental workout that “challenges gender expectations” and “questions the looming control that capitalism has on our bodies.” So it’s mental aerobics! I’m totally down with that.
And what better way to approach this kind of fitness than via a massive smashup of Arthur Russell and Stereolab? (Thanks press copy!) Huddyglo effortlessly zooms through funk blasts and dance rips, kicking down doors shut in the face of forward progress and universal acceptance. Wait, isn’t that all physical activity? Jamming, kicking down doors? What about laughing with friends, playing with cats, runway modeling? All of these things fit into Huddyglo’s nu sports universe, and those last three were even suggested by Glover himself as things you can do to “do sports.” I have to be honest, I considered having a lark with this one, dancing through the concepts of organized sports and juxtaposing them with the Tabs Out audience (Dave is really the only athlete I can think of in the group), but once I aligned with Huddyglo’s trajectory, I found it impossible to not be swayed by the irresistible charm of this tape. It totally changed my perspective!
EP (green transparent cassette shell!) available from Earth Libraries. Also in T-shirt form!
Credo in Deum – Eschatology comp (No Part Of It)
Sharkula x Mukqs – Take Caution on the Beach (Hausu Mountain)
Angry Blackmen & Khaki Blazer – Arc Mountain comp (Deathbomb Arc/Hausu Mountain)
Tunnel Speeches – s/t (Specious)
Night Foundation – Let There Be Light (Flophouse)
Julie Hill – s/t (Galtta Media)
Linda Smith – Untitled (Almost Halloween Time)
DJ Headboggle – split w/ Bran(…)Pos (Rubber City Noise)
Newagehillbilly – Last Call (Tarnished Tapes)
Marsha Fisher – split w/ Matthew Crowe (Orb Tapes)
Supreme Joy – Joy (self released)
Powl Dune – Pattern from Town Beach (self released)
Moth Bucket – split w/ Women of the Pore (FTAM Productions)
Delaware Dan – Marketing Jingles, Vol. II (KSP Tapes)
I’ve been here for a year now, so pull up a chair and listen closely when I say that there’s an uncanny kinship between Mark Hollis’ self-titled, Panda Bear’s Young Prayer, and Arthur Russell’s World of Echo. Maybe, if you have heard any of these three albums before you noted those ways each split their acoustics between a wake service and a land beyond here. Gospel music… well, really spiritual music to keep things more general… defined by death and presented by way of hermitude. In my eyes, it constitutes a trilogy of sorts.
For all three artists, their epitaphical albums strike at strange moments. Young Prayer was released right as Animal Collective began a 5 album masterstroke including PB’s euphoric Person Pitch, an album literally overflowing with life; he recorded it in the room where his father died. Mark Hollis fulfilled a contractual obligation akin to a seven year itch, the final statement from a recluse that found a way to flatline any of Talk Talk’s grandeur to its sparsest. World of Echo was the only LP length Russell could actually release before dying of HIV/AIDS complications in 1992. Few albums walk that fine of a line, constructing epitaphic qualities with such grace and intimacy. It’s also all a non-tape trilogy, unfortunately.
Last November though, Audika Records shook up their usual practice, in the process . The label’s 17 years of Arthur Russell estate crate digging has never resulted in either a live performance or cassette release. That is until Sketches For World Of Echo: June 25, 1984 Live At Ei arrived subtly like a message in a bottle last November, killing two birds with one stone. If it sounds like a bootleg that’s too good to be true, then you must be out of your mind!
In 1986, it was incredibly difficult to extrapolate just what the hell World of Echo sounds like. The album’s deceptive DIY set-up (one 18th century cello, a drum machine, a few effect pedals, and an inscrutable, fleeting voice) share similarities with Rough Trade labelmate Beat Happening at their most abrasive. Although to be fair, both artists were chasing after their own pop fantasies. Nowadays, this outsider pop feels both like a foreshadow of limitless ideas found across a spectrum of tape labels. Sketches for World of Echo thus, functions as crucial context to this novel plane of music.
Like any good Arthur Russell reissue, it leaves you with a burst of queries to consider, as well as another round of unanswered inquisitions to follow through your own rabbit holes. For, on that June 1984 night, the idea of a World of Echo was coming off of one already aborted album (Corn); this performance carries with it the rollicking feeling of an open invitation, as Russell seeks to explore any and all conceptions of what this set-up could mend itself towards. Thus, the tracklist of this concert tape is legitimately brimming in a most serendipitous manner. On one hand are unreleased compositions that are welcome discoveries, such as the Side A opener “Churning Forest”. Here, Russell carves and cuts away with his glacial cello drone, until the monolithic sound is but a graceful hum. As a thirteen minute opener goes, it has all the sound of fireflies and a night at the swimming hole, a crystalline zone returned to the (previously unreleased) Side B closer, “Sunlit Water”.
