mike

A Look at the Strategic Tape Reserve
2.18.18 by Mike Haley

In 2003 Eamon Hamill left behind New Jersey and it’s 29 turnpike exits and headed for Prague to teach English. By 2012 Hamill was living in Cologne, Germany where he started the “non-aligned, secular organization” Strategic Tape Reserve. STR is a confusing lil’ joy that sometimes feels more like a moving box full of basement-lived VHS tapes than a cassette label. Even their logo has control track damage. The tapes look like they smell mossy and are described with ceremonial chunkiness: “In full compliance with most international regulations in relation to the trafficking of ferrous materials,” Hamill wrote of the label’s first release “the Strategic Tape Reserve is now able to disseminate its inaugural commercial offering, The Modern Door Live cassette album.”

The micro-cryptic presentation makes it reasonable to wonder what, if anything, are dubbed on these incredibly small editions. Which isn’t an accident of course. “I kind of want [Strategic Tape Reserve] to be disparate and surprising and maybe even sometimes not always likeable (though, hopefully, usually likeable).” Hamill said of the purposeful blurriness. “Also, I guess I sometimes try to present STR with a somewhat boring and sinister authoritarian vibe, just because that sort of comes out and I find it funny.”

The Strategic Tape Reserve guardedly presents the recordings from our recreation of the Efficient Processes for Synthetic Funk clinical trials. EPfSF was a Cold War-era research project which attempted to standardize low-input production methods for generating asymmetrical rhythms with military applications.

Full Efficient Processes for Synthetic Funk research paper:
www.strategictapereserve.de/p/blog-page.html

In addition to releases that include The Modern Door, moduS ponY, and Mr. & Mrs. Chip Perkins, Eamon Hamill uses STR as an outlet for his own work as Emerging Industries of Wuppertal and VLK. “Avril and Sean in Camden,” a C57 from VLK released in 2017, is a torturous tiny slab made exclusively out of processed Avril Lavigne and Sean Hannity samples. “The Avril and Sean tape was a cathartic soul cleansing some 15 years after being stuck in a car in Camden listening to nothing but Avril Lavigne and Sean Hannity.” This all reminds me: Hannity never came through with his promise to be waterboarded. Someone remind him.

In the summer of 2004, VLK undertook temporary employment which primarily involved being a passenger in a car that was driven around Camden, New Jersey. Though the job description was undemanding, it arose that a key responsibility for this role was to engage the driver/employer in conversation, thus enhancing the work environment (a Toyota Camry). Regretfully, it became soon evident to both parties that this personal objective would not be achieved, and the driver, activating his contingency plan, put into use his preferred auditory stimuli, i.e. conservative talk radio broadcasts and the glove compartment’s lone compact disk, Avril Lavigne’s Let’s Go. In Camden, the birthplace of modern convenience food, the home of the first Church of Scientology, a city beset by the poverty and crime not uncommon in post-industrial American small cities, VLK spent two months in silent shotgun, bombarded with the pleas from Lavigne and Hannity for simple answers to the increasingly complicated world outside of the Camry’s windows.

Strategic Tape Reserve can and should be found on the dotcom, Bandcamp, and Twitter.

Max Eilbacher’s Strange Electronic Music Valentine
2.14.18 by Mike Haley

Valentine’s Day is a day for doing romance, and snuggles, and smooches, and synth scrambles, and – WAIT, WHAT!? Synth scrambles?! On Valentine’s Day!? That doesn’t sound right. Who would do that?

Well, it’s this Max Eilbacher character. Max Eilbacher isn’t interested in warm cuddles by the Netflix fireplace. On this, the Feast of Saint Valentine, Max announced a “self released” electronic music tape called *let me check my notes* “Electronic Music Tape.” A grating, hour-long loner experience recorded in 2016 and 2017 “at various studios, green rooms, the back of a few tour vans throughout Europe and my parent’s basement.” Max can make a synth sound like a worn down strip of leather or outlawed bleach cleaners, and he spends 60 raw minutes procrastinating between those options on this savage and strange Valentine’s gift.

Roses are red.
Kevin Spacey was in K-PAX.
There will be 50 copies made.
Preorder one direct from Max.

Fabrica’s “Idle Chatter” Series Plows On with Second Installment
2.9.18 by Mike Haley

 

Fabrica Records kicked off their Idle Chatter series in 2016 with a triple cassette featuring Gambletron, NaEE RoBErts, and Wren Turco called “Transparens.” The idea was to have an artist – in this case Wren Turco – choose two other artist to share the release with. Wren Turco described her thinking behind the curation:

“For this series, I chose powerful, diverse, female contributions by artists producing interdisciplinary work in the fields of audio and visual composition. Gambletron and NaEE RoBErts are two individuals that I feel are breaking boundaries in these fields and I am so honored to be working with them. The artwork was created from a sequence of transparent sculptural projections that gradually mutate in motion. The three images used were taken from a current project I’m working on entitled, ‘Jelly Sins.”

