Every time you see one of those stylized “A” blimps over London you know Aphex Twin’s going to do something crazy and new (or at least just “new”). Perhaps now’s the time we ought to be looking for similar blimps over Virginia, but ones emblazoned with “W,” for Way Deep. Or maybe the duo wants to do their own thing, commemorate their events in their own way, like purchasing several “W” billboards along the DC beltway or hanging homemade “W” sheets from all the national monuments. On second thought, that sounds like a lot of work and expenditure. Better just stick with the blimps.
I invoke the hallowed name of Richard James’s better-known persona because Way Deep works along a similar IDM, ahem, “Spectrum” as the AFX maestro, or maybe an act like Auterchre or whatever. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that Way Deep controls the zone with wonky drill-n-bass miniature epics that send you into an absolute trance if they weren’t pulsing with jagged blasts of electricity. The ambient textures lurking underneath the foregrounded rhythmic gymnastics would be positively relaxing in another context. Way Deep should do an ambient mix of “Spectrum” to see how well that would work.
But we’re here, we’re now, and “Spectrum” is urgent and immediate, impossible to relegate to the subconscious. There is indeed a field over which “Spectrum” stretches, a measurable range of BPM antics. But it’s a Möbius Strip: one end of the spectrum loops back around into the other end, twisted 180 degrees, making the entire thing completely unorientable. Yeah, I know there are two sides to this tape (called “faces” here), and track titles are firmly planted on one or the other, but think about it: if you have a tape player that automatically flips from one side to the other and you get focused on doing something else, the chances are greater that you’ll lose yourself. Hence: Möbius Strip. Continuous unorientable “Spectrum.” Science wins again. What do YOU know about science, Aphex Twin?
Edition of 50 clear-lined cassettes, “made with you in mind,” from Become Eternal.
OK, so Never Anything rules, right? We’ve got that? Good.
This batch from November 2019 is as diverse as it gets. Revel in the absolute disparate-yet-kindred spirits and their work curated by the Seattle-based experimental label. Love the aesthetic, love the sound.
ALINA PETROVA AND KIRA WEINSTEIN – SAD KO
It’s almost impossible to breathe while listening to “Sad Ko,” Alina Petrova and Kira Weinstein’s modern classical masterpiece. Melancholy piano meets grieving violin, among other things, rooted in the depths of Soviet winter, cloaked in tragedy, flavored with tears of bitterness. The enormous weight of conscious existence bears down its full mass upon Petrova and Weinstein’s outlook, yet the dour impression makes for vastly compelling emotional turmoil. Line that up against the fact that all the track titles are quirky little text emojis and there’s a fascinating story to follow! I think there’s a throughline anyway – still, the shocked face of track three is appropriate as electronic rhythms and textures are introduced near the end of its nine-minute runtime, as is a wordless vocal reminiscent of the song in that Doctor Who Christmas special with Michael Gambon and the atmosphere fish. “Sad Ko” takes on a slightly different tenor from that point on, allowing for more electronic elements and a vocal insertion here and there. But the cycle never veers from itself, filled as it is with deep longing and tragic wonder. As such, “Sad Ko” clamps its talons around your heart and squeezes, eliciting the most dreadful yet cathartic empathy.
UAXACTUN – UNWITHERED MEMORIES
The Uaxactun project takes its name from “an ancient sacred space of Maya civilization” in Guatemala, which was abandoned hundreds of years ago. Tapping into the idea of the ghosts or “spirits” or whatever that still inhabit these spaces, Uaxactun creates channels of current to prove that these spaces are still enlivened. “Unwithered Memories,” indeed, casts a clear-eyed view of the past and serves as a soundtrack for a séance of sorts, its tense and spooky electronics bringing to bear the full force of shamanic meditation upon the veil separating the world beyond from ours. At least that’s what I think the ancient Uaxactuns were doing, but maybe they were just trying to be quiet as they hunted. Regardless, Uaxactun carefully plots a path with one foot in the corporeal world and the other in the ethereal one, balancing the sounds with the sources and enlightenment with obscurity. Through deliberate and measured sonic textures, Uaxactun tackles ambience with a harshness that points to some side-glancing at noise. But don’t get me wrong, this is all tension, no release.
CLAIRE ROUSAY – FRIENDS
It’s good to have friends. Claire Rousay has a few, which shouldn’t be surprising. It’s hard to find a Rousay tape that hasn’t sold out fairly quickly, and this one’s no exception. Also without exception is Rousay’s utter fascination with percussion – as an experimental drummer/percussionist, Rousay has found no shortage of exploratory avenues to investigate. Here, Rousay crafts poly- and anti-rhythmic odes to a few of those aforementioned friends, such as Theo, Erik, Meaghan, and Alex on side A, and Marcus (“More Eaze” Maurice?!?), Michaela, Samantha, and Jen on side B. I’m sort of jealous – no one’s ever made a song called “Ryan” after me, but maybe that’s because I’m a cumudgeony old hermit. The tracks stretch, between fifteen and seventeen minutes a side, and each shifts and adjusts throughout from deliberate and possibly randomized hits to rapid-fire, attention-grabbing passages. In all, it’s fascinating to hear Rousay at work, and “Friends” does nothing to suggest that it shouldn’t be sold out like all the rest.