On the other hand are sketches of tracks to come. “Let’s Go Swimming,” appears as a 6 minute pop voyage that duets between Russell’s falsetto and the brushing of strings against his cello, as “I Take This Time” turns up on Side B as a two minute murmury ballad; both tracks are the only songs to later appear on World of Echo and even on those renditions they feel elastic and open ended. For on the third hand, Russell performs a series of “Echo-ified” variants of tracks caught in a perpetual flux post-Corn. If you know your Russell, then hearing these cuts are bonafide treats. Case in point: “Make 1, 2” appears out of electroclash form, recalibrated into a spiky noise machine that bounces and twists as Russell’s falsetto (and adorable murmur) could sounds less concerned–after all, “he ain’t got no number”. Meanwhile, “They and Their Friends” appears even more “unintelligible,” its wall of sheer noise acting as an inscrutable deterrent towards others.
Yet, the Russell composition I have seemed to be most enamored with in the past half year has to be “Keeping Up.” The Another Thought variant was the only available version for decades, with its two voice melody and cello patterns enacting trance; for many, it may be the definitive take. Yet, Corn unveiled a chipper electropop squeaker that Russell is recalculating by the time of the Sketches concert. His cello playing is still featherweight, as his amp’s glistening feedback recedes. Focused around tantalizingly fleet chord movements that you could sail with, the emphasis then falls towards his simple, yet potent mantra, where his falsetto soars and glistens. When Russell comes close to the microphone and states, “You like it when they look at you; you like it when they can’t catch you…” a boundary collapses. Vocally, it’s not a departure from his “hushed yet serendipitous” style of delivery he excels at across the concert; yet, that lyric delivered in this manner seems to cut through the last 37 years of time. It felt like it could be meant for me, or anyone really; at the core of this song, amongst this concert is a boundless empathy. It was just decades beyond what he nor anyone who was coughing at the Ei could have realized.
Cassilda and Carcosa’ Tubes, Transformers, Transistors, & Tape was given a digital release about a half a sun-cycle ago, before a tape reissue last March. Coming out of Ingrown Records’ March batch you wouldn’t expect to find an IDM and techno affair. Especially not one that seamlessly blends naturalistic drums and synths like its Ki Oni but for the bustle of Brooklyn. And yet, here we are with a sound jam that keeps razor sharp focus.
The artist left a note that revealed only that the eight pieces concocted were a DAWless affair. They work all day with computers and wanted to “get as far away” (In case you are a bit out of the loop about what DAWless entails, this helpful guide explains what it looks like and its origins). C&C’s zones, especially with names like “fm_acid_func” and “No Masks?!” are exploratory, like you just stumbled into the quarantine concert. Tracks thrillingly unfold and build up new patterns under poppin, fizzy synths. While the first side emphasizes how these elements electroclash against wicked drum composers, side B invokes more synth zones. The 8 minute closer, “Cloud Waves,” practically dives into the sound of the crevices of sunlight from under a childhood bed.
OK, you guys all ready? Decorations are up, we gotta fridge full of beer, and the gifts are stacked neatly on the table in the corner. Great! Now, everybody, HIDE! Find a good place so that Bob doesn’t see you the moment he walks in the door. I want to make sure he can turn on the light first and kind of get that “Wha …?” look on his face before we all jump out and shout “Surprise!” You know the look – yeah, that one, Curt Oren, you do it perfectly! Thanks for bringing your skronky sax – we’ll let you play it.
Sam Gas Can, get down behind the counter, we can see too much of you! This is going to be so fun – Bob Bucko Jr., purveyor of Personal Archives, is celebrating the tenth anniversary of the label, and so a bunch of his favorite friends and collaborators have come together to fete him. But to really make the event special, we’re going to surprise him, then let everybody record something for a special tenth anniversary tape (let’s call it … “Gentle Bells”! Yeah, that’ll do), then we’re going to donate all the proceeds to the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. See? REALLY special.
