masteller

Timm Mason – Escape Artist
10.23.18 by Ryan Masteller

In space, no one can hear you scream…

…is like such nonsense, am I right? I mean, you belt a lungful of bloodcurdling panic into your helmet mic and watch everybody back at their posts in the ship jump out of their seats. I guess if the saying intended that sound doesn’t carry in a vacuum, that’s one thing; but if that’s the case, then you couldn’t scream anyway, because if you found yourself in a situation in which you could scream directly into the vacuum of space, you’d also be simultaneously freezing and imploding, rendering any scream DOA. We’re still in some kind of paradoxical territory.

We’re not here to talk about screaming in space, though.

We’re here to talk about listening to Timm Mason drone. Because in space, no matter what the circumstance, you can always hear Timm Mason drone.

That’s the hypothesis anyway, one I’m not willing to test out yet. But Timm Mason, one half of TJ MAX (one of my favorite department stores), creates tones that almost literally sound like what I would imagine I could hear in outer space. He helps us out here with the (stunning, amazing, lovely) transparent Jcard on which an astronaut hovers mid-spacewalk in an eternal ode to celestial travel. Seriously, that image up there doesn’t do it justice. It is a groin-grabbingly transcendent package.

That imagery captures the solitude of floating alone in an infinite universe, as well as the humility one feels at realizing how big said infinite universe is. The sound within is the perfect accompaniment, constant synth drones that envelop you like a warm spacesuit and drift you off to safety. It almost seems as if Mason’s made the two lengthy transmissions that take up each side of the tape from raw starstuff itself, the primordial building block of all universal matter. We humans are also starstuff, as is all living (and nonliving) matter. We hum in galactic frequencies. In space we drone forever.

“Escape Artist” is available in an edition of 60 from Masters Chemical Society.

New Batch – Lighten Up Sounds
10.19.18 by Ryan Masteller

It’s that time of year again, when carved pumpkins start popping up outside of everybody’s house and decorative witches and ghosts and gravestones adorn suburban lawns. We’ve been drinking nothing but pumpkin beer for two weeks (yum!), and pretty much all pastries and caffeine-related drinks around here include pumpkin as featured ingredient. It’ll get old soon, but we’ll revel in it now.

That’s the fun stuff, the safe stuff. Scary, but nice, as it were. There aren’t any killer clowns or satanic cults on anybody’s radar, and nobody’s watching Italian or Japanese horror movies. Not here, not in Anytown, USA, where we have economy-sized bags of candy lining our shelves already, just waiting for eager little trick-or-treaters and, let’s face it, our own selves, because who’s gonna eat all the leftover candy? Us, that’s who.

Lighten Up Sounds has us covered for the moment trick-or-treat ends. The three tapes in this batch are perfect mood pieces for these late autumn days when the sun sets earlier and earlier and the witching hour comes sooner and sooner.

 

LA TREDICESIMA LUNA – Oltre L’ultima Onda Del Mare
But first – a bit of ocean magic. That’s what Italian artist Matteo Brusa has in store for us with his unnaturally gorgeous “Oltre L’ultima Onda Del Mare” [“Beyond the Last Wave of the Sea,” according to Google Translate). It’s an inspiring cycle of drive and focus: the protagonist sets sail in search of something internal, a sense of purpose, maybe, or peace, but with the notion that the passage would lead to destruction. “The wind swelled the sails and our wishes, but deep within ourselves we knew we would never come back.” What happened out there? What transpired upon the waters that pointed toward a watery grave? We may never know. But we do know this: every moment of “Oltre L’ultima Onda Del Mare” is a cinematic delight, richly inhabited by tragic characters and elements. Who says the sea can’t be spooky?

 

WINTERBLOOD – Foresta Incantata
The woods at night are no place for anybody to be. Wicked things lurk out there in the dark, things that will devour or destroy you, or worse. For Italian project Winterblood (aka Stefano Senesi), the idea of an enchanted forest – “Foresta Incantata” – is flipped from the concept I grew up with, the whimsy replaced by horrific danger, the kind of danger that creeps up on you or slowly reveals itself after you’ve embraced a false sense of safety. Winterblood’s ceremonial synthesizer runs are the chilly calm before the dark magick takes hold, the ancient spiritual practices opening gateways to unforeseen menace. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned satanic cults above – “Foresta Incantata” is the misleadingly tranquil soundtrack to pagan ritual.

 

TIMOTHY FIFE – Hoichi the Earless
Poor Hoichi couldn’t even hear his own themes. Earless, you know. He missed out, because Timothy Fife knocked his soundtrack out of the park. His alternate soundtrack, anyway – “Hoichi the Earless” was named after and alternately scores Hoichi’s section of the Japanese horror anthology “Kwaidan.” I’ve never seen “Kwaidan” – I’m more of a “Hocus Pocus” kind of guy – so I am fully divorced from the visuals. But the sounds – oh the sounds. If this is Timothy Fife’s idea of film scoring, let’s give him a few more opportunities to work with, shall we? Mood switches on a dime, at times tense, at times tranquil, at times abrasive, at times ethereal, and Fife is there to guide it to a satisfying conclusion. Armed with a synthesizer that pulls from Carpenter as well as Cluster, Fife constructs this ten-part homage to Hoichi with a brilliant nocturnal flare. This is your new soundtrack for sitting around eating candy while you wait for those trick-or-treaters.

He Arrived By Helicopter – The Shiny Hostel
10.18.18 by Ryan Masteller

Christian Gibbs has arrived. By helicopter? That’s for us to determine.

