masteller

Dere Moans – Brain Mountain Disciples
11.27.18 by Ryan Masteller

There’s a lot of great stuff to plunder out there, from jewels to gold to gold-encrusted jewels, but a lot of people don’t realize that there are more plunder-related activities than embarking upon a swashbuckling adventure to pirate’s booty. That’s right, did you know you can plunder SOUND as well? Well, you can. This so-called “plunderphonics,” a practice coined by some joker named John Oswald in a rum-fueled (probably) essay titled “Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative,” is, and allow me to “plunder” some words here from Wikipedia, “any music made by taking one or more existing audio recordings and altering them in some way to make a new composition.” Sounds highly illegal, and probably dangerous. But when it’s done right, the result can hit you right in the sweet spot and leave you feeling refreshed and fulfilled in ways you may be unfamiliar with.

Minnesota-based swashbuckler Dere Moans’ “Brain Mountain Disciples” just so happens to be one of those works of plunderphonic enjoyment. And since we’re off to such a great start with the description above, let’s allow Orb Tapes, Pennsylvania-HQ’d releaser of “Brain Mountain Disciples,” to continue from here: “[‘Brain Mountain Disciples’ is a] plunderphonics soup of old video game soundtracks, movie trailers, forgotten jazz obscurities, field recordings and jumbled midi drum sounds.” Oh, I thought so! Not only could I figure that out (I, too, thought of soup at some point), but I could also enjoy myself while doing so. See, I’ve watched a fair amount of movies and played a bunch of video games and listened to a heckuva lot of jazz, so hearing this stuff all jumbled together in a coherent and engaging way was a treat I didn’t see coming, and I’m over the moon about its actualization. Dere Moans whips together a crackling slurry of disparate source material into two sidelong slabs of constantly shifting sonic collage, at times smearing the atmosphere with gross digital brushstrokes while at others pinging breakneck impulses through the ionosphere. If that’s not a ringing endorsement of the Dere Moans way, then I should probably start looking for a new writing gig.

Seriously, that was OK, wasn’t it? Pirate gifs aside, of course.

Anyway, grab one of fifty copies from Orb Tapes – or you’ll be sorry!

Catching Up with Ingrown Records
11.17.18 by Ryan Masteller

It’s not often we get to peek inside an operation as creatively vivid as Ingrown Records, the Virginia-based label usually bursting with Meme Vivaldi–esque ephemera, but today’s our lucky day: today we get not one, not two, but THREE transmissions of cassette-related goodness, erupting like a fudge volcano from the bowels of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. That’s right, these chrome treats come delightfully packaged, containing foot upon foot of magnetic tape imprinted with the choicest and most delectable musics, and each one contains a golden ticket that allows you firsthand access to the Ingrown campus! Well, the ticket is imaginary, and it really only gets you access to the choice and delectable musics (the campus is a heavily guarded sanctuary of mystery and wonder), but when we consider how righteous and satisfying the musics actually are, we are content in our superior gratification.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Miller time.

 

MARC AUBELE – Sport
“Sport” LOOKS like it should be DOS-based, like “Oregon Trail” was back when you were in elementary school. (I hope I’m reaching the target demographic with that reference.) All those kooky green-on-black representations of different types of athletic pastimes, rendered like “Workers Present” construction signs, scream “stylized cool” before you even dip your first big toe into the Marc Aubele pool. And once you do, the DOS screen shatters to reveal an intensely vibrant menagerie of activity curated like a museum exhibit. Aubele has a keen ear for movement and texture, and he combines electronic adventurousness with a melodic mastery. He’s truly got a deft touch when bringing out the pathos in something as overwhelmingly crowd-pleasing as sport in general, ramming the glorious highs of successful competition into the ground in favor of extreme failure. Or, even bleaker, juxtaposing the vibrancy of athletics with one’s eventual demise. What, has he been hanging around Mumford & Sons, U2, and Glen Hansard or something? Oh wait, he has.