That’s why Healthy Realism is here, ripping horns and drums. That’s why Mustard-In-Law is standing over there looking like an enormous yellow candle, dripping with his favorite condiment. That’s why Fritz Pape is rocking orchestral synth space music, because you have to have a COUNTERpoint to all the weirdos with saxes. (Sure, we’ll let BBJr. do his own thing by the end of this tape.) But there’s Container, more sax, but with noise rock! And how do you have a party for Personal Archives, for Bob, without Sex Funeral partner Matthew Crowe? You can’t, that’s how. He does an untitled drum track.
Now if Ben Ricketts, Daniel Ryan, and Painted Faces can stop jostling around in the bathroom and keep it down, we can let Kathy’s Special Brownies do their thing … which is pipe in frequencies from the ghost of a radio. A perfect anticipation track! Wait, I just heard a car door slam – is that Bob’s Subaru? OK, places, everyone! Spare Ribs, you can’t just hide behind your electric guitar, he’ll see you there! Try behind the arm of the La-Z-Boy. He’s unlocking the door, it’s almost time! OK, on three, two, one …
Matthew Gallagher spent 2020 (with a loan exception) outside of Machine Listener tape works. They could be spotted with Luke Gallagher channeling energy into Phaeton’s meditative splash of a tape in November, Biome (Oxtail Recordings). So, it struck with great wonder that Headfooter came with a force at the dawn of the new year. It may have slid under your radar? A low-run Unifactor batch meant it got out into hands QUICK. Way back when I first gave it a shout, I had anticipated something akin to 90’s Warp IDM at 90% off Discogs prices… But that is not exactly the case anymore.
On first go, Gallagher goes deep into noise thrash that damn near clears the house: Machine Listener is back. Suddenly, the tape has gone into the high-propulsive drums, catatonic shock synths, and slither bass of the title track. It’s an addictive energy that “Vechdra (ft. Shokni Mask)” and “The Sun (ft. The Debt Collector)” tap into. They’ve become go-to sounds anytime I’m running Half Life 2 speedruns*. Perfect rhythms to the rumblings of City 17 going on lockdown. It could totally cruise on another 20 minutes of this easy. It seems like Machine Listener had been feeding a bit of that Phaeton energy into the system.
Mineral Wells is all komische layers going into headphase territories, opening up into the cosmic highway with textures as crystalized as Gallagher’s previous art for the label. Paced as the opener of the B side, it could be the “head” to side A’s “footer.” It’s a space that invokes the communal, as Gallagher summons back Luke with Martha and Roger Gallagher for “Fuzzy Haggis of the Stars,” a soul-soothing lullaby.
Let’s keep things brief, my water is about to boil, as Lester Grovington doesn’t really do that. The Michigan-area sound finagler recently returned with a new C-30 on Flophouse entitled Holding Lines. Information is scant, but the tape’s wicked hand-paper design and dubbing is enough to hold me from getting prickly over what I know and don’t know.
For example, I don’t know what pedals, whispers, or various other doo-dahs Mr. Grovington has acquired and reformatted into a vast soundscape of reverb stretching out to the horizon line. I just know that as soon as “Yessing” starts its buildup, I’m suddenly moonlighting as a storm chaser, heading straight towards a propulsive tornado knocking over all the drums and chimes. That it invokes the time I’ve spent with my CDs of the Constellation Records roster (circa 2000-2005) I could only yap “hip hip hooray!” Yet, by the time that opening track’s uncanny energy spike has rested, I find myself back down on the water with “Augury Carousel.” It’s a piece that soothes like steam from that sauna (that the security guard won’t let you sneak into). It sounds realized on the spot, yet each echo or boom blast is too-well timed not to be planned. Can I be certain of that? Look, my water just boiled and I gotta flip to side B.
Alright, now I’m halfway through a Jasmine Pearl, and suddenly I’ve started to understand Grovington’s mannerisms! Wait – oh no. “Experienced Rider” opens side B like a space pod coming out of its droning orbit. Moving in its space like a one-thousand-yard stare it prepares for a swift water landing, with each drum beat, tonal drone layer, and subliminal sound effect building its orbit into… an electrifying club-adjacent crescendo banger! Try mixing the back-half of this snack into your DJ mix! Levington closes with “Life’s a Gas,” a salt-water sea dive that scans and transforms the whole tape into a chill-out zone that terraforms your body into its natural gaseous state. In fact, I don’t really know how I’m typing this!
So, from the heights of space to the fathomless depths of the oceans, Grovington has led me down a stupendous adventure. Somewhere between the four tracks and their drone-crashes and dance-crescendos, lies a pretty devious quickform journey that is well worthy of coppin’.