Christian Gibbs has undoubtedly arrived, and whether he drops down onto the deck of an aircraft carrier by whirlybird and proudly stands in front of a cheering throng while a “Mission Accomplished” banner flaps in the breeze behind him is unimportant. The fact is that his work here is done – it doesn’t matter how we celebrate it. … Or, actually it does, since this is the Tabs Out website, anyway – we are required by the site’s bylaws to celebrate any accomplishment with a cassette release.

Christian Gibbs has released such a cassette, one that celebrates the recording of his many musics over the course of a period of time that undoubtedly required much hard work. It is encouraging then that I can report with a glad heart that the “much hard work” was energy well expended: “The Shiny Hostel” is a triumph – that’s MORE than an accomplishment – of arranging, songwriting, and recording prowess that results in one of the most listenable “band”-based releases I’ve heard in quite some time. No, I will NOT elaborate on how long of a time.

Alternating between instrumental tracks and those with vocals, Gibbs takes the chance of annoying me (and only me) by singing words, because you all should know by now that a bad lyric or a unpalatable singing voice (again, only to me) can ruin the crap out of a record. He does NOT annoy me in any way. Did you see the “Mission Accomplished” banner? You don’t get one of those if you can’t sing. Anyway, the instrumentals are intensely inventive and endlessly entertaining, building, pulling back, swelling, all of them filled to the brim with melodic detail. That spills over into the songs with all the words, where Gibbs shifts from an angelic falsetto to a crooning baritone – this is what late-period Frank Black should’ve sounded like.

Now I can fantasize that Christian Gibbs is late-period Frank Black. Maybe I can get a refund on those “Dog in the Sand” concert tickets, too?

So Christian Gibbs has indeed arrived, BY HELICOPTER, ready to charm us sky high. You can buy one of these cassettes from Very Special Recordings, or you can buy one of the lovely green LPs… Gggrrrkkk! [*is choked by official Tabs Out bouncer for mentioning a format other than cassette*]

Nick Hoffman – Baroque Classics (For Electronic Oscillators)
10.17.18 by Ryan Masteller

If you have kids, you’re probably familiar with Baby Einstein’s “Lullabye Classics,” a compilation by the Baby Einstein Music Box Orchestra designed to get your youngsters to sleep properly (as well as to promote healthy brain growth). I still have a copy of that thing, even though my son’s way too old for it. He’s more into the Astral Spirits catalog right now, just like his old man. He’s also seven.

One thing I am NOT crappin’ you negative about is this new “Baroque Classics (For Electronic Oscillators),” which is also something you can play your kids to promote healthy brain growth. Or your adults. Anybody, really, can enjoy the classical strains of Bach or Scarlatti or Handel as programmed and arranged by Pilgrim Talk label head Nick Hoffman and performed by, wait for it, electronic oscillators. See? Not a ridiculous and annoying harpsicord played by a wig-wearing buffoon in sight!

I’m really kidding about all that, you know, because I’m a worldly man, a man of particular tastes, a dabbler in culture, a bon vivant. So it is that the strains of Hoffman’s oscillators perk up my mental faculties, and I find myself exclaiming to strangers I meet in the library and on college campuses and in fancy hotel lobbies that “Baroque Classics (For Electronic Oscillators)” is just the most DELICIOUS cassette recording. Then I order a brandy wherever I am, and I am stupendously ignored.

Don’t YOU ignore “Baroque Classics (For Electronic Oscillators),” available from Pilgrim Talk in an edition of 80 copies!

Les Cousins Dangereux – Enema of the State
10.15.18 by Ryan Masteller

It was inevitable that I was gonna have to write about this. It just seems … appropriate in some way.

(Poop jokes. Always poop jokes.)

Blink’s “Enema” came out when I was in college, so I thought it was all right then. I mean, I didn’t listen to it very much. I had friends who liked it a lot better. I guess it’s catchy, but man, I do NOT look back fondly at it. It is a relic, an example of music from my past that I find embarrassing. I will never willingly return to it.

Gosh, this writeup isn’t looking to kindly on our hero, Tim Thornton, is it?

Tim originally dropped this album-length cover version of “Enema of the State” as Les Cousins Dangereux back in 2011 through his Suite 309 label. The original format was something called a “CDR,” but he’s now issued it on cassette with an extra track (a cover of Weezer’s “No One Else” that was planned for a follow-up release that never materialized). But let’s set the record straight: Tim’s “Enema” is waaaay more ingestible than Blink’s “Enema,” and that’s even before you realize it’s an aural supplement and not a suppository.

Tim buries the dumbassery of Blink tunes like “Dumpweed” and “Dysentery Gary” (to name but two classics) under alien video-game soundtracks, dashing headlong with bleeps and bloops instead of guitars. (Also, Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus do not appear in any way, shape, or form, and that’s a plus for me.) “Enema+” is like chiptune gone wild, sort of, mainly because it reminds me of that one chiptune artist who released a bunch of new wave covers around the same time (but I forget who it was). With it, though, I can pretend that I’m the hero of some arcade side-scroller who has to destroy the Blink boys at the end of the tape in order to restore order to the universe, freeing the melodies of the album from their constraints of stupidity.

Which Tim has sort of already done.

Anyway, whether you love the original “Enema of the State” or hate its guts to hell, the Les Cousins Dangereux version is simply better. Buy one, won’t you, from Suite-309? Edition of 50.