masteller

Nikmis – Widdendream
6.16.17 by Ryan Masteller

Cripes, man, I wasn’t going to say this, but Nikmis might be the greatest thing that’s graced my eardrums in at least a fortnight, and that’s saying a lot because I’ve been spinning that new alt-J jawn “RELAXER” and that sheez is tighter than a trapeze act working without a safety net. But I’ve gotta be honest with you – the mysterious Nagoya, Japan, act responsible for “WIDDENDREAM” might just be the one to knock ol’ alt-J out of the rotation for good. And that’s AFTER I read the whole Santa hat diatribe, which kinda threw me off my game for a little bit, but here I am, back at it, enveloped in the glorious synthesizer melodies concocted – no, COMPOSED – like Nikmis was sitting at a harpsichord in freaking nineteenth-century Vienna. But he was NOT doing that, it only seems like he was, because “WIDDENDREAM” oozes classical and Romantic charm, and I bet Wendy Carlos and/or Morton Subotnick would be gleefully appreciative of its scope and execution. It’s like SWAN LAKE for the patch cord community.

(Haha – alt-J.)

Throughout the entire release, Nikmis warps his brilliant synth in baroque configurations like the Orange Milk house band a pint into “absinthe night” at the Akron (or Wherever, Ohio) compound. He makes one “feel the feels,” as it were, purposefully warping space and time to connect the past and the future, steeping his playing in nostalgia and retrofuturism, but Kubrickian retrofuturism, not the EPCOT Center kind. Life in this bubble is beautiful, and it’s a bubble I don’t want to leave. Everything outside of this bubble is affixed with adjectives like “bloodthirsty” and “malevolent” – and can’t I just stick around inside here for a while? Hey, I got an idea – that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. Forget stupid garbage music and forget alt-J and forget my (admittedly sometimes awesome) Sirius XM subscription in my car and forget modern life (it’s rubbish anyhow) – I’m going to hang out with Nikmis all by myself, foisting a constant reminder to my waking consciousness that it’s all been going downhill for a while. But damn it, everybody, Nikmis refuses that downhill trajectory. Nikmis rises the EFF UP.

By the way, Nikmis – and indeed “WIDDENDREAM” – is no stranger to these electronic pages. Check out episode #104 of this here podcast for a peek into his nifty little world. Then stop being stupid and buy a tape from Third Kind Records – there are still some left!

New Batch – Field Hymns
6.8.17 by Ryan Masteller

Take a moment – look up from scraping the crud out of the intake manifold of your 1975 Dodge Coronet, wipe your brow, and look out at the world framed by your garage. What do you see? What’s out there for you? Observing the blue sky beyond the frame can fill you with hope, and in that hope a promise of new life. But what if you glance just a few feet to your left and notice the boombox you’ve got sitting there? Those two shiny new tapes, just removed from their shrinkwrap, beckon. The new Field Hymns batch is just a “press play” away, and you’re powerless to stop yourself. With fumes from the engine in your nostrils, you click the button, and your outlook as you know it is forever altered. Peep the grease. Pure unadulterated street gnar is your grim future, hot rod city and calamity away. Or maybe road glory. It’s all there for the taking. Before you know it, you’re so disoriented that you’ve spent three hours detailing a remarkably precise image of “Macho Man” Randy Savage (#RIP #NeverForget) on the passenger door. It’s like you’d seen it somewhere before, perhaps in a dream.

Lips and Ribs’ “Males In Harmony” is the Fela Kuti/post-punk mashup everybody this side of Jay Winebrenner of Portland, Oregon, wanted, but only Jay Winebrenner of Portland, Oregon, was able to deliver. Long a member of “bands” (like 31 Knots and Blesst Chest), Winebrenner forges his own MIDI-suites with virtuosic aplomb, coming off at times like Giant Claw and Talking Heads wrestling for supremacy in the aftermath of an aqueduct drag race ending in a tie. And yeah, Winebrenner, ONE MAN, sounds like a freaking BAND in the process. Previously released by Winebrenner’s own lonesome, MALES IN HARMONY is done right by Field Hymns, their ever-stellar curatorial job on the physical artifact a violently arousing success, middle-fingered cursor clicking on all the nastiest websites, and you look stupid for even trying anything after listening, because what are you gonna do, top MALES IN HARMONY? I don’t think so, ratchet monkey, get in the backseat and be quiet while this plays.

