masteller

Sugar Pills Bone – Lumb

12.10.19 by Ryan Masteller

Much like Jerry Lee Lewis’s (and later Tyler Perry’s) “The Nutty Professor,” the duo of Boney Dog Davis and Sleepy Sugar Thompkins make their own version of plunderphonic flubber they like to call “Lumb.” “Lumb” is a sort of viscous material, but there’s enough old computer parts and diodes and fuses and motherboards mixed in so that if you touched it, you’d probably cut your hand on something metal, and then you’d get an infection, and you may be facing the doctor and his amputating blade before you know it. Old radio and television broadcasts are mixed in there too. In the “Lumb.”

“Warning: Contains an irresponsible amount of nostalgerol. Prolonged exposure may cause gravy-ear and other sautéed ailments. Consult your plumber immediately if Lumb lasts longer than 4 hours.”

Thus we’ve been warned by Sugar Pills Bone themselves, and with that warning we dive in, then we stand up because we realize we’re only knee deep in this sludge, and we’re already feeling the effects of the multiple infections we’re certain to have contracted. “The Bone” brings the sleaze, packing grotesque, mostly brief concoctions with samples and noise, instruments and loops, and all kinds of ephemera guaranteed to curdle your stomach. In fact, the duo has defined exactly what it is they’re doing on the j-card itself, making up genres (and even words!) as they go along: “Academic highbrut Slurpwave in schizophrenic Sty-Fi Buttersound.” Folks, things don’t get more apt descriptions than that. Feel lucky.

“5-year butter warranty available on all pre-damaged merchandise. Offer excludes but is not delimited to practitioners of the following methodologies: hypno-pediatrics, subliminalism, ridiculophagy, and sadofuturistics.”

I see what you’re doing! You’re trying to confuse me with baffling double-talk and whispered small print! But I’ve got news for you – I don’t need a warranty, I’m ready for Sugar Pills Bone. I’m ready to be confused and sickened and infected and amputated, ready for the deathwave of sonic slurp that’s been pouring out of my speakers for the last four hours or so. In fact, I’ve got my head screwed on so straight, I bet I can wade through this minefield of sticky detritus and make it to the other side without even a scratch …

Ow.

Anybody know how to apply a tourniquet? Make that several tourniquets.

Grab one of the 50 copies available from Orb Tapes. 

Adderall Canyonly – Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

12.5.19 by Ryan Masteller

It’s not just because “Flow My Tears” is one of my favorite Philip K. Dick novels, nor is it because Adderall Canyonly makes some of the most intense and excellent kosmische synthesizer music out there. It’s because, somehow, the two concepts became entwined via Bibliotapes, that crazy UK label specializing in releasing library editions of imagined soundtracks to stupendous novels. This artifact is breathtaking. It’s a work of art, marrying two artists and two media that I hold in remarkably high regard. I give “Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said” my highest seal of approval. And the tape’s pretty good too!

Popular megapersonality Jason Taverner lives in somewhat of a police state in the near future where universities have ceased being universities and house students in underground organizations in opposition to the state. Taverner finds himself in a version of the present where he is no longer recognized – he is in fact no one! Now what? How does he make it through the various checkpoints and bureaucratic red tape and function as he normally does? And does this sound like it’s something that could possibly happen in the near future anyway, like FOR REAL for real? I shudder to think!

Adderall makes it go down easy (er, Adderall Canyonly, I mean), and he’s the perfect foil to PKD’s dystopian futurisms. Like Vangelis did for “Blade Runner” or Wendy Carlos did for “Tron,” Adderall Canyonly’s soundtrack to the novel feels like it was meant for the big screen, and maybe one of these days we’ll get Taverner et al. in a Hollywood (or pick-your-streaming-service) version of “Flow My Tears.” AC captures the encroaching sense of dread at finding yourself transported out of your daily life and into the midst of an impossible situation, all while hope frays until there’s barely any left and confusion intensifies until you have no choice but to simply give into it and hope you haven’t hit bottom. It’s a creeping tension that slowly suggests terror or madness. Adderall Canyonly smears the canvas with the perfect sonic accoutrements.