BRET SCHNEIDER – WATCHFIRE
I was sitting here for like ten minutes doing other things when I realized I felt like I was trapped in the inside of an enormous ice crystal, like a glacier had formed around me while I wasn’t paying attention and sunlight was trying to get through to me in prism form. That’s what Bret Schneider’s “Watchfire” did to me, pinging and jangling around inside all that frigid H2O, bouncing off atoms as it tried to free me from my icy encasement. Schneider’s been around – and I’ve written about his excellent releases – and “Watchfire” simply adds to an already impressive body of work. The idea of a watchfire is to assist someone who is on guard duty or to use as a signal, like Gondor did in “Lord of the Rings” to get Rohan’s attention. (Frickin’ Denethor.) The idea of “Watchfire,” the tape version, is to get my attention in my frozen prison and weaken its integrity with motion and energy, maybe fire, maybe melting enough that I can get my arms free and start working it with my fists. “Watchfire” is pure motion, pure energy, so it’s probably going to help me. Schneider’s like a human generator with all that synth action, pinging and oscillating until the atoms crack and the molecular structure breaks down. I’m trying to catch my breath here, folks, but it’s really hard to do with all these “great tapes.”
I didn’t know what Schlager music was exactly until “Ballermann Partykeller” came across my desk and I was forced to write about it. I still don’t know what “Ballermann” means other than that it’s a subgenre of Schlager music … I think? I’m not exactly teeming in worldly references here. I may have to leave this up to the Germans themselves. (And I throw my hands up in defeat as a person with mostly German background.)
Of all the things I just said, “being forced to write about” “Ballermann Partykeller” was by far the most egregious lie, as I do this for fun, guys, c’mon. Also, anytime a Strategic Tape Reserve release hits my mailbox, I know I’m in for an amazing treat. The Cologne-based label’s concepts are second to none, and whether or not they’re actually serious (impossible to tell – you can’t get past that stoic Teutonic façade!), they make me giggle just a little bit inside. The deadly dry presentation of both product and commentary is a hallmark of the label, whose wry witticisms pepper their online presence with a sturdy thoughtfulness that belies its depth.
„DJ VLK,” fully quotation-mark’d to ensure separation from plain-old VLK, appears here in Balearic party mode, ready to rock whatever cellar everybody’s gathering at. Here the tunes are strung together, warped, destroyed, mixed, layered and stretched until they barely resemble their original Schalgeristic forms. „DJ VLK” is a plunderer of phonics, a student of styles, and a master arranger of disparate hits till they bend and conform to whatever it is that constitutes the „DJ VLK” way. And yet the party is mild one – there’s no four-on-the-floor club bangers or strobed rave-ups, just chilled head-noddage interspersed with sound-collage snippets. It really is like Strategic Tape Reserve is suggesting you have your own party for yourself in your own basement, maybe even without anybody else around.
That’s OK. These two long mixes have something to do with “beer kings” and “Ham Street,” two (probably) very German references. These are things close at hand, beer and ham, and these are things that can enhance a party, especially one of your own making and for you alone. And Mallorca is actually pretty far away at the moment, so we’re at the mercy of what our minds return to us after ingesting the stimulus. Still, the incredibly European acid-lite ethereal dance jams that „DJ VLK” runs through the PA closes that distance, brings us into contact with a cultural phenomenon that we’re probably not going to get any closer to than we are right now, on our couch. At least that’s how I feel, old, tired, and in pajamas, not looking for anything other than some sort of cerebral musical experience.
Oh, look at that MS Paint cover! (That’s not „DJ VLK,” by the way.)
Edition of 30 from Strategic Tape Reserve. Brilliant release, as always.
I’m going to show you this picture of Tupungatito, a volcano situated in the Chilean Andes on the border of Argentina, about halfway down the country near Santiago. It’s breathtaking, isn’t it? Magnificent. Majestic and massive, at once tranquil and imposing, even from this distance. Imagine getting right up on that thing, via helicopter or, god forbid, on foot. (Do people hike around the Andes like they hike around the Appalachian Trail? I’d do it, but somebody needs to confirm that for me first.) It then becomes mostly imposing, a disruption of the earth’s crust that dwarfs any sort of human experience. Also, the fact that you’d be standing on (or flying over) terrain that could blow your bottom sky high if it so chose adds to the daunting aspect of it (but makes it no less grand).