 

MAGIC FROM SPACE – 🎶 4 HSP ć ASMR vol. 1
A meteor the size of a Chevy Malibu hits the Everlasting Gobstopper machine and breaks it forever. This is no ordinary meteor. It is infused with liquid alien intelligence, which seeps out and begins to cover the wreckage of the machine, including the Chuck E Cheese ball pit–size conglomeration of strewn Gobstoppers. Us people of Earth still live under the Trump administration, so we don’t understand science quite so good, opting to slap “magic” on any phenomenon we can’t comprehend. So, sigh, this intelligence is “Magic from Space,” which I guess is fine, it’s not their fault. It’s also a kickin’ interstellar synth-funk entity, congealing its mechanisms and sugary detritus into swinging jams. Also, there are great Nintendo references in tunes like “man or megaman” and “marblemadness” (god I played a lot of “Marble Madness” when I was a kid). So, to recap, magic sugary Nintendo robot music from space. Got it. Plus, the songs are presented in alphabetical order – like old Pixies live sets! – so we can practice our ABCs.

 

MANVILLE HEIGHTS – The Future Was Yesterday
It’s no secret – Yves Malone is The Man. He’s also the Manville Heights, a sidelong gesture existing in parallel with the output released under his own name. For some reason recalling the Iowa City neighborhood (is that where the Wonka factory is located? OMG! [It’s not – the real-world Wonka factory is in Itasca, Illinois, and the Gene Wilder version was filmed in Munich (I believe the Tim Burton version was filmed inside a computer)]) of the same name, Malone as Manville Heights casts aside any and all connection to real-world ephemera with “The Future Was Yesterday.” Clammy robotic disco pulses and blisters like it was waiting in line at Disney’s Tomorrowland, and Malone tosses baroque pink postcards to the crowd, laminated and thick like hard plastic shell chairs. Listening to “The Future Was Yesterday” feels like you’re peering out from the inside of the head of a Greek ruin as wave upon opal wave washes upon the shore of the waiting room of the doctor’s office on one of Jupiter’s moons. Let’s say it’s Europa.

Dotson – De/termination
11.16.18 by Ryan Masteller

This is not THAT Datsun, the car, the one your elementary school friend’s older sister had in high school, with its rust spots and cantankerous transmission and floor mats covered in fast food wrappers. I dare you to find a rust spot on Dotson, or a whiny gear, because Dotson ain’t got none of that. Dotson is Matthew Dotson, LA producer, slick and sleek and effortless as a Tesla. OK, maybe not a Tesla – there are definitely glitches and bumps in these grooves, and that’s what makes listening to “De/termination” worthwhile, what makes it interesting. If you were just gliding and accelerating and taking naps while you hurtled toward your destination, how would you appreciate the minutiae of life’s details?

Everybody drives in LA, nobody walks, but Dotson’s rhythms skip like compact discs flung across macadam ponds. They jiggle and jut, lurch and bend, all while crisping in the digital fryer. Dotson’s got melody on lockdown as well, as there are more hummable segments of “De/termination” than there are in your six-disc changer, which could definitely be a lot depending on what you’ve got queued up. Straddling the divide between headphone candy and straight dancefloor bangers, “De/termination” splits the difference, letting each concept bleed into the other with little to no resistance. All this comprises a layer cake of delectability you’ll want to smear all over your face, again and again. Preferably within reach of a sink and not in the back of some ridiculous 1980s car.

From Already Dead in an edition of 60!

New Batch – \\NULL|ZONE//
11.14.18 by Ryan Masteller

You turn your back for one second – ONE SECOND – and they’re at it again. Those damn kids, throwing stuff at your house, messing it all up. Like those \\NULL|Z0NE// kids – throwing carefully packaged cassette tapes at our open mailboxes like we’re targets or something. Targets! I mean, it was not one month previous that those whippersnappers tossed an M80 of a tape batch into the ol’ mail slot, and I was helpless to not write about it. You were helpless to not read about it, and you continue to be so as you click on this link and read it again. Well, I for one am not going to take this sitting down.

