Chad Beattie’s Yes Selma project is self-described as “the musical vehicle of expression.” Recorded near the start of the year, the multi-instrumentalist creates his own, jubilant one-man orchestras. It’s a joyous ruckus that layers and loops these swap meet sorts of worlds; beautiful treasures hidden amongst the junkers. It’s music that feels as out of time as Dead Can Dance or the folk traditions Power/Rollins and other collaborators nestle into.
An opening field recording is practically a red herring, masking what is a wicked round of hammered dulcimer or glockenspiel driven music. It has that feeling that can summon fall festivities–like Heron’s increasingly radiant instrumentation (and synthesizer usage), or go deep into reminiscents of gothic cathedrals and graveyards, like on Crow. There, the clank of a ritualistic percussive and salon piano eat the world whole. One Red Bird twinkles whilst an alto sax solo from what sounds of an underground cave throws in a rustic quality to the recently designated ambient jazz buzz. But even this song’s spirit is not wallpaper, but horse! Side A closes with Dix Creek Blues, featuring a lovely, fluid performance from the only other musician on this tape, one Creek.
Side A’s amalgamation of ideas does give way to the utter beauty and simplicity of Side B. Snow is Falling is Asheville is simply that, a delicate dance of the hammered dulcimer and twinkling glockenspiel that fulfills a pastoral fantasy. A motorik, droned impulse channels through the piece that puts it in line as a spiritual cousin to Bulbis’ masterful paeans to lockdown. However, Beattie truly comes into their own with Blue Ridge. Here, the hammered dulcimer’s tuning gives it an imagined regionality to its sound as a few key keys of a piano are repeated as if to invoke a stately presence. It rattles with a regenerative spirit, the energy of a blessed fall harvest being celebrated with dance and bountiful feast. Needless to say, I hadn’t anticipated such an otherworldly yet plainspoken affair to find its way into my walkman. But as it goes.
Dulce en Rune is available in the ever-useful cassette format. Layout by David Van designs. Chrome tape is forever. Limited Edition
Earlier this year the Tabs Out East Coast CEO went ahead and premiered a novel invention for noise practitioners. A simple paper sheet, designating set time lengths and genre variation, that should help the scene with schedule organization and variations. At the local noise coffee shop where I frequent, all the trendy noiseniks have been hailing the invention as a boon, the thing that will start an earnest dialogue about what the perfect set length is. We all want this. Admit it, you do too.
I suppose though that there will always be artists that can subvert the need for such paper sheets by sheer talent. The ones who internally understand that when their piece is done, well it is done and no sheet will designate otherwise. John O’Neill is one such fella with a finger on the pulse there. The LA-based artist has remained uncollected for quite a while, that is until Hot Releases finally made a cold call and copitulated to a perfect “no fat or lean” C28 back in January. Cine / Hollywood Tow is 3 whip-smart variations on a theme: “meditative yet solitarily vibing” more or less. Exactly how it is to be achieved comes through the three live performances that make it clear there is no singular manner to the endeavor.
Side A is completely dominated by “Backyard at Zoey & Craig’s 5/27/21”, which finds O’Neill quickly digging into towards stateless, “open-zone” ambient. There’s nary an undercurrent of brooding anger or simmering rage gestating within the just-shy of 15 minutes performance. Ponderous, brisk synth fog, mousy electronic squeals, and small haptics drone into a Pacific Northwest night walk; low to the ground, deep in the soil–chilled and billed. Even a crow that makes a brilliant stage debut; enough that made me turn my back to check if the garage was open. As the piece draws up, a strange sudden quivering pulse comes through, as it to foreshadow the b-side.
Two tracks here on side-b are wisely cut new adventures down in LA. The UCLA-recorded experiment, 69.000.1 startles at first with the change up in palette. O’Neill still finds comfort in abrasive droning textures and sine wave low frequency oscillation. At piercing volumes, it takes me back to anti-gravity rides at the county fair as much as those dreaded “room of mirrors.” Soon though, we’re inside a wild chainsaw demolition derby in Los Angeles with Station to Station (AM Band). Bouts of generator noise, radio hellscape noise, and evil robot blacksmith” field recording noise all intermingle into a playful final boss form. Yet as time moves, a pulsing drum beat moves to the forefront as the noise drone decays. It’s a fusion that provides the industrial strength backbone and excitement. His noise bashes become more smart bomb-oriented. They honk and wail, even sputtering like a Squidward robot trying to fire off lasers or an arcade machine that wants to offer free change. It never bores over its 11 minute run-time; perfect length from what all the noiseniks are saying at the coffee shop.
It was only released 8 days into this year; sadly sold out for a long time but perhaps not a long time?
It’s LATE summer. The time where the cupeth overflows with crisp golden lagers and the sounds of garden splendor. Sounds quaint but it’s also my own personal hell. Have you ever had a day where you just got feck all happening so you commit the cardinal sin of a wake n’ bake instead of doing Real Tasks? Good times! Usually when this happens I at least try to make a day of it. Fancy movie from the silent era of the silver screen? That with any instrumental tape as a personal soundtrack untangles the weed haze into a personalized cinematic experience. A soundtracked bus ride is also equally as compelling an experience and I’m less likely to grow weary.
