Mauro / Ryan Loecker – split
10.10.16 by Marcel Foley

mauro

Mauro and Ryan Loecker join forces for this excellent new split tape on Chicago-based label Lillerne. Mixing sprawling synth drones, mellow field recordings, and psychedelic, tape-warped keyboard fuckery with blissful ambient passages, both sides of this delightful get-together are guaranteed to warm your heart and soundtrack your late night stoned out/zoned out haze.

Mauro’s Side A kicks off this split beautifully with some spacey riffs and swirling chamber echoes, encompassing the listener with some heady artifacts of lo-fi sound, repurposed as if they’re being ripped from some old VHS in your mom’s basement but still coherent enough that they sound like a modern take on classic new age. About three minutes into Side A, this opening movement, a bright minimalist loop caught in its own effervescent nostalgia, evolves into an utterly melancholic drone piece that makes you feel like you’re staring at a low quality Photoshop collage of your deepest memories (taken from both your personal life and pop culture). It’s moments like these that truly make this split a brilliant collection of modern ambient music, one that both sonically evolves and effortlessly references the past in two seemingly improvisational pieces.

Loecker’s Side B tends to fall under the category of more “traditional” ambient-drone, featuring some heavenly reverb-drenched synths that slowly morph and dissolve over the course of its 22 minutes. Much like Mauro’s Side A, Loecker’s movement feels like a consistent collage of both mutated elevator music and dusty avant-psych, enveloping its own sepulchral melodies until the layers of echo and looping begin to fade away into darkness.

Cop this masterful split for just $5.50.