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Teevee – The Sweats

11.24.21 by Matty McPherson

“WE ARE LOCATED IN RURAL ILLINOIS WITH LIMITED ACCESS TO THE PO. WE SHIP ITEMS ONCE A WEEK” is about all the information you’re gonna find on the Manic Static website page regarding what their mission is or what they release. Bandcamp and other information is thin and I’m not being paid by the word (or at all) so end of sentence. That being said, the label’s decade plus of lo-fi punk and pop majesty speaks for itself. Early Lala Lala, Melkbelly, Control Top, Wednesday, and (of course noted stalwart) The Funs have all passed through and released proof-of-concept tapes that go above and beyond. Details on these releases may be sparse and the art is willfully abstracted that you might mistake it for death metal or death drone. Yet somehow, they have pushed each act towards a seat at second and first tier indies. Whatever is being cultivated, is clearly and inherently of note. By the heads and for the heads.

So, that brings us to today’s half hour of lo-fi punk with pop inclinings, The Sweats. It’s a 2020 album reissued by Manic Static back in March. It was made by a duo credited as Teevee (DH and WM are the only initials provided; although further research brings up Dylan Hyman & Woody Moore). It has enough strum n’ thrummery and K Records throwback to knock your socks off. The formula is genuinely simple: girl-group melodies, warm n’ fuzzy guitar and slight thumping drums (to prove no one is sleeping here), as well as an airing of grievances/listing of dailies. All in an uptempo, syncopated manner that recalls bits of the no-frills production of personal favorites Privacy Issues and Sweeping Promises (who’s 2020 crackerjack effort recently received a tape pressing). It’s here where the emphasis is placed on how minimal elements can really transcend a garage-type showspace into a full-blown vibe. 

And while I’ve never been in a garage at the same time and place as Teevee, it brings me an immense amount of joy at how… familiar yet encompassing these tracks are. “Resolve” is a classic fuzz n’ buzz piece of guitar pop, with syncopated stops that suck all the air out of my ears. “Hologram” has all the sudden-left turns of classic Amps, running through a litany of melodies and tempos that steadily build to a crushing climax. “Pretty People” is all tantalizing guitar swirls recalling the punchdrunk pleasures of house parties AND county fair tilt-a-whirls! “Holidaze” sneaks in a carnivorous bass line to absorb darkness before cutting to black and Side B takes over. Over on that end, Teevee continue pulling out lo-fi nuggets like its tricks out of a bag. “No Good” dances with a phaser effect, while “Taste Blood” mumbles out the pains of existing past ex-friends and fantastical daydreams. And even Resolve returns to close things out, shedding its skin and making the cut as a droney minimal wave!

I know I said earlier I wasn’t being paid by the word (or at all) here, but I kinda need all the words I can to describe this duo because these tracks are totally analog and the Bandcamp page for it is MIA! But man do they know how to bring the heat!

An edition of 100 is up for grabs at Manic Static’s bigcartel page

Tara Jane O’Neil – Dispatches from the Drift

11.23.21 by Matty McPherson

There’s a heavenly sound (Tara Jane O’Neil, improvising on the keys) emanating from the boombox a few rooms over right now; it’s the kind of sound of a still, foggy grey morning. Maybe you’d think it church music or the soundtrack to a cavernous caper on TCM at 7:46. Nevertheless, it’s always the classic thoughtful probings of Tara Jane O’Neil. TJO’s latest, Dispatches from the Drift, follows her 2010s folk odysseys and synth explorations. Yet, Dispatches finds the old folk maverick and bass superstar in a decisively laid back modus operandus. 

Having come to the tape from her Kranky and K records releases, this release is more of a unique outlier than an outright pivot. TJO’s improvisations on the piano lean towards the baroque and while they never betray her intimacy, they do feel smaller, for lack of a better term. “Use them however you like” is TJO’s only request. As such, I turned them into furniture music and went off onto my own blissed out drift. It is a genuine blast letting the music travel from rooms over and let the sounds mutate into ancillary narcotics of their own accord. Not every sound here is clear exactly why its on the tape, yet this act of honesty and openness is a worthy adventure.. With TJO, you are literally hanging out with a musician who has a way of blurring the emotive lines subtly and meticulously–this hour of material is no different, its effects just are more spaced out. Track titles and the overarching differences between pieces were less the focus than just admiring the open-armed melancholy as much as pleasant ambivalence that these pieces saunter through. That’s not to say you shouldn’t read the titles or will even find this tape carrying sounds of dismay. It’s a utilitarian, seamless kind of affair in this droney bliss or drugged down dreams.

