masteller

Cloud Dweller – Winter
5.1.18 by Ryan Masteller

You really wanna rankle me? Here’s how: specialize in crafting mood pieces in relation to events surrounding the locale of Allentown, Pennsylvania, a place where I have spent entirely too much g**-dam*ed time in my life. That’s me eyeballing you, Glenn Nelson, aka Cloud Dweller. Better yet, you could house your tape label’s headquarters there, probably in some hovel at the a$$ end of Linden Street or something. I am glaring straight in your m-effing direction, Endangered Species Tapes. Am I close? Thinking about Allentown from the safe distance of like 800 miles away is still like trying to scratch off every square inch of my skin because it’s itchy.

…

OK, sorry for being so negative. I mean, I’m OG, born in Allentown Hospital and everything, so it stands to reason that getting out of there was the best thing I ever did. Maybe I shouldn’t hold it against everybody that still calls the place home. And to be fair, there are times it can even be beautiful – heck, you can be from anywhere, or currently inhabiting anywhere, and the prospect of encroaching winter whiteout conditions is both exhilarating and awe-inspiring. That’s what Cloud Dweller captures here with “Winter,” based on his seasonal experience in Allentown … well, on side B, anyway. Side A was recorded in like Vermont or something, but we all know winter is winter and a snowstorm is a snowstorm, so quit trampling my narrative!

…

There I go again. Sorry, sorry! I don’t want to lose the thread that Cloud Dweller has a frigid grip on his synthesizer rig, icy tones penetrating the short days and long nights. Seriously, you can curl up under a warm blanket by a crackling fireplace while the wind howls outside and this “Winter” tape will still chill your bones. But that’s one of the best parts about winter, one of the ones I actually miss now that I’m the heck out of there: the cold makes the getting warmer all the sweeter. So turn off the lights, light some candles, and get under the covers while Cloud Dweller drones his “Winter” all around like snowflakes swirling in a gale. It makes thinking about Allentown actually … pleasant?

Random PS: How’s Double Decker’s tape game these days?

Winter’s in a teeny-tiny edition of 25 from Endangered Species, so hurry it up!

Final Cop – Broken Window
4.30.18 by Ryan Masteller

You gotta smash some windows to make an omelet, isn’t that right gang? The opposite is true too – if you don’t want that runny yellow shit getting all over your hands, you lock it up real good, real tight. Don’t let it out, don’t let the cracks show. Perfect order, perfect unity. We are all good little boys and girls, and we will NOT BREAK EGGS. I mean windows. We will NOT BREAK WINDOWS, or jump turnstiles, or spray paint graffiti all over the new bank that just went up downtown.

Final Cop has had enough of it too. The duo of Vern Ore and Peter Kris slings crisp industrial post-punk at your ear holes, the sonic equivalent of throwing an authority fit because they just can’t take all you jagoffs running around like there’s no law and order or anything. Because wouldn’t you know it, the more you get away with the little stuff, the more it builds to the big stuff, like ramming a garbage truck full of cement through the vault wall of the new bank that just went up downtown or something. That’s why Final Cop is here – to prevent garbage trucks ramming through bank walls, and thwarting masterminds who want to cause chaos by making off with that sweet cash. You know as a taxpayer you’re going to be on the hook for the big stuff, the Big Crimes, right?

Or, uh, Final Cop is taking the opposite stance while commenting on the state of urban crime? Or something. I dunno. I’m just head-nodding along to “Broken Windows” in my Walkman till my neck snaps.

Only four tapes remain from Skrot Up! Get em while they’re hot!

Tycho Brahe – s/t
4.27.18 by Ryan Masteller

The REAL Tycho Brahe would never jam like this. This imposter, releasing a self-titled tape on Cleveland noise stalwart Mistake by the Lake, is all like, “Listen to me, my synthesizers rip through your psyche like supernovas rip through the space-time continuum!” Besides being totally wrong about what supernovas do, Fake Tycho Brahe also didn’t lose part of his nose in a sword duel in the dark, like Real Tycho Brahe did in 1566 at the University of Rostock in Germany. Look it up. Real Tycho Brahe also observed an actual supernova in 1572, but everybody thought it was some sort of strange heavenly light occurring between the moon and Earth, because of “celestial immutability” (freaking Aristotle). Real Tycho Brahe dropped some KNOWLEDGE on those fools, “De nova stella,” setting the record straight for, like, decades. But yeah, Fake Tycho Brahe, you just keep making your synthesizer music. We don’t need any new advancements in science or anything. [*Eyeroll*]

