masteller

New Batch – Mondoj
1.4.18 by Ryan Masteller

A few quick facts about Mondoj:

Mondoj is new.
Mondoj is swell.
Mondoj is based in Poland – Warsaw to be exact.
Mondoj is neat.
Mondoj releases tapes. Two so far.
Tabs Out LOVES tapes.
Fact 6 was not about Mondoj.
Mondoj is cuddly, like a puppy.
Mondoj will probably release more tapes. Let’s hope it’s soon.

Max Eilbacher is a good get for catalog number 001. The erstwhile bass pounder at Horse Lord Inc. hasn’t exactly had a down 2017. In fact, his release on Unifactor, “Music for Piano #7,” ranks up there with my favorites this year. “Dual Monologues in Parallel” ranks up there too, except this time, in order to offset his skill limitations (“limitations,” ha!), he did some hacking (the type of hacking as seen in the film “Hackers“) and created a whole new computer program to help him keep up with his vision. In the process he composed a piece of music, “Unnamed (For Guitar and Tape),” that could literally go on forever, if need be, harmonic and rhythmic patterns stretching out beyond the edge of existence. Only seventeen minutes and twenty-one seconds are included here, though, so you’ll just have to use your imagination for the rest of the infinite work. That and “The Ecstatic Movement of a Broken Arm (excerpt)” anchor the tape, the latter existing as a cut-up and repurposed symphonic suite that lasts twenty minutes and features a voice, a human voice! I don’t know, I’m gripped by the tense vibe. Two shorter pieces are also included, both experimental/electro-trippy, but they ONLY last about six minutes each, so they’re barely even there. (Just kidding, they’re awesome too.)

Patrick Shiroishi’s “Tulean Dispatch” isn’t for the faint of heart, as hinted at by the title of the tape itself, which was “the newspaper that was distributed at Tule Lake Internment camp, where [Shiroishi’s] grandparents were placed during WWII.” Through Mondoj 002 Shiroishi examines how he relates to history and his Japanese ancestry, what these things mean to him, and how they form an integral part of his own being. Opener “Herni” goes a long way toward spanning the spectrum of Shiroishi’s outlook, as a sax drone gradually morphs into virtuosic performance that’s colorful and full of flavor. “The Screams of a Father’s Tears” is raw and abrasive and undeniably heartwrenching. If Shiroishi was truly channeling ghosts, “Screams” is the medium through which he presents them to us. I mean, “Tulean Dispatch” in total is a cathartic spasm of sax blasts intercut with the void (allusion to “Form and Void” fully intended) of breathless silence, necessary after such exertion. You can’t help but be completely carried away by its awesome power.

The limited-edition pro-dubbed cassettes are out RIGHT NOW, and you can get them from Mondoj’s Bandcamp page. Buy ten!

Corsica Annex – Fluid Electric
1.2.18 by Ryan Masteller

Yeah, this is stupid, but we’ve only gotten around to writing about Corsica Annex AFTER the posting of the only year-end extravaganza in town, the gloriously complete and not nearly hyped enough Tabs Out “Top 200 Tapes of 2017.” But hey, when life hands you lemons, you punch life in the face and scream, “I don’t like lemons!” Corsica Annex’s “Fluid Electric” clocks in at number 121, and if I had anything to say about it, it would’ve been a lot higher. But I’m just a hired monkey, so here I go clicky-clacking about the “blurst of times” while you scratch your head trying to figure out what a “Cabo Boing” is. (Don’t scratch too long, you should actually go find out – it’s pretty great stuff.)

Proving every scientist in the world wrong, Corsica Annex combines the two most dangerous things to mix together, electricity and water – even more dangerous than gasoline and an igniting signal flare – and not only survives the encounter but actually produces one of the more compelling musical recordings documenting said unholy interaction. As any sane person knows, we like our tapes around here to be full of burbling synthesizer, and it feels like old Corsica took a bucket of water and dumped it all over his synth rig, resulting in a viscous slime bubbling from the smoldering remains. That slime cools, calms itself, turns blue, continues to burble, becomes sentient, leaves Earth. Just like the prophecies foretold.