200 pro dub Super Ferric(!) tapes in clear, imprinted shells with three color, Risograph-printed photo j-cards packaged in black & white Norelco cases available at the Tara Jane O’Neil bandcamp page

Pixel Grip – Live at the MCA

10.28.21 by Matty McPherson

Oh so you too have been gripped by Pixel Grip’s club-pop tour-de-force (and non-tape release) Arena? Enough that you’re contemplating road tripping across the country to catch them in any club, basement, or dancehall that will hold the trio and their incessant, high-wire BPM shabangs this October? Power to ya! For me though, there’s just gotta be an easier way to sate that lack of a west coast tour — and OF COURSE it’s in the form of a C120 from 2020 that also happens to be a most engrossing framework for how the trio pulls out the stops.

Live at the MCA (2.21.20) is an engrossing testament to the strength of this trio. Right now, not a lot of club acts are even contemplating the two hour tape as a viable means to translate their live mixes into a bonafide message. Yet, Pixel Grip has an intrinsic willingness to revel in the liminality between their tracks. Many of the star moments of this tape are not high octane BPM fests that you scream back the words to while pulling off some sort of risqué feat. More often, tracks saunter and slink about. These instrumentals Tyler Ommen and Jonathon Freund cook up deserve to (fuck)wrench themselves into your head. They build a necessary space for enigmatic master of ceremonies, Rita Lukea and their voice, to loop and echo, lingering from corner to corner of the dancefloor. It’s a technique that makes the tape function as a cohesive live DJ mix; brimming with charisma throughout its peaks and valleys while always perpetually on the brink of a surprise.

And what’s more of a surprise than early renditions of Arena — Ray Noble and Alpha to name a couple — arriving as glistening boilerplates. Their loops are divine, and the fact that they take up a substantial amount of time on the album imbues them with an ethereal, timeless quality. Meanwhile, on the fly “dub” mixes of tracks from 2019’s Heavy Handed amp up the bass and bounce characteristics offering genuine moments of club mania. 

I honestly haven’t more to say about this besides reinforcing that for a two-hour mix, this is airtight euphoria for an act that deserves that opening slot next to Special Interest. 

Lavender Blood – Lake Pier / Total Noon

10.26.21 by Matty McPherson

The wheels at Turlin may not churn out a new finding every moon, although we’ll take once every blue moon with the stylish debut of Lavender Blood with a dual-colored C25. There’s scant information about the artist, but a litany of tidbits about recording–Yamaha VSS-200, Skychord Utopia and Tascam Dr-07 MKII — as well as that the pieces were meant to imagine “life free of the hazards of time and space.” Over its time length, roughly that of a UV acne mask treatment FWIW, it diffuses tension spotlessly and with efficiency. Sounds utilitarian? Indeed!

Lake Pier (Yellow Side) is grandiose without succumbing to mere theatrics. With a gradual, yet gnarly fade-in, the piece’s intensity is able to linger and slowly diffuse throughout the space. Each droning note sounds massive, adding unique refinements to the soundscape that soundtrack a calm within the storm. Indeed, it is worthwhile to play with your volume knobs to here this blare at full throttle as much as refine to background. Total Noon (Blue Side) is an omnipresent haze, cyclically sauntering through its gaseous state, Recorded years after Total Noon, it opens itself up to interpretation as a continued refinement or oblique inversion of said track found on Yellow Side. The emphasis on guitar loops is pretty, without succumbing to the grey disintegrations of similar work found alongside labels like the Flenser.

Edition of 25 available from Turin

Track Premiere: The Exit Bags – Gargoyles

10.11.21 by Matty McPherson

Drongo Tapes LTD is having a riveting 2021 out on the west coast. In between a litany of releases that run the gamut between ambient slowcore to free jazz and righteous post-hardcore, the Seattle bedroom based label is teaming up with the Iowa-based Joyless Youth for the release of The Exit Bag’s Tower of Quiet on October 22nd. It’s an album that honestly might qualify as all the genres I mentioned above, with an extra touch of existential dread running through these crooked tracks. A warped minefield of a tape if we’re calling things even.

Coming after the frigid industrial-gaze of the single Shingles, Gargoyles is the second track Drongo HQ has unleashed from Exit Bags’ Tower of Quiet. We here at Tabs Out are pleased to be premiering it out here for y’all today, complete with a video. Gargoyles is a slow thumper fit for the seasonal collapse. Lumbering drums and fizzles of guitar feedback sound of a recorder at its most ominous. Still, Michael James–the sole member of the Exit Bags–uses double track to create a set of hushed harmonies. It’s sparse and icy, staying low to the ground in a way that evokes the ominous. Yet there’s a clear heart that provides space for yourself to find a solace in and hum through your own demons. If you’ve been a Flenser-head, then Kyle Bates’ mixing and Nicholas Wilbur’s mastering touches will tickle ya. “probably best listened to with headphones, seated, and left alone,” is Michael James’ wish and I highly implore you to follow.

Tower of Quiet is out October 22nd, on tape on Drongo Tapes and on CD on Joyless Youth

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