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Space Age Pressure Pad #1: The Iowa Cassette Caucuses
3.17.18 by Scott Scholz

Welcome to the first edition of Space Age Pressure Pad! I’m your host, Scott Scholz, and I hope to bring you this free-form column on a weekly-ish basis. Expect a mix of reviews (both new jams and tapes from the last few years that deserve more attention), interviews, newsy bits, retrogrouchy recommendations, and who knows what else? The Tabs Out crew has given me a virtually unlimited budget (thanks again!), so perhaps we’ll include some audio and video elements in the proceedings when it makes sense.

Our first voyage together, dear readers, begins in Iowa. As a Nebraska native, I’ve long looked up to my neighbor-to-the-East as a sort of older sibling, culturally speaking: we have largely the same climate and agricultural leanings, but there are more big-ish cities in Iowa, and a few more outlets for avant-weirdo aural adventures. And it feels like Iowa is sometimes ahead of the curve, at least as Midwestern/Plains states go. They’re the presidential election tastemakers, for example, holding the earliest caucuses for both major political parties, and that has to count for something. And did you know the first computer was developed in Iowa? Because it was.

On the cassette front, the legendary mostly-tape label Night People was first launched in Iowa City, and there are a number of great labels based there now, including 5cm Recordings, Centipede Farm, and Sassbologna Records. This week, both my mailbox and my inbox have been burning up with great new releases from Iowa labels, and you’re not gonna want to miss out on these:

 

The always-reliable Field Hymns is set to drop their next batch on my favorite holiday, April Fools day, but no fooling: these are three of the most fun tapes you’re likely to hear all year. As always, these tapes feature visionary art by Tiny Little Hammers, and they’re sexy pro-dubbed affairs that look as good as they sound.

Proceeding in catalog number order, Oxykitten makes his return to the cassette world after some time off for good behavior (his last pair of tapes dropped in early 2016 on Rotifer). The solo project of San Diego expatriate Justin Case, Oxy has recently settled into the Toronto area and has begun spinning synth-fueled soundscapes again. As one might expect from Oxykitten, “Gleeking the Cube” is a playful affair that splits the difference between a speculative sexploitation soundtrack and vintage video game audio. But having listened to this music for many hours over the last year (full disclosure: I did the mastering for this music), there is also a more serious kosmische undercurrent to this album. The Oxy tapes on Rotifer had a certain gravitas, too, but “Gleeking” displays a new level of compositional ambition and confidence, sliding toward the cinematic analog heaviness of labelmate Yves Malone.

Next, Larry Wish turns in his weirdest album yet, “How More Can You Need?” It must be said up front that your tape deck is fine–this music, which Larry (Adam Wervan) performs live as a sort of pantomime, fussing with cables and lights, intentionally drifts out of tune in a manner that made me worry that my belts or idler wheel were slipping. But it’s part of the gig. Musically, this is a somewhat different affair than the more prog-affected Larry Wish jams on Orange Milk, and it’s entirely instrumental. But once you adjust to the occasional LFO pitch drift, the music is intricate and very satisfying as it outlines a sort of abstract narrative, highlighting human creativity and mechanical fallibility. An aural Dada manifesto for the Post-Information Age.

As a huge fan of the “Males in Harmony” tape last year, I was especially excited to hear the sophomore Lips & Ribs album in this batch. Full of complex but funky MIDI melodramas, this solo project of multimedia maniac artist Jay Winebrenner was recorded some years back, but has now been safely cassette-ified for the public by Field Hymns. The pieces on “Battle in Nagoya” are generally a little shorter than the Lips & Ribs debut, but every bit as intense and fun. High-velocity sections like the title track and “Ending in Amiens” are redolent of old video game music, and there are surreal moments I especially dig, like the synthetic Morricone western vibes of “Woman is Here.” Overall, “Battle in Nagoya” has an especially visual kind of flair, and every riff practically causes an off-kilter low budget film scene to materialize somewhere in front of your speakers. It’s no wonder that Winebrenner is responsible for his own share of seriously wild videos like this.