Is this even available from Bibliotapes? No idea! Sold out from the AC man himself, though. Check Discogs?

qualchan. – the end of all seasons.

12.4.19 by Ryan Masteller

Are we living through the woooooziest times of all? I know we’ve had an Ice Age and a Bronze Age, but how about a Wooze Age? I get it – it’s hard to really compare the level of wooziness to times past, where the concept of “wooze” was only for the privileged. Now that we’re all privileged, thanks to the internet and smartphones and blinders toward the rest of the world, a certain sense of languid, eerie calm has descended upon our way of life. It feels sort of … yeah, woozy.

To be clear, I don’t think this is OK, and I doubt qualchan. does either. But that doesn’t mean qualchan. can’t properly comment on it within his preferred idiom … which happens to be quite WOOZY beat-tape extravaganzas. On “the end of all seasons.,” there is indeed a sense of melancholy and contemplation, of reflection (both self- and general) upon personal and social history. Indeed, the opening track is called “everyone has a low.,” which totally points to an overall malaise. And qualchan.’s music itself is of the 3:00 a.m. variety (see “calling the cab at 3am.” if you don’t believe me), all minor-key drift and vapor. Life is a lonely walk in the dark when you can’t sleep for worry!

But at least the tape is awesome – I personally love those short fragments that are all woven together in dream logic, and qualchan. is really good at that. This is easy on the ears, and should you find yourself in a state where it seems like “the end of all seasons.” is wrapping you in a cocoon of gauze, don’t worry about it – just remember that when the tape ends you have some work to do in your neighborhood and community. Also, the secret to this tape should now totally be called “the end of all seasons 2.: the secret of the wooze.” Right? Get it?

Tape is sold out already from Strategic Tape Reserve (why did you wait so long?), but maybe you’ll get lucky on Discogs.

Lena Tsibizova – 3rd Track

12.2.19 by Ryan Masteller

Daydreams, conversations, interaction, imagination. That’s what “3rd Track” has going for it, a fluid and expressive concoction from Moscow, built upon a “collaboration between Lena [Tsibizova] and her friend Sasha, during her visits to Saint Petersburg.” I wish I had the wherewithal to travel to Moscow or Saint Petersburg and spend some time there to get the sense of everyday life and to immerse myself in the culture there, but it would probably look funny, what with our big, moist president and Russia’s president all buddy-buddy, etc. I’d be under pretty intense scrutiny in the press, I’d imagine. (No Collusion!)

All is not lost, however. Tsibizova infuses “3rd Track” with so much detail that you get a real vibrant sense of place regardless of whether or not you’re actually there or have been there or have dreamed about being there or will be there in some capacity in the future. Wherever she is, there you are, whether it’s subterranean microgrooves or drifting ambient or crushing electronic slo-mo mayhem. Why not throw some napalm-burnt trip hop in there? Might as well – everything else is happening all at once. 

Whatever the style that’s thrown at you, “3rd Track” finds its own identity that weaves itself throughout the pieces. It’s at once melancholy and playful, chilled and revved, breathless and at rest. Tsibizova definitely has a flair for the dramatic, and she couches her work in mystery, restraining the secrets of her craft while amping up the tension of every moment. Like a wolf in the wilderness, as fittingly depicted on the cover, Tsibizova thrusts herself into rugged conditions and survives, coming back with a document of gripping artistry.

Edition of 70 “duplicated by Headless Duplicated Tapes in Prague, Czech Republic.” On Baba Vanga!