Anyways, I was just thinking the other day about the Tim Stine Trio’s Fresh Demons–man what a jazz tape! I could use something like that, those tumbly guitars and all the bells and whistles. Well fortunately, in between nabbing headshots for his (unconfirmed) role in the U2 biopic, Ryley Walker’s Husky Pants Records is once again stumping for tapes. Moon Bros’ Le Jazz Mystique is the latest release for the label, bringing recent Colorado immigrant, Fred Schneider and his solo 12 string guitar project back to Chicago. The need for this was unknown.
Unlike previous releases that have utilized pedals as pathways to psychedelia, Schneider goes for no-frills guitar maverick majesty. The move to a staunchly realist aesthetic pushes the tape towards a new mode of psychedelia. One practically capturing the feeling of an Italian post-war nitrate classic. However, even with the opener Jitterbug I, you can sense that there’s a great sense of romanticism and a lackadaisical nature to the space. The ebbs and flows of these pieces have tightly wound rhythms in their structure. It renders brief pivots or sly chord shifts into a mental image like a title card! Meanwhile, the following long winding setpieces function as unmoving, grainy one-takes (track titles themselves suggest the take number more than anything) of the mental action. It’s not a dance in the rubble, but a celebration of gracious planes and ample outdoor vistas.
The simple pleasure of the tape leads to a miraculous one-two closer. The rootin-tootin Honeysuckle Rose III strums with the finesse of oil on canvas, quickly changing from a deep shade of pained, bitter blue into a rustic countryside medley of orange and reds. Don’t Be That Way II meanwhile imagines a soundtrack for a square dance reuniting a familial celebration. It’s airy, evanescent playing keeping an eye-winking energy afoot. Worthy of a glass of the juiciest Syrah and finest silent sunday feature, Le Jaz Mystique tumbles and weaves with a one-track minded exuberance. A dream in heaven for a hound such as myself.
Edition of 100 tapes dubbed in real time to hi bias cassettes. “it sounds perfect. in hand, ships immediately” from Husky Pants Records
At 1:34 on my dream day, I walk into the local world class wine & beer market. I make a mad dash for the 50% off table. It’s flush! Just with all my enemies, unfortunately: hazy ipas 4 months past their shelf life and coalescing into a flight risk; saisons that have less personality than the Michelin man; “grape ales” with brett added to turn any party into a “pour one out and cry session;” a cassette from Tripticks Tapes entitled Grips. Wait, how’d that tape get there? Why the feck is Amanda Irarrázabal’s and Nat Baldwin’s double bass improvisation, recorded in August of 2021 and released as a C27, doing on the beer table? This tape just HAS to be straight edge, it just doesn’t have that energy in it!
Naturally, I take it to the register with my “class A enemy” beers. I use my rewards membership, because I like earning points just in case I wanna splurge for an $8 triple IPA that will fail me (they never cease to!). The man sees me purchasing these all. “Buddy,” he graciously tells me with the power of 1000 bodybuliders, “this tape changed my life. It taught me how to drink these beers.” I’m incredulous. I don’t understand how this gentleman and scholar could learn to drink and contemplate the most brazen of beer from the most elliptical and sardonic of double-double bass recordings. I stare into his lone monocle-drenched eye. “Tell me gentleman scholar, how so?”
The gentleman scholar at the counter proceeds to express, in the most beautiful of diction and concise of syntax, his knowledge. Knowledge of how Baldwin and Irarrázabal, whomst had never met in the flesh before meeting on that cramped stage, would spend 27 minutes with unkempt, yet unwavering grins (under their masks) on their faces and a casual wardrobe. Knowledge of how their exploits, over the composition hereby known as Grips, was as spiffy and fleet as a pilsner, but with the droning, recondite pleasures of brett yeast. “You see, when Baldwin and Irarrázabal joust, the clash is akin to synesthesia; it’s a novel flavor you sorta taste and have to hoard for yourself. Their joust is unnerved in its quips and stretches, even as it steadies and stills itself, it can’t help but jolt or twitch. All the while, they still find ways to bring in percussive elements of the bass akin to a coinstar pump n’ dump or boozy triple; drone worthy of the low level listening experience tang of a sour; why even the acoustics are that of a rustic palette akin to the farmhouse ale!” It all sounded too good to be true as I was tapping my credit card and dropping an extra dollar for lotto.