This dream I’m having while being engulfed by “Fluid Electric” is impossible to pin down. I’m either a whale passing through tropical ocean shallows or a whale passing through a nebula birthing a million stars. Either way I’m a whale, I think. Nope, can’t pin it down. It’s like I’m passing through my own mind, a weird space-whale tourist on vacation from whatever reality weird space-whales inhabit when their minds aren’t pumped full of hallucinogens. Or is it my reality? Hey, space-whale, are you you or me? What would you do if I gave you some lemons right now?

Ccorsicka Annnneckx tape “Flooid Elktrek” on Ingrownt Ruckerds buy pleeze oh handts turndig to flipperz

DJ Balli and Giacomo Balla – Svelto
12.13.17 by Ryan Masteller

Is this for me? I mean, sure, I’m an absolute master at stacking a dishwasher with Tetris-like precision. Any unmaximized space is certain to cause the vein in my temple to throb uncontrollably as I try to suppress the rage triggered by a misplaced bowl or coffee cup. (My wife, god love her, would just roll her eyes at my internal meltdown.) “Svelto,” by DJ Balli and Giacomo Balla (the collaboration is “telepathic” between Balli and “the famous futurist”), is one of two recent releases by ArteTetra (the label based in Potenza Picena, Italy) in collaboration with Islandsexp that focuses on creating a “pleasing acoustic experience … for … more productive and functional house-working.” “Svelto,” which translates to “brisk” in English, focuses on dishwashing, as does the other initial tape in this run, Shit and Shine’s MUSICA LAVAPIATTI (which I wrote about somewhere else, recycling a conceit in the process).

So is this for me? Being an all-star dishwasher stacker doesn’t mean I’m also an all-star dish scrubber, but maybe that’s the point – maybe “Svelto” exists to draw out the hidden skills I don’t necessarily know I have, in the process reducing the unrelenting stress of poor dishwasher space management weighing on me like I was hauling a lead backpack around the kitchen. Yeah, “Svelto” is nimble, and its speed and energy are absolutely intoxicating and contagious. It makes me feel like I’ve just entered the Trance state in FINAL FANTASY IX or something. I look at the dishwasher in disdain, and, with the pulsing gabber electronics blaring on my stereo, I tackle the mound of dishes in the sink with just a scrub brush and my intuition. In a blur, both hands and water fly, and I become the machine. Only when I finish do I realize that the mound of dirty dishes has now become a mound of broken crockery, but I do not feel defeated. I’m still high from the adrenaline shot through my bloodstream by DJ Balli.

FYI: “Dishwasher cycle #1: Gabber Pyramid” utilizes the tune my dryer makes when it’s done, so I can only assume a Samsung dishwasher does the same thing… It freaked me out for a second when I first heard it, like some MORTAL KOMBAT portal had opened up in my laundry room or whatever.

Grab a tape from ArteTetra or Lowe’s or Home Depot or your local appliance retailer. No, wait, just from ArteTetra.

Yves Malone / Grapefruit – split
12.7.17 by Ryan Masteller

Don’t look now, but Tandem Tapes is at it again, everybody! This time it’s Field Hymns (among others) alumni Yves Malone and Grapefruit lending their dastardly psychedelic synth scores to … what is that, a moon rover? Sure, Yves Malone and Grapefruit are on the moon. Probably isn’t the first time.

Yves’s half is a further platform for that John Carpenter vibe he’s perfected better than Carpenter himself, as if he wandered into some comic/sci-fi convention where Carpenter was addressing a crowd from a podium and he walked up and grabbed the mic and was all like, “I’m your John Carpenter now.” The crowd of course would go wild because Yves doesn’t go anywhere without a keytar strapped on and angular futuristic shades, and he’d totally melt hearts and brains at the first riff blasted through the auditorium’s PA system. Yeah, imagine all that happening on side A, because it totally just did in my head. Or was it a premonition of things to come? I have been known to be psychic from time to time, like those kids in “Village of the Damned.” Who directed the remake of that again?