Slim Fortune is an actual band, full of actual wackos (including Mr. Winebrenner) with actual CVs that list things like Mattress, Modest Mouse, Get Hustle, and Chromatics on them. If there’s a darkness on the edge of town, you better believe that Slim Fortune is either the cause or at the center of it. Evil dive bar blues for dirty-fingernailed blue-collar headcases, ready for beer and fights and more beer. A reflection of the life of the bat-wielding, brass-knuckle-wearing, smashed-glass-brandishing outlaw. Slim Fortune – sounds of the night. But that’s only one half of a split, ol’ Slim’s self-titled side, and Sciencevision is on the other with COLORSHIFTER, the Neil deGrasse Tyson to Slim Fortune’s Buckaroo Banzai. Yeah, it might be a little nerdier, a little more inward-looking, but Sciencevision’s, erm, vision is no less intoxicating, and it might even be a darker, weirder, and more, dare I say, shoegazey? Well, the end of it is, as “Life Song/When Everything Adds Up” pretends it’s Brad Laner before disappearing in a puff of tone. The rest is candy-colored fuzz, billowing through speakers like a crystallized manifestation of the color palette of Neptune’s atmosphere as glimpsed from Voyager 2. Try to wrap your mind around that, or expel it from your lungs.

Where’d you go there, car person? Done staring out your garage? Shake the effects, call it a day. Time to buy another couple copies of these sweet tapes. Get em both now, they come in batches of a million (give or take)!

Birchall / Smal / Webster – Drop Out
7.5.17 by Ryan Masteller

Kids, you know me, you’re old pal Ryan. You know I always say, “Stay in school,” because it’s important. Education is the key to a fulfilling life. You won’t get anywhere without hard work and some good, old-fashioned book-learning. Keep your nose to that scholastic grindstone, and you’ll go far, yes siree.

Well, uh, heh, I might have been a little bit wrong about the 100% necessity of all that. So I guess maybe some of you can throw that advice out the window? I dunno – David Birchall (guitar), Rogier Smal (drums, mastering), and Colin Webster (saxomophone) make a compelling point that you may only need to practice your instruments really hard, then that sweet, sweet Astral Spirits dough will start rolling in. You want to go to music school, like that idiot in Whiplash? Sure, get a cymbal chucked at your head, you’ll NEVER be Bird! But you can be Sonny Sharrock. Easy as pie, as dropping out, as picking up a guitar (or a sax, or some drumsticks) and shredding like your life depends on it. Because it does! Your life absolutely depends on getting gigs in amazing trios, like the Birchall/Smal/Webster trio.

Like Sonny Sharrock mind-melding with Sonny Stitt on, what, fifteen hits of acid each? – and that’s before they invite Gene Krupa to the party – Birchall, Smal, and Webster are in total sync, and they have to be to create the utterly insane mind flagellation of, wait for it, “Drop Out,” two sides, twenty-two minutes of the most ferocious free jazz you’re likely to hear this side of Juilliard. There’s no way to describe it, other than, holy crap, did you hear that? Wow. Not only do the players follow each other through the most difficult terrain, but Drop Out shifts on a dime from one excursion to the next, coming off more as a suite of tangential pieces than monolithic sidelong events. Which is just fine by me – the more eye-popping the musical gymnastics, the better!

Now, about that dropping out of school… seriously, kids, don’t do that. It’s really important. But feel free to “Drop Out” as much as you want. This public service announcement was brought to you by the Betsy DeVos–led Department of Education. [Barely contain laughter… now.]

There are 150 copies of this sick little puppy available. Get your mitts on one today!