“Gentleman Scholar, this sounds too good to be true!” I bemoaned. “Like, these two Irarrázabal and Baldwin chaps and all these darn noises they’r-” “Highly technical sounds!” the Gentleman Scholar corrected me. “Right, these highly technical sounds, how can they be in service to improving the flavor of a Brett ale?” I gandered. Perhaps I seemed to near-sighted as the clerk responded. “It’s in the vividness. The way these instruments, believed to be so blunt and ‘black and white’ in their approach, can achieve a thriller level funk and uncanny esoteric dividends for the bass! It’s about the process and the excitement of a new amalgamation; when it brightens up the synapses of your mind that’s just the cherry on top” I pondered the fluorescent yellow cassette, peering into its soul, imagining the sounds I’d soon come to hear.
The clerk was no scoundrel. As the dream day turned into a dream night with the beers, Baldwin and Irarrázabal sashayed and moseyed through a variety of acrobatic sleights. With only 27 minutes, their plucky style of jazz stays precocious. Their movements are steady leaps of faith, an implicit trust carrying the weightlessness of the effort along. It made me a better listener as much as a beer aesthetic ponderer. I suppose that happens sometimes to the best of us.
Today, Geographic North is celebrating an important catalog number milestone by welcoming Dania Shihab into the exclusive club of discrete zone weavers. Yes, the masses will proclaim that GN is being “pro-mogul” with yet another label runner (M. Sage, Brian Foote, Felicia Atkinson, even Jefre-Cantu Ledesma) joining for an esteemed cut. Rather though, I implore that we should cherish each release and newcomer as another crevice into their evolving tapestry; the sense of place and memory in GN releases has become a recurring label focus. Their latest, Dania’s Voz is an ode to that spirit. Over its 23 minutes Shihab unspools a nimble execution of ambient loops, vocal exploration, and “process trusting” modular synthesis, whose brevity marks inspired moments of radiance and hermitage.
Dania, aka the titular wife of Shawn Reynaldo’s superb MY WIFE HAS BETTER TASTE THAN I DO sub-section of the essential First Floor newsletter, has been a Dublab DJ, COVID frontline doctor, and also a label mogul. Her work in Barcelona with Paralaxe Editions could be described as minimalist, unhurried, and homespun. The choice to work with Geographic North is a moment of “game recognizing game” considering how Paralaxe Editions employs their own high-end aesthetic design and analog machine imprinting into their tapes. The label’s own releases though only offer a partial framework into Dania’s own interests in environmental music. Previous editions of her Dublab program had further honed in on these realms, while her (tumultuous) work perhaps envisioned such tones as treatments for various ailments.
Last year’s tapes in GN’s Sketches for Winter series had their own aquatic-tinged auras, while Dania’s Voz often tiptoes the “quite ancient but also rather futuristic” dichotomy with finesse. Its 23 minutes have the world building of a humongous RPG, as winged instrumentals convey snowpack melting in forests, desert sunrises on sand dunes, and incandescent realms of worship. Yes, there’s a dream pop tag in the bandcamp descriptor, although “ambient music but for gamers who do this shit alone” is more apt. It is a tape that presents Dania’s measured talent as a solo sound architect; these are personal spaces that reveal their own personal solitudes. These are lonely or pained kinds mind you. Just solaces encountered in one’s travels.
I Lied’s introduction to the tape is basal; an affair centered around misted vocal loops that harmonize and further each other as the piece swells to a plateau. The echoes all serving as a reminder that this is of her own accord. When Alpeh picks up though, there are now drones taking a key focus in the palette, beginning a steady stretch to reverent lengths. Dania’s sound palette brings in flutes and keys as her vaporous vocal mantras flow, itself creating a piece of music falling between post-Windham Hill and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Fire Dash’s hypnotic deep breathing loops invoked Cemetery of Splendor’s otherworldly, eerie colored circulatory systems. As a trio of tracks stand, it actively is pushing one of our their own assumptions of general time, even as they only barely crack 10 minutes and all differ in the approach taken.
At the center of the tape stands Whale Song, a close ancillary to an ambient pop epic. Dania hums small harmonic whirlwinds, her synths percolate between tones, and inklings of field recording ambience procure a grandiose scale, even within its own isolation. The swirls of An Individual stand as just that, one individual modulating their voice into the symphony that plays within a forerunner elevator, eliciting a sublime reaction. The Other Thing Is offers the greatest, if not still a subtle, shift in Dania’s sound world. Piano keys are emphasized as life recordings of plaza life strut around the edges; a relaxed, if not dissociated moment amongst a crowd that suddenly–well it just suddenly dissipates as these moment are known to. Finally, that leaves us at our denouement, Anomaly. It’s a considerate bookend to I Lied, doubling down on the same voice looping and ambient synth textures. Although, its noticeable springier and less misty; not as lonesome as it stood twenty minutes prior.
Within Voz‘s 23 minutes, there’s a genuine sense that Dania could have tinkered with the length of any of these pieces however she sought to. Still, by preserving a brevity within these recordings, the whole affect over 23 minutes is spellbinding; you could have told me it was double and I’d have believed you. It’s a testament to the simplicity of this guarded sonic approach, that these 7 tracks all fit like perfect puzzle pieces, imparting uncanny affects of emotional resonance.
Edition of 200 Tapes available at the Geographic North Bandcamp Page