Ha, OK, look, I’m not really some sort of stickler for accuracy here. I’m writing about music after all; I’m not aiming for publication in some scientific journal, because let’s face it: research isn’t exactly my strong suit. So let’s focus on Fake Tycho Brahe for a second, because once I got all that junk out of my system, that crummy thirty-thousand-foot history lesson, I realized that this tape is an absolute gem, a stunner, a completely appropriate addition to the catalog of the city that brought you Emeralds. This vibe cycle of oscillations and melody permeates the brain and unlocks all sorts of potential avenues for understanding. Maybe Real Tycho Brahe was listening to the modular lute equivalent of this back in his day, inspiring him to write “De nova Stella.” Maybe Fake Tycho Brahe is pulling a fast one on us by including what looks like a supernova occurring among a forest on the j-card art, suggesting either that he’s in on the reference or just a fan of X-Files-related phenomena. Either way, smash sound and science together into cassette tape form, and you’re in for some far-out elliptical mind-blowery with this thing.

Let’s face it, both Tycho Brahes are real. Grab one of these 48 (or 50 – MBTL isn’t clear on that) tapes while you can, as well as a copy of “De nova stella” (in Latin!) from the fine company Amazon.com.

Marta SmiLga – Lunar Maria, Vol. 1
4.2518 by Ryan Masteller

My almost-seven-year-old son doesn’t play with action figures or anything, he plays with stuffed animals, his favorites being Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Yoshi, because DUH. Also, I think he likes playing with them because he can throw them at other kids in the variation of tag they play at school. So it should be no surprise that his bed and closet are overflowing with random plush creatures and other ephemera. But maybe the coolest ones he has are stuffed globes of Earth, Mars, and the moon (called, yes, a “Hug-a-Moon”), complete with notations of political (on Earth) and geographical locations. He might be the only first grader who wouldn’t uncomprehendingly blink at the mention of Mare Ingenii, Mare Frigoris, Mare Nubium, and Mare Orientale.

How’d you do? Those ring a bell? Don’t tell me my kid is smarter than you, a grown adult! Ah, you shouldn’t feel bad though — I wouldn’t have had a clue either, not until I read that they’re all “dark lunar plains that early astronomers mistook for seas.” And it’s these that Marta SmiLga focuses on throughout her synthesizer song cycle “Lunar Maria, Vol. 1.” A synth-maker and stargazer from Riga, Latvia, Liga Smirnova uses the alias Marta SmiLga (tongue… twisted…) when she wants to get all tripped out on sci-fi and outer-space dream sequences. Every moment on “Lunar Maria, Vol. 1” captures the unearthly awe of early space exploration, when we humans started to figure out there’s a whole heckuva lot out there beyond the confines of Earth. From the Sputnik-y bleeps of “Mare Ingenii” to the interstellar fears conjured by the loneliness of “Mare Frigoris,” Smirnova reports on what she observes in the night sky, each track a deep dive into the everything our imaginations have ever whipped up about the cosmos. And in the end, those lunar plains may as well be space oceans, that’s how deeply immersed we get under Marta SmiLga’s dense spell.

Grab one of the edition of 100 from Crash Symbols. And by the way, the Hug-a-Moon makes for a pretty GREAT projectile, especially if you’ve got the kind of arm my son does. Plus he’s a lefty.

(2 Dads 2 Sons Emoji) – Untitled Modular Synthesizer Demos
4.24.18 by Ryan Masteller

Sometimes you just stumble across something that makes so little sense that it renders everything around it obsolete, thus redefining the idea of “sense” so that, coming from that something, nothing else makes more sense than that thing you stumbled across. That’s how I felt when I peeped at this [2 Dads 2 Sons Emoji] artefact and beheld its utter weirdness coalescing into normality before my eyes. Nothing is as it should be. Yes, it says “edition of one” on the j-card. No, you can’t buy it. No, you can’t HEAR it. So I won’t even be embedding a Bandcamp or Soundcloud link below.

But considering the circumstances, I’m breaking all the rules today.

Dubbed over an actual copy of The Beatles’ “1967-1970” collection, because sometimes blank tape is just too expensive, “Untitled Modular Synthesizer Demos” is like an odyssey through the cracked psyche of [2 Dads 2 Sons Emoji]. The frenzied scribbles of the artist’s preferred instrument pinging around my headphones are SO MUCH MORE welcome than another runthrough of that goddamned “Octopus’s Garden” (damn you, Ringo! I’ll get you someday). And I mean, I LIKE the Beatles, in general. But this is just a handmade treasure that you’ll have to pry from my clutches long after I’m gone. Or for the right price on Discogs…

I kid, I kid! This is a total trip, and I’m going to take it again, this time with some assistance – liquid courage!

What are you still doing here? I can’t embed this one. I GUESS I could point you in the direction of Gay Hippie Vampire if you want to check out some of the more POPULAR releases by [2 Dads 2 Sons Emoji], like “Gayest,” or “Frotting.”