 

Bob Bucko Jr is a man of diverse tastes, just the sort of fellow we love to hang with around the Pressure Pad, and his Personal Archives label reflects his wide-ranging appreciation for all kinds of music. The latest batch of tapes on Personal Archives will only set you back a Hamilton (unlike, you know, Hamilton), and here’s what you’ll be cranking:

Matthew As More gets some well-deserved reissue treatment, this tape having first appeared in CD format on its creator Matt Dake’s label Nova Labs. “Apocalypse Never” is a great collection of tunes whose low- and mid-fi recordings reveal a sophisticated musical mind. There are some rock/pop anthems here, but the weird song forms and complicated riffs often remind me of the heyday of the Chicago Touch & Go scene, too. My favorite moment here is near the center of the album, where “Shroom Dust (edit)” somehow manages to bridge a heretofore prohibitive gap between Big Black and Apple Venus-era XTC. Recommended.

I missed out the Saxquatch & Bridge Band debut on Already Dead last year, but upon hearing their new “Apogee” jams in the Personal Archives batch, I’ll be keeping my eyes on these folks from now on. Here you’ll find the Bridge Band, a tight power trio that specializes in jazz- and soul-infused blues, with Saxquatch (Jarad Selner) at center stage, playing saxes and occasionally taking on some vocals. Three out of four of these musicians share the same last name, and indeed this band has that kind of subconsciously-tight interplay one would expect from a family band that’s been jamming for years. It’s a little more stylistically straightforward than my usual listening, but it’s heartfelt, beautifully performed, and the recordings really pop. Tasty.

Rounding (or I guess triangulating?) out this batch, Wilmoth Axel has turned in another excellent album for Personal Archives. Their previous albums have spent some time in my decks, often reminding me of a more acid/psych lo-fi take on instrumental post-everything music like the Fucking Champs. This time, “Resonation” digs further into the psychedelic garage vibes, and the trio has expanded to a quartet, with very effective vocals by Donna Kay Yarborough. This is a clearer recording than some of their previous PA efforts, and the subtler details of their work are easier to hear with a little more “fi.” As one might expect, the inclusion of vocals here has somewhat tempered the songwriting for “Resonation,” focusing some of the group’s wildest moments into more structured, balanced forms, but it all comes together like they were meant to be a quartet all along.

 

There is a familiar, cared-for look you can expect with tapes on Warm Gospel: label proprietor Trey Reis makes gorgeous collages that adorn many j-card covers, dubs small runs by hand, and uses a real typewriter to prepare his labels and track listings. This month, he brings us five new tapes from the heartland and a bit of the globe:

Igondeau, a haunting quartet from Belarus, starts us off with “Stefania am Rande der Nacht,” a sprawling beat-driven piece in five movements that manages to be propulsive and a little frightening at times. The piece is dedicated to a 90s Swiss film, “Stefanie’s Geschenk,” and though I’m not familiar with the movie, I’d safely wager that it’s an intense, dark affair to have inspired this music. Although dancefloor-worthy beats assert themselves throughout the majority of the album, my focus is mostly drawn to the synth-dominant music throughout, which veers from ambient, textural ideas to early industrial gear-grinding.

I’m not previously familiar with the work of Goatfoam, but if “*toHeatedWomb*to” is an indication, they are mad scientists developing new ways to combine 60s psychedelia and the more experimental edges of early 90s shoegaze. These tunes have an overall calming effect, and the melodies of tunes like “Hermit in a Happy Place” or “Hidden Gems” have a way of resurfacing in your head just when you need them later.

Nicholas Naioti’s work is new to me, too, but his “Watery Grave” is a great C40 of solace and reflection. On the surface, perhaps, it’s simply great ambient music, gentle waves of sound gradually drifting into one another, anchored by percussion that tries not to draw too much attention to itself. However, you’ll soon find this music reaching from the background into the foreground, as the melodies prove to be too insistent, the guitars too plaintive, and the arrangements too clever.

Stewardesses turns in a weird EDM audio travelogue of sorts with “Bliss is This.” This tape could almost be a document of a dance club set, save for surprising juxtapositions and unusual transitions that frequently turn listening attention toward the inner textures of the music: the subtle body within “body music,” if you will. At times I’m reminded of the ecstatic pinnacles of electronic bliss in the music of Dugout Canoe, while other passages seem to reach back toward that weird period when industrial bands started to coalesce around pop forms. Bliss is this, indeed.

Finally, Huxley Maxwell turns in the most purely ambient set of this batch in “Across the Cartoon Smoke.” With little reliance on percussion other than a few small sections on side A, this pair of pieces unfold patiently, with gentle fades between major sections and delicate blending of elements that could be jarring in different hands (is that didgeridoo sneaking in underneath soulful piano toward the end of side A, for example?) I especially dug the opening section of “Lavender,” the B-side piece, as what sounds like koto and locomotive samples press into one another to unexpectedly melancholy effect, eventually dissolving into some subtle watery textures. World music for the otherworldly.