I’m actually going to take this reclining on my couch, if that’s cool.

Be forewarned – this is actually two batches rather than one, they just came out within close proximity to each other. \\NULL|Z0NE// is almost as prolific a label as I am a writer! (Actually, it’s not close.)

 

ADDERALL CANYONLY – Lucid in a Wasted Way
My favorite Adderall Canyonly tunes are the ones slathered in rich pink synthesizer goo and smeared as far as the eye can see in all directions across the landscape, changing the soil composition and the DNA of all the trees and plants and stuff it happens to coat. Weird then that “Lucid in a Wasted Way” begins with some lonely guitar, a portent of things to come? Yeah, there’s lots of geetar on here, but not to the exclusion of the fabulous synths. “Lucid in a Wasted Way” simmers along in a sort of melancholy futurism, the inevitability of science-fiction damage to our way of life a mere fact of pushing forward from one day to the next. The somewhat paradoxical idea evoked by the title fittingly describes the AC outlook: so sober and focused that everything seems like drunken blur because of its sheer irrationality.

 

LIFE EDUCATION – Psychic Yeoman
My favorite Patrick R. Pärk tunes are the ones that blast you so far into space you don’t know what hit you – all you can see are stars… either from the initial impact or because your trajectory has you on a collision course with the center of a galaxy. Weird then that “Psychic Yeoman” seems so inward looking, a portent of things to come? … What am I doing, parroting the AC review? Enough – this is low-key kraut of the highest caliber, introspective propulsion through the center of your being, pulsing ESP from one entity to the next. Pärk (and the Pärk Family Orchestre) trade outer space for innerspace, and “Psychic Yeoman” is a multicolored mind trip of major tie-dyed prog proportions. You only have to release your grip on conscious expectation to fully embrace the power of the eternal mind. So … just do it already.

 

GERMAN ARMY – Kowloon Walled City
My favorite German Army tracks are the ones that hammer home dank atmospheres with electronic tribal rhythms… No, no, what did I say before? I’m not doing that. Even though that thought’s completely true, I promised not to do that anymore, and I intend to stick to it. Now, where was I? “Kowloon Walled City” follows the German Army template, even finding ways to stretch out further and plumb heretofore unrealized depths of mood. They need it too – Kowloon Walled City was a fucked-up segment of Hong Kong. Just look at it! What the hell, man? People lived there, until demolition began on it in 1993. Not gonna lie, crime was pretty rampant. So yeah, creepy, otherworldly electronics, anime rhythms, eerie ambience, and industrial shudders mark this paean to a weird, unnatural place. Perfect for the German Army oeuvre.

 

SHANE PARISH – Child Asleep in the Rain
I … don’t have any preconceptions about a Shane Parish release, as this is my introduction to his work. Let’s all take a moment then to revel in the novelty of a newly unearthed artist, the adrenalized anticipation of discovery as you pop in that artist’s cassette for the first time. And let’s also rejoice at sheer attention “Child Asleep in the Rain” demands from you, its utter ability to block out any and all distraction as it lays itself on thick and magnificent. Parish, a guitarist from Asheville, North Carolina (and once a member of Aleuchatistas), allows “intuition” and “feeling” to “guide [his] work,” and the idea of letting go and allowing the composition to happen naturally gives the results a free and visceral feel. Parish states, “There is one infinite resource passing through seven billion finite filters of subjectivity,” and Parish-the-filter, from my point of view, channels it brilliantly.

