Blotchouts – Lenora Guards the Egg

6.26.20 by Ryan Masteller

I couldn’t even imagine living in Alabama on a good day, let alone during this TIME of the COVIDs. But Blotchouts finds a way, the carnival-punk cacophony of “Lenora Guards the Egg” a greasy sparkle in the festering dirty river of human existence in the Deep South. Blotchouts probably can’t even wear a mask into the grocery store these days without the threat of getting beat up. It ain’t American to be forced to wear face coverings in public places, so anybody infringing on anybody’s freedom to walk into an establishment and NOT see a bunch of goobers covering their faces in surgical apparatus is ripe for a pounding. RIPE, I say!

Not that this has much to do with Blotchouts, or anything at all actually, and that’s before I even question my own preconceived notions of whether Blotchouts WANT to wear masks in public places. They may be the punchers instead of the punchees! At any rate, “Lenora Guards the Egg” is like listening to an itchy rash materialize on your skin and spread as far as it can before the antibiotics begin to do their dirty work. And that’s a good thing, trust me! Guitars irritate tender skin and synths squirt countermelodies like festering lesions lanced with the herky jerky rhythm section. That’s so gross! But that’s what you have to expect when you name your band anything with the word “blotch” in it – skin ailment metaphors are just par for the course here.

Skin ailment metaphors are probably par for the course in Alabama too, what do I know. You think those southerners are into songs called things like “Cockroach Milk” or “Enema”? How about “I’m a Baby”? Come to think of it, those aren’t so far-fetched. Still, the jittery jangle and abrasion of the wacky Devo’d maelstrom Blotchouts kicks up whips across the land, bursting through the borders of the Yellowhammer State and out into the great wider unknown. Weirdos getting picked up on tape decks from California to the New York island, just like Woody Guthrie promised. Did Woody Guthrie promise accessibly punk weirdness on the scale of Blotchouts when he wrote the New Testament? That’s a trick question – EVERYTHING was promised in the New Testament.

Buy Blotchouts and more, more, more from Pecan Crazy Records!

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Various Artists – Doom Mix Vol. IV

6.22.20 by Ryan Masteller

Isn’t it usually around the time of the fourth installment that franchises start to see a dip in quality? “Indiana Jones,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Halloween,” the Pearl Jam discography – nothing good lasts. Yet here we are, four years into the annual “Doom Mix” series from LA vampires Doom Trip Records, who, like clockwork, are celebrating the annual occurrence with a fourth cassette tape of the best the label has to offer. If you ask me, I’d say they’re playing with (gun)fire, spinning the chamber of their revolver in the Russian roulette game of quality musicianship, placing the barrel against their temple, and pulling the trigger.

I’m as terrified as you are.

But I’m also wildly intrigued, because the first three installments never suggested that quality would EVER be a problem, and, thus, the trigger clicks harmlessly and everybody goes back to what they were doing for another year. And here’s the real secret: there were never any bullets in the gun in the first place! It’s all quality, all the time for these Doom Trippers, and now that we’ve got that all out of the way it’s time to celebrate with sixteen more tracks of “freaking awesome.”

And they pretty much started this the way I would have started it if they had asked me my opinion on the tracklist. “Well, Doom Trip, I know this is a big ask, and I feel silly for even suggesting it, but is there any way you could start it with some Fire-Toolz? Angel Marcloid’s a pretty big deal right now, so that would be a guaranteed entry point for the uninitiated. Me? I’d be all over it. Then follow that up with some NMESH. (I know, right? Dreaming!)” 

So “Doom Trip IV” starts off with some new Fire-Toolz and some new NMESH, just like nobody asked me but should’ve. So I can’t stay mad at Doom Trip, because, in the end, I got my way, and isn’t that just how it should be? “Volume IV” keeps rolling with new faces and old, but all of them welcome presences among themselves. Want the alums? You’ve got Pale Spring (watch out for “DUSK,” super soon!), Mukqs, Diamondstein and Sangam, Rangers, and Heejin Jang. Dntel’s up in here, Tamborello in the house! (Sorry.) Personal faves of mine Ki Oni and KWJAZ show up. N00bs include Infinity Knives (ft. Bobbi Rush and Tyler Moonlight), maral ft. A.B.E., Cruel Diagonals, Lighght, Nordra, and Pauline Lay. 

So as usual, come for what you expect and get blown away by somebody you’ve never heard before. (Plus the Mukqs track here is kinda techno-y, which is awesome.)

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, did we break the curse of the fourth installment with “Doom Trip IV”? I think the answer is a resounding yes. Plus this tape’s dropping just in time for the summer, if you wanna blast it out your car stereo. (Which would be weird, I think, given the subdued nature of some of these tracks. Not that you’re going anywhere anyway with the COVID, unless you’re in Tennessee or Georgia or some other place where nobody cares whether people live or die.)

Good luck conjuring this already-sold-out nugget from the label! Use your dark magic on Discogs instead, or the black market.

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New Standards Men – I Was a Starship

6.12.20 by Ryan Masteller

We’re not going to have great ensemble music for a while, I reckon. What with self-isolation and social distancing, who’s gonna get together for band practice? Who’s gonna tour a full band around the country? Who’s gonna allow anybody in a studio? It’s all up in the air right now.

So we grasp what we can. Did I say “instant classic”? If not, New Standards Men’s “I Was a Starship” is an instant classic, a loaded t-shirt cannon aimed in the face of a superfan, and once that trigger’s pulled, there’s no amount of lawsuits or settlements that will make things go back to the way they were. In fact, just suggesting that you listen to this is going to probably set me up for multiple lawsuits. (I have no idea why I have lawsuits on the mind lately – I tend to be a sue-r, not a sue-ee [insert “Deliverance” joke here].)