Here’s hoping you’ll find something to dig in this year’s later winter crops of Iowa!

Indiegogo For Subotnick Film Offers “Silver Apples” Cassette Reissue
7.7.17 by Scott Scholz

If you’re a regular reader/listener of Tabs Out, chances are excellent that you’re down with the sublime electronic compositions of Morton Subotnick. One of the true pioneers in modular synthesizers, Subotnick’s music has hardly aged a day over the decades. “Silver Apples of the Moon,” for example, would sound perfectly at home among a new batch of tapes released tomorrow, an incredible feat for a composition released 50 years ago. And we owe a debt of gratitude to Subotnick for more than just his music: he was there at the beginning of modular synth design, providing advisement and funding for the first Buchla machines. His insights helped to put musical sound-tailoring options at the fingertips of composers, and also transcended the limitations of the keyboard as an input device.

Subotnick started his musical career generating those odd-harmonic square waves the old-fashioned way (with a clarinet), and he’s been an active participant in all kinds of evolving sound technology up to the present day. Frankly, every detail along the timeline of his work is fascinating if you’re into electronic music, but we don’t need to dig deep into his biography here. That’s because there is an Indigogo campaign running right now to produce a feature-length film about his life and work. “Subotnick: Portrait of an Electronic Music Pioneer” is being produced by Waveshaper Media, the same folks who brought us “I Dream of Wires” a few years ago, so you know it’s going to be good. Featuring extensive interviews with Subotnick as well as collaborators throughout his career, this film is likely to be a great contribution to our collective understanding of his work. Personally, I’ve always found Subotnick to be a particularly interesting figure in music history as a bridge between the early academic trappings of electronic music and various popular scenes, from krautrock to techno to modern modular mayhem. As this film follows Morton around the globe, putting on regular performances and making new music in his eighth decade, we’re sure to see how his work continues to inspire folks across many musical disciplines.

The fundraising campaign for this film offers some great rewards, too, including reissues of Subotnick’s essential recordings in multiple formats. Remember when I said that “Silver Apples” would, and I quote, “sound perfectly at home among a new batch of tapes released tomorrow?” Well, that is basically happening… For only $15 plus shipping you can snag yourself an autographed copy of “Silver Apples of the Moon” on cassette, a format the piece hasn’t been found on commercially since its original release in 1967. You know you want it, and you know your dad lost the original under the passenger seat three cars before you were born. If you’re feeling more vinyl-inclined, there are several color variations of the LP version up for grabs as well. I’d also recommend taking a hard look at the CD 4-pack, as it includes some of Subotnick’s later works, which are not as well-known but certainly should be. And no matter your format of preference, you’ll be supporting the final stages in making this important film. As of this writing, you have a couple of weeks left to get on board, and they still need your help at 95 percent funding. Head on over to the Indiegogo page and pitch in!

New Batch – Heavy Mess
6.1.17 by Scott Scholz

Time has flown by this spring, and the latest batch from Heavy Mess has been a constant companion of mine, with a sound for every occasion. Last year’s debut releases from this label tended to be on the mellow side of the listening spectrum, but this latest trio of tapes gets more assertive while maintaining a fresh curatorial sensibility. And according to their Bandcamp page, Heavy Mess is a “discrete” cassette label, which I think means that they’ll ship these analog beauties to your house in an unmarked manila envelope–wait, that’s “discreet.” It means they’re a label of individual and distinct tastes, which even a cursory spin of these tapes will capably back up. Let’s dig in:

Ashan – Fulfilling the Promise Absolute

Inner Islands proprietor Sean Conrad works under several different project names, including Channelers and Orra, but no matter the band name on the cover, you can count on an energizing, rejuvenating experience. His Ashan project is is rapidly becoming my favorite, though, harnessing the considerable mass of heavy guitar work to bring some serious volume to meditative ends. Conrad essentially becomes a one-man band for Ashan, using drums, vocals, and synths along with guitars to create a pair of gentle giants. “Fulfilling the Promise Absolute” is a short album, but both of its 10-minute sides feel much longer than their running times reveal, like Godspeed compositions aimed at uplifting, Voordoms-era Boredoms ecstasy. Be sure to check out last year’s “Death is the New Life,” too, which is also still available from Heavy Mess.

