Rhucle – Royal Blue

1.15.21 by Mike Haley

No one knows what the history is, probably some sort of trade deal or maybe the world threw em a bone, but for whatever reason Australia gets to enter the new year first. The first crack at it! That means they were the first to get the hell out of 2020! Lucky them. That also means that Sydney-based Oxtail Recordings had a head start on 2021 releases! Lucky us.

Oxtail used that inside knowledge of time wisely and fully prepped their 2021 lead off, “Royal Blue” by label bud Rhucle. By my count this is Yuta Kudo’s 4th cassette with them. Having a jump on things must have meant no one needed to rush. So they didn’t. Each limbering moment from “Royal Blue” is the antithesis of haste, sounds flowing with the velocity of a Brita pitcher filling up (If you don’t have experience with a Brita filter just know that they are comically slow). I can’t help to wonder if that Brita analogy was Psyop’d directly into my brain, what with all of the sounds of gently flowing water spilling their way through sizzle and sputter and ambience digesting itself. If, while listening to this, you don’t feel like you’re standing on thin ice, or maybe stained glass, then start the tape over. Turn it up a little bit, and try to get there. If you can’t do it then you quite possibly may not be ready for something so chill. Go do some hot yoga and revisit the situation.

I know I got there. Good on you, Rhucle. You have radicalized another regular human into a brainwashed Soldier of the Ambient.

All nine tracks are very short, especially for washed out sounds like these, but are cohesive as hell and make for a cloudy trip. Leave your body without ever leaving your house, that’s what I always say. C40, edition of 100, from Oxtail.

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