Adderall Canyonly / Ak’chamel – split
6.2.17 by Ryan Masteller

Dang, Adderall, why the long face? I mean, I guess things aren’t super rosy these days, not like they used to be anyway. But when you preface your promo material with “It’s a bit sad and angry maybe…actually it is. Fuck this shit,” maybe it’s time we had a chat. See, we’re so used to the interstellar blasts of synthesizer goodness you usually transmit our way from the inside of whatever quasar you happen to be inhabiting at any given time that anything other than the norm is met with a raised eyebrow. We certainly don’t begrudge your branching out and experimenting– my god man, do what you feel! – and SINNER GET THEE READY, your side of this split with Ak’chamel, is fourteen minutes of engaging and all-encompassing mood, but we do want to make sure you’re doing OK. The darkness that “Sinner Get Thee Ready” and “But If Not” wallow in is positively Godspeed-ian in its menacing intensity. Both are slow burns to ear-shredding blastoffs, but instead of cosmic awareness our result is the bleakness of oblivion. Heady stuff, there, Adderall, and if you decide you like how this shoe fits, we’ll be happy to see you wander around for a while in it.

Maybe in the wastes of Texas? In fact, Adderall, I think you’ve been hanging out with that bad seed Ak’chamel a little too much, haven’t you? I know you have – that’s why this split exists (DUH, internet, I am so smart, S-M-R-T!). Listen, I know it’s easy to fall under the spell of that cult, what with their ramshackle hymns to The Giver of Illness (or, erm, as the Ecstatic Brotherhood of Anima Mundi?), and the hypnotic acoustics of their two-part live performance on Rice’s KTRU station in Houston are peak desert nightmare fodder. In fact, I think I’m falling under their spell myself: sun’s clouding over, spirits tumbling, despair redlining – is there salvation at hand? Probably not, which is why paeans to dark deities exist, I guess – wicked mantras such as these. So in the end, Adderall, I don’t blame you. In fact, as this split has inspired me to do, I may join you in rending my clothes, putting ash on my head, and gnashing my teeth in anger and disgust for a while, perfectly normal actions considering the status quo.

Tandem Tapes is located in Jakarta, Indonesia, and, as the name of the label implies, it releases strictly splits from likeminded artists. Adderall Canyonly and Ak’chamel’s came in an edition of 25, but only few remain!

CRZKNY – Groove 2
5.30.17 by Ryan Masteller

There’s no way to pronounce “CRZKNY,” and that’s probably okay, but if you’re interested in overworking your tongue, go ahead, give it a try – don’t say I didn’t warn you that you’ll end up with a doctor’s visit and a tongue splint for your troubles. You might end up with a doctor’s visit and a splint for another part of your body if you attempt to move along with the rhythms of “groove 2,” CRZKNY’s entry into the Wrocław-based Outlines label’s groove series, but that’s another story. Oh, no, wait, that’s the story, the one you’ll need to pay attention to right now because, haha, I goofed. Look, I’m no spring chicken, I injure myself badly enough to need a splint pretty much every time I get out of bed in the morning, so imagining myself jerking all around like a madman to CRZKNY’s interpretation of footwork is sort of exhausting. Comical, yes, but exhausting nonetheless. Fortunately, I can just sit right here in my chair, play “groove 2” over the stereo, and enjoy it with a nice glass of bourbon before I fall asleep.

Because “groove 2,” an equal-sided C20, starts low and slow – although it purports to be a record by a DJ from Hiroshima fascinated by techno and footwork – the almost ambient build flecked with IDM, and I can nod my old-man nod and smile knowingly that I don’t have to stand up at all. The A-side, “groove 2.1,” passes the six-minute mark (out of almost ten) before the beat drops, the tones and samples introduced coming into focus as they coalesce around the composition like me around an early bird special buffet spread. CRZKNY packs the rest of this track and its accompanying b-side – “groove 2.2,” DUH – with head-snapping neck breaks and skittering percussive elements that will have you imagining insect life scurrying about in frantic patterns. Actually, I feel the urge to stand rising, rising … fading… RISING! I’m up! Ow, for cryin’ out loud. OK, I’ll sway a little bit. I’ve turned into my grandfather.

This gorgeous C20 – seriously, it was even featured on the most recent Look at These Tapes – was produced in an edition of 50. Smack it up, flip it, rub it down, and buy it.