masteller

Various Artists – Mighty Giant Pinky: Tribute Ugh Yoing / Satanicpornocultshop

5.14.20 by Ryan Masteller

I’m pretty nervous about writing up this tribute album to Ugh Yoing, member of Japan’s Satanicpornocultshop, mainly because of that name. I pretty much can’t do any research on my work computer. And I apologize in advance to my mom about the browser history that now exists on my phone; no matter how specifically I attempt to streamline the research parameters, I can’t type in “satanic,” “porno,” or “cult” without having to scrub my searches like they’re hard surfaces coated in coronaviruses. And, uh, by “mom” I mean my wife. My mom doesn’t care anymore. 

But it’s not about me – it never was, or is, no matter how hard I try to make it that way. Especially now, as one who has not attempted to approach Ugh Yoing and crew’s music before, a n00b out of his league in a sea of rabid fans. No, it’s about Ugh himself, and the experimental music community on which he made such an impact. In fact, he impacted Ergo Phizmiz so much that Phizmiz curated an album’s worth of material from likeminded adventurists, a LONG album’s worth of material, so much, in fact, that it barely fit into one cassette tape. This would never play on the messed-up side of Mike’s tape deck.

Phizmiz harkens back to the “golden days of the internet,” when, “across the high seas of cyberspace, they would wantonly flout copyright law and the limits of genre, making indefinable music with computers that didn’t fit into any comfortable bracket.” And thus “plunderphonics” was born! Or at least improved upon. Regardless, that feels like as comfortable a bracket as any to fit Satanicpornocultshop into, along with IDM and footwork and sick, twisted pop. “Mighty Giant Pinky” hits all of these notes and more, and regardless of whether this was an album in tribute to someone or not, the utter variety and fizzing innovation holds it together anyway. That, and it’s also freaking fascinating.

Playing through “Mighty Giant Pinky” in one sitting is like jamming a fistful of Skittles into your mouth and chawing on that for a half hour, the flavor explosion a veritable rainbow of oral sensation. Er, audio sensation. Because you’re getting treated to wild rides like the kiddie-punk-core of Orrorinz’s title track, QST’s dancefloor squirtmobile “On Her Satanic Majestic Secret Disco Service,” Prawnshocker’s proto-vaporwave collage “Piss Right Off,” and Ergo Phizmiz’s excellent plunder-gabber nightmare “Come Get Me Now.” In between there’s actual experiments, like Peter Wullen’s field-recording (?) “Tribute to Ugh Yoing (Bashung Deconstruction)” and {An Eel}’s sample-trigger workout “Satanicpornocultshop (R.I.P.).” There’s even one specifically for me! Thee Alex drops strange radio-concoction-meets-IDM album closer “Listening to Satanicpornocultshop for the First Time,” and if I feel anything like that while listening to ACTUAL Satanicpornocultshop music, I’m in for the long haul.

This beaut is brought to us by Strategic Tape Reserve, a label you should now know quite well – any tape bearing the “STR” logo on its spine should be on your “must-listen” list. And if you’re looking for me, I’ll be digging into that Satapor discography over on Bandcamp.

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Tristan Magnetique – 2

5.8.20 by Ryan Masteller

Hey, we live in troubled times. Times that only seem to get weirder the deeper we get into them. Times that absolutely defy us when we say, “Welp, can’t get any worse!” Guess what these times have to say to us when we mouth off like that? “They can, dude, and they will!” And they have. 

Ugh, crap, they sure have.

So what’s there to do about it? How do we feel better about anything? How do we get ourselves out of bed in the morning to face a new damn day when we know we’re just going to get force fed a worse piece of information or encounter a more horrific experience than we did the day before? I know for me there’s nothing like a hot cup of coffee and a jog around the block to get me going. But that’s not for everyone. What IS for everyone is this new Tristan Magnetique tape on Cosmic Winnetou, and you know it’s gotta be perfect because “Magnetique” translates from the French to “magnetique,” which sounds like “magnetic,” which is basically the term that connects any cassette-based conversation. You’re obviously in good hands!

Another reason you’re in good hands: ol’ Tristan is actually Günter Schlienz, purveyor of all things Cosmic Winnetou and electronic ambient artist of some renown. This is his first TM release since 2018’s triple-decker self-titled slab on Otomatik Muziek, a cornucopia of unending sonic drift. (Well, it ended at some point, but it was long after I had succumbed fully to its state of mind.) So even though “2” is ONLY a double cassette, it stretches nicely past the hour mark. And I need a bit more than an hour of Tristan Magnetique in my life to get me back on track, get me into a more normal headspace.

So “2” twinkles like stars reflecting of a lake surface, built from synthesizer drones and samples, centering all around that can hear its tranquil tones to a place of sheer comfort. Didn’t I use the verb “need” when referring to a tape like this? It’s such a calming presence, yet packs enough mystery in its shimmering aura to keep the intrepid adventurer happy. It’s also intimate and therapeutic, so you can pop this on while you’re by yourself for a lengthy soothe, or, god forbid, you can use it when you’re not feeling so hot for some curative vibes. Either way, you’ll be better off once it’s over.

Limited to 70 hand-numbered copies from Cosmic Winnetou. Get it!