That’s because “I Was a Starship” is road music for a series of fatal car crashes shot by Lost Highway–era David Lynch. It’s stoner metal and prog and the deepest, darkest lounge all smooshed together like auto wreckage in a trash compactor. Imagine Tonstartssbandht listening to a bunch of Bohren, or Explosions in the Sky getting their Sleep on. But all at once. AND WITH NO GALL-DANG VOCALS. What, you’re gonna mess up this mood with some jibber-jabber? I dare you to. I DARE you.

NSM is a quintet this time around, the core members of Drew Bissell and Jeremy Brashaw joined by Personal Archives’ own Bob Bucko Jr., Ike Turner, and Luke Tweedy (no, not THAT Ike Turner – he died in 2007). “I Was a Starship” is three tracks this time around (and forever), each an eleven-plus-minute jam sesh that finds the players in total kraut lockstep as they stretch and evolve ideas. And it’s loud – you can really crank this sucker up! So if you’re looking into your crystal ball and see a future bereft of awesome records from bands (my friend John: “Next year’s records are going to be the worst”), circle back to “I Was a Starship,” and flip 2021 right off (god, I can’t believe I’ve already given up on 2021 too).

Plus, the artwork. You see that octopus? *chef’s kiss* That’s courtesy of Daria Tessler/animalsleepstories.

Did I also mention that ol’ Warren Defever of His Name Is Alive fame mastered this thing at Third Man Pressing, home to human vampire bat Jack white of Edward Scissorhands fame? Now you know.

Edition of 100 out now on Personal Archives!

Max Zuckerman – The Corner Office

5.26.20 by Ryan Masteller

We’re not going anywhere anymore. At least I’m not. I’m staying home. There’s germs out there, and by golly I’m not going to get any of em on me. Luckily, I work from home, so I don’t even have to worry about braving social spaces like a workplace environment – my corner office is literally the office in the corner of my house. No public transit, no elevators, no lunch counters or cocktail hours – all that stuff is FILTHY with the COVID.

Max Zuckerman probably doesn’t have to worry about public transit or lunch counters. He probably has an exclusive, personal elevator to his glass-walled “Corner Office,” one that looks out over Manhattan. Cocktail hours? Forget about it. Everything in his wet bar is imported and sanitized long before it’s in his presence. He doesn’t share any of that, either – that’s his own personal stash. Why sully his presence with other people? That’s just folly in this day and age.

So he whiles away his time presiding over his business empire, and also making some great Steely Dan–inspired soft rock on the side. “The Corner Office” is how it happens, where it happens, why it happens. Truly success makes the man, etc., and Zuckerman oozes success. And not just success, but confidence too – and why wouldn’t he exude cascading showers of self-worth? All this is pumped through the PA, the atrium absorbing “The Corner Office” and ricocheting it at the perfect volume for all to hear. 

And so we’re left to ponder Zuckerman’s worldview, one where the most extravagant things are the norm and where a not-insignificant amount of money – say, $240 – can get blown on a trivial thing rather than on two weeks’ worth of groceries. It’s the penthouse life, and we can only dream of it. That’s what happens when you have Galtta cash.

Now, somebody get me $240 worth of pudding – I need to rub my silk-dinner-jacketed ass in it, just like Max Zuckerman does.

Available right now in an edition of 125 from Galtta.

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Matthew D. Gantt – Diagnostics

5.21.20 by Ryan Masteller

“Patella I GM Expo” ends its 18 seconds at the beginning of Diagnostics with a cymbal crash, a digital exclamation point on the track that seems intended as a “ta-daa!” to the introduction, a curtain call at the beginning of the album instead of at the end of it. It doubles as an announcement, something along the lines of, “If you liked this teaser, you’re going to love what comes after it!” Matthew D. Gantt’s not wrong in feeling proud of his album, even after only 18 seconds. He proves over the rest of Diagnostics that he deserves a little applause already.

The “procession of nested MIDI architectures, clip art serialism, and hypothetical kinetic sculptures suspended in virtual space” spirals out from there, assuming that someone like me is smart enough to get it, that my brain has been sensitized enough to compute the details and get what the heck Gantt’s trying to accomplish here. Good thing I’m up to the challenge. While you may assume prior to listening that Diagnostics is going to be a clinical trek through exhaustive (and exhausting) experimentation, often at a deeply scientific level, you’ll be pleasantly surprised that it is, instead, a diverse and, dare I say, inviting listening experience, in the most Orange Milk–y way possible. Sure it’s got the requisite digital mayhem, percussive hits and plosives ricocheting off in chaotic polyrhythms. But it’s also got heart, it’s got soul, which is something that’s intended to exist in a virtual realm should not necessarily have. Maybe the AI’s becoming self-aware?

Regardless, Gantt’s got an ear for off-kilter melodies (or maybe it’s his programs’ doing), thus removing cold, hard science from the equation. He’s able to produce and inhabit miniature sound-worlds, allowing imagination to soar through the landscapes. That he does this while at the intersection of experimentation and accessibility is no small feat, and proves that Gantt’s on the leading edge of technological sound art. Maybe that’s what happens when you work for Morton Subotnick as a studio assistant (as Gantt did from 2016 to 2018). It’s also me being extremely jealous.

Grip it and rip it from the source!

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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!