New Batch – Unifactor
11.13.18 by Ryan Masteller

I guess by this point you couldn’t pin down Cleveland label Unifactor if you tried. Long a bastion for outsider oddities – warped electronica (Moltar, Prostitutes), friggin noise (Skin Graft, Sick Llama), celestial kraut (Brett Naucke, Dominic Coppola), ghastly performance art (Headlights, Marcia Custer), whatever it is Mukqs does, and that tape where Liz Roberts and Henry Ross destroyed a car – Unifactor takes a decided turn here on batch 8 toward the “non-weird.” However, in doing so, they end up dodging any sort of easy definition one might try to stick to them. Unifactor is one slippery fish!

Batch 8 is filled to overflowing with guitar music, from the new hard folk of New Hard Folk to the nocturnal explorations of High Aura’d to the shimmering sunbeams of Shells. These kindred spirits, at least in instrumentation, steer their compositions down paths completely distinct from one another. Although the guitar is the common denominator on these releases, it’s treated so differently that the tapes themselves are mini-batches within the larger batch 8. And although that doesn’t really make any sense, I implore you to go along with it.

 

New Hard Folk – s/t
This is something else. New Hard Folk is a duo composed of Rob Frye (CAVE, Bitchin Bajas, Flux Bikes Sueñolas) and Matt Schneider (Moon Bros.), and haha, the only synthesizer piece on here is called “Moon Bikes,” presumably giving Frye and Schneider fits of giggles. OK, it’s not that funny, but it is a little weird because these guys are acoustic guitar maestros with an ear for their American primitive forbears. I don’t think John Fahey ever played a synthesizer. All beside the point, though! The New Hard Folkers conjure superior mesmerisms with their expansive playing, transifying you and opening up the vistas and scenery of our great nation within your mind. This is the romantic notion of early America, full of promise and beauty, all waiting to be tamed. The land, that is, not the indigenous peoples. Let’s all remember the indigenous Americans when we sit down in the near future to our Thanksgiving dinners. We accepted the kindness of Tisquantum and Massasoit and brutally steamrolled the legacy of their people, and all the people to the west. So, yeah – New Hard Folk has a bit of melancholy in their DNA, too, if not for these exact reasons, then at least the spirit of them.

 

High Aura’d – If I’m Walking in the Dark, I’m Whispering
The A-side, “If I’m Walking in the Dark,” opens with a mysterious drone for a few minutes before John Kolodij’s guitar appears in obvious timbre, setting the scene for the two-part exploration. The name of the game here is space, as in the absence of physical in a location, through which you can wander and contemplate and lose yourself in thought. Kolodij, aka High Aura’d, doesn’t meander, though – instead, he builds on his droning instrument and allows it to crest to heady climax, the sound filling the space with crisp chords and patterns, blazing a nocturnal nature trail to a distinct destination. The path peters out in a clearing, and you can lie there on your back and watch, unimpeded by light pollution, the movement of the galaxy. The B-side, “I’m Whispering,” breathes through ten minutes of piano before the guitar returns, wistful, clean, clear, understood. A clarity of purpose, of direction? A certainty of identity of self-actualization? Maybe – I sent a gif of Tobias Fünke wearing cutoffs to my brother just now, but that’s only because he interrupted my train of thought. Does that count?

 

Shells – Another Time
Shelley Salant (Shells! I get it) has performed with bands such as Tyvek, Saturday Looks Good to Me, and Swimsuit, and she also appears here with two explorative guitar tracks split over two cassette sides. Shelley plugs her guitar into some excellent effects pedals here, though, preferring lots of reverb and delay, a little bit of distortion, and lots of skyward smiles in sunshine. That’s right, you feel REAL GOOD listening to “Another Time,” a delicious solo guitar adventure through your favorite Peavey practice amp. What makes “Another Time” so compelling is the personality injected into the playing – Shells strums and bends, twists and tucks through a litany of adventurous progressions, barely pausing to catch her breath. In the end, you feel like you’ve scampered through fields on a cloudless day, breathless, warm, smelling of earth and grass. What a great way to end the day (and this batch!).