Then in comes ambient artist Qoa, whose “Tupungatito” is a definite love letter to this natural phenomenon. Qoa’s synthesizer births “a handcrafted ecosystem inside a vulcano or a forest of millions lighting micro Vulcanos,” which I take to mean that Qoa is either drawing inspiration from Tupungatito’s interior or the frigid heights of Tupungatito’s peak glistening in the sunlight. Qoa certainly treats the volcano with a sense of complete awe, the twinkling and bubbling synths expressing the artist’s wonder at such an impressive sight. Yet it does so from a distance, a remove that suggests MAYBE there’s a limit on how close we want to get to this thing. Still, look at that picture again. Utterly gorgeous. Qoa captures that.
Oh, forgot about that “inside a vulcano” part. I’ll leave that up to Qoa – that can be Qoa’s thing.
Limited to 50 copies from Fluere Tapes! Sparkly cassette shell … you know you love sparkles. And volcanos. And twinkly synths.
Milking the Dubuque teat (among teats from other places), Bob Bucko Jr.’s Personal Archives label is the gold standard of experimental lunacy, the go-to Bandcamp site to peruse outsider wares or stream outsider tracks. Now that 2019 has come and gone, we turn to their turn-of-the-decade tape batch, released at the ass end of what turned out to be a pretty crummy year. (And yes, I do realize that I just wrote “teat” and “ass” in the intro to this thing. I’ve been wandering in the country among the cattle a bit too long now.) Let’s start 2020 with something less crummy! Like a new Personal Archives batch perhaps? Wait, I think I just said that.
There’s something inherently unsettling about the idea of hoarding. The obsession with obtaining more and more things and not getting rid of any of it when you run out of room, just letting it pile up around your house or apartment, is as creepy as it gets. You walk into a hoarder’s residence and are greeted by mounds of stuff, junk, sculch, reaching the ceiling, pouring out of cabinets and closets, or testing the limits of tables and shelves. I don’t suppose hoarders have guests over all too often. There’s gotta be a self-loathing element to it, yeah? And that’s where Average Life Expectancy comes in, the mutant metal/crust band boiling over with self-loathing and disgust. As bands of this type are never ones to hide their feelings on any particular subject, Average Life Expectancy alternates between seething sludge and seething bouts of thrash – but always seething. Mixed somewhat murkily (to nice effect), “Hoarder” still retains its pummeling vision, a vast hatred aimed outward in loud blasts of anger. By the time “The Hoarder” rounds out side B, you’re wondering what kind of people could have pissed off Average Life Expectancy so much. Before you answer yourself with, “Probably everyone,” take a look at that title and remind yourself about the hoarders. It’s always hoarders.
Nate Wagner’s letting his loops disintegrate again. Over two sides, one recorded in New York and the other in Vienna (hence the name), Wagner immerses us in a tactile environment, letting the sounds of his surroundings build up in his workstation and manipulating them until they trickle out speakers like escaping molecules. It’s impossible to determine origin even though we’re at least given the cities the tracks were recorded in. I for one don’t think New York sounds like the delicate glitching hisses or hissing glitches or whatever of “Brownstone Anticlimactica” – I think it sounds like traffic and construction. Same with Vienna – certainly the Austrian capital doesn’t sound like the delicately pinged and reversed objects of “Hell Bounce” – it probably sounds like traffic and construction. (Sadly, Vienna is one European city I haven’t been able to get to, so I can’t let you know for sure.) What I do know is that Leaaves is a very careful project, whether Wagner’s zinging us with synths or cut-up Terry Crews-es, and “Viennese Period,” like my own “Macaroni and Glue Period” (seriously, check it out at a MOMA near you), follows that ideal that Wagner’s set for himself.
What are these guys, messing with us or something? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love it, I love to be messed with, and I know you do too. But check this out. That cover is peanuts on a snare drum, and one of the Partly Zombish tracks is called “Nuts, a Snare Drum, and a Salad Spinner.” In fact, all of their tracks are just them doing things with objects, resulting in a particularly strange sort of found sound/noise experiment. There’s a little piano on “Justin: Irony Crisis? Joe: That’s How It Goes. That’s How We Roll” (great title), but it’s impossible to tell if it’s live or if it’s being played via some other medium (cassette maybe?). Stuff moves around; stuff gets dropped. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? We must imagine the results. Phoned Nil Trio adds some elements of amplified noise with their (grammatically dubious) contribution “Three Contemporary Lullaby’s in D. Lawrence Minor,” a single track on their side that moves from zany synthetic expulsions to barely audible noise and back, all within the span of thirteen minutes. It is what we have come to expect from the mad scientists, the Milwaukee experimenters. They once again have our attention.