Günter Schlienz – 3 Tapes

11.12.19 by Ryan Masteller

It’s almost impossible to think that Günter Schlienz still has so much to say. In the copy for one of these tapes, somebody mentions that it’s his “thirtysomethingth” release (or thereabouts), meaning he’s been around and doing it for a while, and doing it (and doing it and doing it) well. I guess you’ll get to “thirtysomethingth” pretty quickly if you release three or four tapes a quarter, among records and other things (mostly records), and also if you have your own label, as Günter Schlienz does with the excellent Cosmic Winnetou. That doesn’t mean you can’t release things on other labels. Günter Schlienz dabbles in that as well. In fact, as we review three of the Stuttgart synth maestro’s opuses from the past few months and consider them in the parlance of our times, we’re treated to no less than one label per tape, and by the rules I’ve just defined, only one is Cosmic Winnetou. That’s three labels giving us Günter Schlienz music! I’m so pumped.

Günter Schlienz – Farbton

I’m gonna dust off my old Google Translate and plug in “Farbton,” and I get “hue.” Fair enough. How about “Tiefes Weiß”? “Deep white.” “Flageolett Gelb”? “Flageolet yellow.” I knew what the colors were in German, but I had no idea that a “flageolet” was a flute-y kind of instrument, but now I do, and my vocabulary is increased. But these things all make sense, the “hue,” the “white,” the “yellow.” The tape itself has a two-tone shell, and I bet you can’t guess the colors on each side, and which track they pertain to. Give up? I’m not falling for it, nor do I have time to entertain silly answers. “Farbton” was recorded using a “DIY synthesizer and cassette tape,” and “Tiefes Weiß” utilizes field recordings and vocal samples and weaving together an utterly haunting excursion through repetitious world-building, each pass through reinforcing and invigorating the last and realizing the remarkable whole. “Flageolett Gelb” unfolds like a lullaby, like someone’s humming the most beautiful tune and it’s just carrying you off into wild unconscious adventures. Except that their mouth is a synthesizer, so it’s even better than you thought at first. Did I mention that each side’s a half hour long? Gosh, there’s so much going on here. Cosmic Winnetou tape available exclusively on the “Galactic Supermarket” tour, which is over now. EVERYTHING ENDS.

Günter Schlienz – The Icelandic Tapes

Not to be outdone by himself, Günter Schlienz took off for Iceland and made this one there (and this is the description that has the “thirtysomethingth” line, so there’s your citation). Still using his DIY synths, he captures the desolate loneliness of the landscape, the simple progressions as filled with space and cold as the island nation. Interspersed with field recordings, the progressions repeat and converse, sinking into your mind and marrying your imagination of what Iceland is (if you haven’t been there – I haven’t) or your recollection of the place to Schlienz’s representations of the living, breathing processes of Icelandic geography and society. Winds sweep across vistas, lava bubbles in volcanic lakes, the northern lights flicker across the night sky. Schlienz captures all of this in sound with a videographer’s eye, and does so over 35 minutes (program repeats on side B). Stay for the quirky ending! “Edition of 60 pro-dubbed cassettes housed in a cardboard box” on Hangover Central Station.

Günter Schlienz – “Island”

Iceland, now “Island,” where are we going next? Not where you’re thinking, sadly, because, yes, you could use a tan. No, this island is the Huxley one, as in Aldous Huxley, and I’ve not read the “psychedelic novel” of the same name. I read “Brave New World” for my high school English class (loved it even then, so much so that I read ahead of our assigned chapters!), and I read “The Doors of Perception” also in high school because of The Doors connection of course. That one baffled me though. Still! “Island” is a miasma of lysergic ambient, with freaky samples and field recordings serving as, ahem, islands of focus throughout the sounds, although those islands of focus are all about LSD and religion and evolution and all manner of strangeness. Günter Schlienz is a willing and patient guide, allowing this trip to unfold and play out as shifts color and shape within your brainpan. Then it becomes tranquil, and pools and lakes and other various bodies of liquids and waters engulf you. This is all just like an LSD trip, just like Aldous Huxley intended. Did Huxley foresee this tape version of “Island”? Probably, on some shamanic spiritual wandering through his own mind. How could he not? Edition of 50 “dubbed in real time on high end decks” available from Feathered Coyote Records.