Preorders are up now for the second installment, “Held There, Beside The Signified.” Mkl Anderson handles the draft this time around and contributes under his long-haul moniker Drekka. Drekka recordings go back to the late 90’s and have been released on labels like Dais, Auris Apothecary, and his own Bluesanct operation. Anderson went with Pillars And Tongues and Skrei to round out this haunting triple tape. Samples suggest an uphill battle, one that requires stamina and dedication. Plenty of nagging echos and knee-deep mud slides happening during these long-playing tracks. Drekka, for example, lays out 3 dozen minutes of “sound palindromes.” Coupling that with Mark Trecka, Evan Hydzik, Ben Babbitt and Beth Remis’ panoramic Pillars And Tongues work and Giuseppe Capriglione abrasive ambiance as Skrei makes Idle Chatter a marathon, not a jog.

100 copies will be made. Preorders are up now with a release show scheduled for 2/25 @ Trans Pecos in NYC (aka “Big Apples”).

Shedding – Plod and Play, Vol.2
2.7.18 by Mike Haley

“The library investigator’s name is actually Bookman?”
“It’s true.”
“That’s amazing. That’s like an ice cream man named Cone.”

-Kramer and the Librarian, in “The Library“

My goodness what I would give for Kramer to BURST into my house while listening to Shedding’s “Plod and Play, Vol.2” on Obsolete Staircase. We’d probably start off with a classic back and forth about what an obsolete staircase could possibly be. That would naturally segue to his plans for levels (you know, like ancient Egypt). But the award winning chatter would come when I was asked what tape was playing…

“It’s called Shedding.”
“Shedding? Who is that?”
“Connor Bell.”
“Connor Bell!? The person who is conjuring bells here is actually named Connor Bell?”
“It’s true.”
“That’s amazing. That’s like a harsh noise man named Wall.”

We’d have so many freakin’ laughs, us two, but Kramer would have made a decent point. “Plod and Play, Vol.2” is a god damn, full-on cornucopia of bells! An errant gravy of small to tall, softly hewed, and slightly rusty bells that make magic *pops* and deeeeep doooooown *plooooooms* with crypto precision. Oh how they plod and play! Shedding shows no shortage when it comes to bells – There are bushy-tailed ones, straight out of the factory, yet to experience stress or strain. With swagger they go by church steeples, pointing and giggling as they sound off with their perky byte-sized bursts. Clunky old timers show up, too. All stout and tired. They mostly make dusty echos and pretend that their flaccid clappers are capable of more than barely chafing their mouths. It’s pathetic to witness, but makes for an excellent backdrop of sound. I think the Liberty Bell even makes an appearance towards the last few minutes of each side. Poor bastard.

The bells may not be real bells, but the tones are, and they’re spectacular. Connor Bell puts these tones through impressive drills. I don’t think Seinfeld ever did an episode about bells, but if they ever do – “Plod and Play, Vol.2” should replace the between-scenes music. Go get a copy!!

New Batch – Constellation Tatsu
2.5.18 by Mike Haley

The levels of chill Constellation Tatsu‘s winter batch enjoy are, quite frankly, dangerous and irresponsible. This amount of chill could terrorize a small town of simple folk. Hell, it could probably sway a decently populated country (let’s say Latvia) to switch it’s currency to crystals, or the national anthem to a Terry Riley VHS. C.Tatsu doesn’t care though. They’ve done this sort of thing before, and surely will do it again. Unabashed they released their winter batch of four tapes. So, Latvians, say goodbye to singing Dievs, svētī Latviju.

Rose and Hakobune, who both sweat out watercolor on their tapes like they are wringing towels, are returning members to the Tatsu catalog, as are Celer and Forest Management, who collaborate this time around on the immersive narrative “Landmarks.” A description of the recording reads:

“Collaborating for the first time, Will Long and John Daniel combine their methods using tape machines, loops, and computers to score a reimagining of Peter Weir’s film and Paul Theroux’s novel “The Mosquito Coast”. Sourcing inspiration from a view of the film and book as a historical pendulum, the musicians found that these reinterpretations left them nostalgic for a different time, something that’s only partly imagined, and without the defined predictions about the life cycles of mass culture based on our limited understanding of current events.”

Memorygarden禅 puts a plastic beach chair into full recline with their Tatsu debut “districtアトランティス.” I’m sure the rest of the batch would love to raz the newcomer, but who has the energy for that???

“Can the chill be TOO CHILL!?” he asked, holding back tears. Find out: The winter batch is only $16ppd (!!!) and you’d be the most unchill idiot if you didn’t buy them all right now.