Amulets – Still Lifes

Randall Taylor is a prolific jammer, having dropped over a dozen great tapes on a variety of labels in the last few years. His Amulets project uses a variety of sonic approaches, including tape loops, field recordings, guitars, and circuit-bending gadgetry to build melancholy vistas that always sound great left on repeat. Like “Fulfilling the Promise Absolute,” his “Still Lifes” for Heavy Mess is an EP-length affair that feels more substantial than its length. The pair of pieces here are somewhat minimal compared to some of the more layered Amulets recordings, and guitars dominate these mixes. And what beautiful guitars they are: clean tones are looped and reversed, turning into delicate pads that are eventually overtaken with overdrive. There is a certain delicate quality apparent in these pieces, highlighted by the distorted swells that overwhelm the mix toward the end of “A Library of Flowers,” but they walk a kind of compositional tightrope that finds inner strength from their own fragility.

Macho Blush – Moodshow

Somewhat removed from the more contemplative stylings of her peers in this Heavy Mess batch, there are no maps to safely navigate through the world of Gina Probst’s Macho Blush project. Some urban readers may not be familiar with the tradition of snipe hunting, but around my part of the rural Great Plains, your friends might drive you to a remote wooded area in the dead of night, hand you a large cloth sack, and explain how they’re going to flush the legendary snipe out of hiding with their car headlights, causing a gaggle of snipe to flee right into your outstretched sack. Then they drive back into town without you, and you’re left holding the bag, quite literally, with a long, dark walk ahead of you. You may feel like a snipe hunter during the first few confrontational minutes of “Moodshow,’ but by the end, your bag is overflowing with more fantastic creatures of the night than your friends could ever imagine, and you don’t have any pressing reason to leave the woods any more.

Macho Blush is often described as “outsider music,” and it does mirror the attributes folks might expect in outsider sounds. At times “Moodshow” is brutally low-fi, with recording levels pushed well beyond the red, and the vocal lines are bizarre and jarring, and the music lurches between styles and volume levels without warning. But the more time ones spends with this music, it’s clear that Probst is incredibly deliberate in her composition and performance, applying the weirdness of early Ralph Records and the savagery of no-wave bands with surgical precision. Percussion and delirious vocals dominate most of “Moodshow,” but occasional piano flourishes reveal a fine-tuned musical mind willing to use any tool at her disposal to lure us into a unique world of ritualized sound. One of the best albums you’re likely to hear this year.

All three tapes are still ready to meet your Paypal account. Head over to the Heavy Mess Bandcamp and get yourself messy.

New Batches – MJMJ Records
3.2.17 by Scott Scholz

One of the biggest advantages of cassette labels is curatorial flexibility. Tapes are relatively inexpensive to produce, so you can take chances on highlighting different scenes, and listeners can similarly afford to speculate on batches of unfamiliar artists. While a lot of labels follow their interests in national and international artists, there’s a unique opportunity to turn folks on to local scenes, too. Some of my favorites strike a balance between international and local sounds: Eiderdown Records is always good for a balance of fried psych and drone from the Pacific Northwest and far beyond, for example, and Iowa stalwarts like Centipede Farm and Personal Archives keep folks hipped to sonic adventures from both far-flung lands and the Hawkeye state underground.

Minneapolis-based MJMJ Records is another label you can count on for great music from both local and remote areas, and their last couple of batches have focused on some Twin Cities-based artists that definitely deserve some wider love. Here’s a little overview of some wild and wonderful sounds from the Mini Apple, all still available from MJMJ with rad risograph-print artwork lovingly designed by regular MJMJ art collaborator NIco Stephou.

Fall batch: live jams

The MJMJ fall batch focused on live recordings from a trio of fascinating MN artists. Experimental collective American Cream Band starts us off with a mesmerizing set of material culled from live recordings made in 2015 and 2016. Largely percussion-driven pieces, American Cream shifts between krautrock and dancey beats with a hint of free jazz, like Shit & Shine colliding with Sand. Based on these recordings, these live sets must drop some serious ritual vibes.

This is followed by two slices of reverb-drenched goodness from ZOZO Tek, excerpted from their portion of a 28-hour drone marathon last February at the Cedar Cultural Center. The harmonizer-fueled sax lines in these pieces are especially affecting, and the group manages to stay faithful to the drone concept while still creating lots of dynamic variety and interest. Recorded in the wee hours of the morning, you’re not likely to find jams that manage to be this psychedelic while incorporating the classic Seinfeld-slap-bass synth tone:

My favorite of this live triptych may be a potent C20 from relative newcomers IE. The first release by this quartet, IE brings old-school synth zoneouts that unfold with careful restraint. At first this feels like a relatively straightforward drone recording, but as a groove patiently emerges in the final quarter of the tape, the subtle beauty of this music proves to be quite addictive on repeated listening.