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Dylan Henner – A Dingo Crossing a Stream

5.1.20 by Ryan Masteller

Let me stop you right there, OK? Right at “I visited Australia for my day-job as a photographer’s assistant.” Already you’ve stoked the pangs of jealousy in the heart of this wanderlust-struck music aficionado, one who’s never been to Australia and who may never get there. There’s a lengthy flight to the other side of the world that I’d have to deal with, and also it’s probably pretty expensive. I know one, maaaybe three people in Australia (and I may be confusing one’s domicile with New Zealand). And who knows if there will even be an airline industry in a few months. (Oh right, the bailout!)

(Fun fact: my parents were applying for jobs in Australia before I was born, so it’s possible I could have grown up in the outback, by crikey.)

So, Dylan, I guess we’ll have to experience Australia vicariously through your Inner Islands tape “A Dingo Crossing a Stream,” the title a warning for anyone with small children to keep them close at all times. But no, let’s remove all of our humanness from “Dingo,” shall we? Let’s just let the Dingo be, let it lap at the water, let it saunter into the bush. That’s what an Inner Islands release would condition us to do: observe, document, reflect. Allow time to pass. Allow nature to take its course. With that in mind, Dylan, we’ll have to thank you for perpetuating the style, stringing together pools of rippling synthesizer that perfectly synchronize with the time lapse of “A Pool Deeply Gouged Out by Water” or “A River Drying Out,” long-form actions that stretch across generations.

And with so many stretches of space in Australia, it’s easy to superimpose these sounds and imaginings on the place itself. By the time we’re ready to “Take a Feather from the Old Pelican,” the sidelong closer, we’ve been indoctrinated into the geography and ready to go on walkabout. Stuck as I am in the United States, my walkabout must of necessity be a spiritual one. But hey, I need all the exercise I can get! Too bad it won’t be on site Down Under. But thanks, Dylan, for recording your impressions of the place for us. Now, the Dreamtime awaits!

Edition of 100 from Inner Islands.

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Stuart Chalmers and Taming Power – Blue Thirty-Two

4.21.20 by Ryan Masteller

If we ever find ourselves cloistered in a monastery atop a mountain where our only activities would revolve around self-betterment through meditation and repetitious and mundane daily tasks, then we have found the perfect aural counterpart here in Stuart Chalmers and Taming Power (aka Astrid Haugland)’s release on Blue Tapes, “Blue Thirty-Two.” Utilizing electric guitar, tape fx, and an Indian instrument called a “swarmandal” (essentially a zither), Chalmers and Haugland play and loop their way into our hearts and minds with magnificent ragas that billow in reverence and approval to our routine. They become part of the meditative existence, a subject of it, and an accompaniment slightly removed, all at once. Some might call that a neat trick; I call it the ability to get on the same level with and commune among the existential searchers.

That’s how we begin, anyway: a lonely guitar is joined presently by the swarmandal, the effect like church bells chiming across the hills and valleys. This type of playing bookends the tape, and we breathe it like the players do. The swarmandal is bowed on the final track, which only serves to heighten its ethereality, although both instruments are effected and looped until they become visible rays of the rising sun over the tops of distant mountains. The part of the tape sandwiched by these two compositions is called “Tape Recorders and FX” on the Bandcamp page (no tracklist – or artist, release, or label info – appears on the tape or artwork itself), and is a series of transmissions warped and bleeped and picked up as radio signals by broken receivers. Consider, then, that the monastery’s a front for a Bond-villain-esque world-domination scheme and the center of “Blue Thirty-Two” is a glimpse under the ground into a secret lair. Could happen, why not? Monks are notoriously tight-lipped.

So whether you’re meditating the traditional way or relaxing while parsing the signal to snow ratio of a hidden FM band, you’ll have willing partners in Stuart Chalmers and Astrid Haugland. They can show you the ropes, too, if you need some pointers.

The artifact itself is gorgeous too – full cassette shell printing housed in a printed O-card. Just look at it up there!

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Tanner Menard – San Francisco: An Audiophony in Four Movements

4.17.20 by Ryan Masteller

Oh, you’re going to like this one. This one is for the nerds, the high-concept lunatics who won’t settle for anything less than full immersion into a subject or practice. Tanner Menard’s cooked up a real winner here with “San Francisco: An Audiophony in Four Movements,” a suite of material for and about (and by?) San Francisco, obviously. Menard solicited their friends Ping Chu and Chris Horgan to capture field recordings and performances in various places around the city’s metropolitan area, and then utilized those recordings, along with a thirty-foot-long piano (with “various experimental tunings by Nick Gish”), to craft the music on this “Audiophony.” A thirty-foot-long piano! That’s like, what, the length of a football* field?

* Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Humans used to play it in the before times.

To suggest that “San Francisco” sounds like a dream of the city would be an understatement – it sounds like a dream of anywhere, with its gently keyed melodies brushing up against and mingling with the ambient sounds of the city itself and its inhabitants. But it’s definitely a love letter to the Pacific coast locale, a wistful paean hovering above the city as if in protection as the sea laps the shore and the faces and bodies mingle in time lapse till everything and everyone is a mass of sentience and blurred motion. The fog rarely lifts, and that’s OK – the fog is part of the San Francisco experience.

Menard effortlessly blends the field recordings with the piano passages, resulting in sheer aural magic that blankets everything in a haze of wonder. If this is how someone perceives San Francisco, then I’m all in for my first trip out there. Of course, I could never live there (too expensive, 49ers, Giants), but I certainly wouldn’t mind a visit. Maybe I could even check out a Tanner Menard installation or two? This is probably hard to recreate live, I’d imagine.

Edition of 100 cassettes housed in a printed O-card on Full Spectrum under the Editions Littlefield series, whose “works … deal with a sense of place.” Obviously!