Grapefruit’s a little more reverent toward their lunar location (yeah, I’m still going with the musicians on the moon thing), as their snarly synth and guitar lines sound eternally stuck in a planetarium. Or, no, not planetarium – actual moon. I’m confusing my own narratives here. Maybe it’s the secondhand space dust I’m ingesting from this tape, or maybe it’s the firsthand space dust I’m ingesting while I’m hanging out on the moon with Grapefruit and Yves Malone, because I don’t know what’s up or down or where I even am. The best guess is that I’m probably under the blanket I’ve propped into a tent on top of my bed and that I’m just hallucinating this whole day. My wife is going to be really weirded out by all this when she gets home.

As you know, Tandem Tapes sell out faster than moon rocks on the black market, and this one’s no different – 7 left of the original 25! That initial run seems like a joke, what with all the disposable income we middle-class Americans have due to our favorable tax environment. (Oh, right…)

The Eargoggle – The Beautiful Creatures Really Are So Cruel
12.1.17 by Ryan Masteller

This tape dropped a Kerry Wood reference within the first minute of its first song, and you guys know I was hooked from there. I mean, c’mon, what other songs do baseball right, Fogerty’s “Centerfield”? No way – “Centerfield” is bad and Fogerty should FEEL bad about ever writing it. Ezra Gale’s “TSFW,” the leadoff track to “The Beautiful Creatures Really Are So Cruel,” is good, but it gets knocked a couple of points for not referencing Philly greats like Cole Hamels or Cliff Lee or Doc himself, Roy Halladay (RIP). I guess he needed to rhyme something with “good,” and the rest is Chicago Cubs history. (Plus, just TRY rhyming anything with “Bedrosian” – it’s like the “orange” of last names.)

You’re not here to read me going off on perceived MLB slights, but you ARE here to read about another good old-fashioned American institution, cassette tapes. Specifically today The Eargoggle’s sprawling new monolithic nineteen-song suite just released on November 17, exactly within a week of my birthday, so I’ll consider this an early present from Mr. Gale. Where do you start with Ezra? He’s got fingers in so many pies, and all of them seep into the Eargoggle sound: he’s the proprietor of the wildly eclectic Very Special Recordings, founding member of “legendary afrobeat band Aphrodesia,” and member of other drastically different musical projects, like ska-fuckers Super Hi-Fi and Zep-lovers Benninghove’s Hangmen. There is no pinning him down. I mean, just take a look at the guy – he’s got his hands full of so many instruments that he doesn’t even know where to begin half the time! (And they took this picture BEFORE he climbed a grand piano stacked with Neil Peart’s drumkit, then stood atop it with his arms raised like he just scaled Everest. Oh, and he’d added a tuba to the array of instruments you see here, just to make it “a little more challenging.”)

Yeah, I did say nineteen songs, so stuffed was Ezra’s mind with melodies and ideas that he couldn’t stop, even when he tried, even when others tried to stop him, tried to wrench open his spasming fingers from the neck of his guitar at 3:00 am in the “studio” (meaning his 4-track at home). But it was no use, and we’re so much the better for it. “The Beautiful Creatures” is filled with endless grooves that burrow in your mind like parasites, but instead of having to annoyingly treat parasites you just have to listen to another song to move on and continue the cycle. And speaking of parasites, I can’t help but wonder how many parasites the bird on the (admittedly absolutely wonderful) cover of “The Beautiful Creatures” has crawling all over it. Does this make you feel itchy? It should! Ezra Gale makes super itchy music as the Eargoggle, meaning it’s a butt-wiggling mélange of danceable rock action and experimental pop goodness. That should be enough for you.

This tape is limited to 100, but there is SO MUCH MUSIC on it, $8 seems like a steal. Score it from Very Special Recordings, meaning pretty much Ezra himself.