Winter batch: boreal beats

MJMJ’s latest winter batch transitions from local psych/drone to (mostly) local beat-oriented electronica, perfect for cold Northern winters. The only exception to the Twin Cities orientation of these tapes is a grimy set of beats from Gaffe of a Lifetime, the solo project of east-coast producer Alexandre Louis Petion. While much of his “Mansa, and the Far End of the Death Spectrum” would work comfortably on a dance floor, the music pushes into the kinds of introspective early-industrial soundscapes that provide lots of sedentary listening interest, too. Crossing into the forward-thinking electronics vibes that labels like Orange Milk have focused on recently, some tracks like “Justify the Inane” embody glitched-out dramas that could bring fans of EDM and German Army together:

Heading back to Minneapolis, Nathan Brende drops a tightly-constructed longform jam with his latest as God’s Drugs. Slowly unfolding through a series of house-centered workouts, “Loaded” could keep any party moving with a series of beats that are mostly convivial but subtly evocative of those dark, mysterious spaces your parents warned you about:

Last but not least, MJMJ brings us a heady tape from recent MN transplant Lonefront. According to the label, this solo project of Ross Lafayette Hutchens has been making major waves on the local rave scene, but “Cimilada Qaxootiga” offers a unique modular-based experience that retains some beat orientation within a more delicate tapestry of subdued pads and dismal atmospheres. The A-side especially focuses on beats, gradually ramping up its rhythmic propulsion until it comes to rest just shy of a techno workout, while the B-side remains more rhythmically static, concentrating instead on successions of short textural loops, rising and falling in density:

Traveling to the snowy climes of Minneapolis can be a real drag this time of year, but head over to the MJMJ Bandcamp, crack open a sixer of Grain Belt, and bring the MN underground to your own deck instead.

Crown of Eternity – Dream Architecture
2.28.17 by Scott Scholz

If you’re already familiar with Inner Islands, you’re probably well aware that the label is a sure bet for aural excursions into tranquility and redemption. With a serene discography including Ki Oni, Stag Hare, and Kyle Landstra, I get a tinge of joyous calm just hearing about any new arrivals on the Island. While it’s hard to pick favorites in this lush catalog, it may be fair to say that their latest, Crown of Eternity’s “Dream Architecture,” is an archetypally perfect album for the label. The perfect sonic respite for whatever might be ailing you, or an excellent sonic meditation session to focus your energy if you’re already feeling fly, this tape is a next-level deep listening experience.

Crown of Eternity is the long-running duo project of Gallina and Mike Tamburo, multi-instrumentalists whose work and training unites musical pursuits with the healing arts. Mike has been featured on Inner Islands before, dropping the heavy-meditation double cassette “Presence” back in 2013. You might also recognize his wild jams under the Brother Ong moniker –I’d highly recommend his “Deep Water Creation” on Deep Water Acres, full of ripping shahi baaja loops through guitar effects. The Tamburos have a gift for coaxing warm, inviting music out of any instrument, and while much of their work has focused on strings, “Dream Architecture” is an impassioned exploration of metal percussion. Gongs, chimes, bells and bowls come together here toward the creation of a listening experience that soothes both body and mind.

“Dream Architecture” aspires to a transcendence that’s better felt than described musically. Centered around 11 gongs and over 60 supplementary instruments, these pieces occasionally get really dense to powerful effect, such as the middle sections of the title track. However, most of the album works with open spaces and subdued volumes, allowing the listener an intimate window into the rich harmonic potential of these ancient instruments. The recording itself is beautifully produced, too: cassettes aren’t always about low-fi, friends. If you fire up your best deck through your biggest speakers, you can lay down and really feel like you’re in the middle of this recording in progress, and I think you’ll find that it’s an empowering place to be.

Crown of Eternity is the real deal–with training in yoga, body harmonics, and sound massage, this tape may prove to be just as useful in your medicine cabinet as your cassette shelving. These likely won’t last long, so be sure to grip one from Inner Islands while you can. And perhaps even better, folks all over America have a chance to experience some Dream Architecture in person: check out these tour dates, and show the Tamburo family some love as they bring their beautiful ceremonies-in-metal on the road.