No one knows what the history is, probably some sort of trade deal or maybe the world threw em a bone, but for whatever reason Australia gets to enter the new year first. The first crack at it! That means they were the first to get the hell out of 2020! Lucky them. That also means that Sydney-based Oxtail Recordings had a head start on 2021 releases! Lucky us.
Oxtail used that inside knowledge of time wisely and fully prepped their 2021 lead off, “Royal Blue” by label bud Rhucle. By my count this is Yuta Kudo’s 4th cassette with them. Having a jump on things must have meant no one needed to rush. So they didn’t. Each limbering moment from “Royal Blue” is the antithesis of haste, sounds flowing with the velocity of a Brita pitcher filling up (If you don’t have experience with a Brita filter just know that they are comically slow). I can’t help to wonder if that Brita analogy was Psyop’d directly into my brain, what with all of the sounds of gently flowing water spilling their way through sizzle and sputter and ambience digesting itself. If, while listening to this, you don’t feel like you’re standing on thin ice, or maybe stained glass, then start the tape over. Turn it up a little bit, and try to get there. If you can’t do it then you quite possibly may not be ready for something so chill. Go do some hot yoga and revisit the situation.
I know I got there. Good on you, Rhucle. You have radicalized another regular human into a brainwashed Soldier of the Ambient.
All nine tracks are very short, especially for washed out sounds like these, but are cohesive as hell and make for a cloudy trip. Leave your body without ever leaving your house, that’s what I always say. C40, edition of 100, from Oxtail.
Okay okay okay, I don’t want to waste anyone’s time! Gonna make this very fast. Almost TOO fast, maybe? You could be thinking “whoa, slow the h*ck down this is TOO fast!!” I don’t care, we gotta get this done.
Strategic Tape Reserve (who you know, or should know) posted the vid STR020-STR042 Release Survey. It includes 8 seconds from each and every title in their bonked out catalog. Look, I can prove it:
See? I was telling the truth. To piggy back on the absurdity I asked STR to submit 8 words on each release. You can find them below, but a warning: We at Tabs Out cannot confirm that each of these is exactly 8 words. If you happen upon one with, for example, 6 or 9 words (heh heh) please contact us IMMEDIATELY as we will need to send STR to cassette jail (aka: they can only release 3″ CDrs for two years). Enjoy!
STR002 (VLK): STR’s second release revisits Shaquille O’Neill’s second release.
STR003 (STR Staff): Wait, but what about STR001? Um… that’s lost.
STR004 (VLK): Last sounds in billboard list just before Y2K.
STR005 (Beauty Product): Cheese-funk done three ways. Retirement community wave.
STR006 (The Modern Door): Ethnographic recordings of traditional musicians from Lower Saxony.
STR007 (VLK): Leckeyan survey of schunkeln, congalines and arrhythmic clapping.
STR008 (Jöns): If Jöns sends you a demo, DON’T respond.
STR009 (Belmont Lacroix): Nothing matters under Mr. Chicken on Rialto Boulevard.
STR010 (Emerging Industries of Wuppertal): Music for North German industry-themed gymnastic spectaculars.
Listen, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you all to “chill out.” You kidding me? There’s a Great Unchilling going on, work to be done, etc. So I wont outright say to you the words “chill out.” Nah, that won’t happen. But maybe I’ll casually slide Weaving’s self-titled, self released cassette tape in your deck. Maybe I’ll hit play. Then perhaps I’ll sorta disappear from the situation like a ninja, something I am certainly capable of doing, as your body enters jelly-mode.
[seconds later]
… Did you even notice I was gone? Are you already under the influence of the chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill??
Weaving is womb-to-tomb zoned on this sucker, and I assume more than pleased to pull a grip of listeners into the occupation. It’s not a salvo of balmy soundscapes, though they do make up a portion of what goes down here. To some of you ‘channel surfing’ will be a reference equally as hazy as the psychedelics on this tape, a tape which channel surfs between atmospheric guitars to Mario Paint bloings and sproings to wee subtle sound manipulations and warbled frequencies. BUT ALWAYS CHILL!! I can’t make that clear enough. #chill
You should grab a lawn chair, give it a once over with bleach wipes, and allow yourself to be in that lawn chair for Weavings work, soaking in a responsible amount of sun. Allow the durable beats that Weaving keeps in rotation to hijack your pulse as radio signals veer and slither. We don’t have time to worry how Candy’s secret mission went (that will make sense about half way through side B) we only have time to chill. Then it’s back to UNCHILLING, comrades.
Besides a very rude request to PLAY AT MAX VOLUME (I don’t even know who this Max Volume is) Weaving’s s/t tape is a good-time-smash-hit, baby. Pick it up!
I’m not sure how to pronounce Haord. My instincts tell me to go with /hôrd/, like hoarder, or a better comparison: like Hoarders. I don’t want to pile on the poor folks that appear on that reality show, they are honestly going through dark struggles and need help, but in addition to the possible pronunciation relationship, both Haord and Hoarders share a passion for some twisted-ass anxious damage. With one it’s hazardous stacks of empty Meow Mix bags and broken VCR’s and jugs for peeing in. With the other it’s the audible equivalent.
So when I heard that Haord was up from their year-long nap with some new releases I was like “cool!” This label’s discography can tie the listener in knots. Libythth (I don’t know how to say that either but I think it’s like a labyrinth except scarier) is participating in that tradition with “A Serious Glompotch.”
Seth Cooper (hey, I CAN pronounce that! Look at me!) is the person twisting up the mutant pretzels here, and has been for a reported 25 years. The tunes on Glompotch are loopy, goopy, and not easy to predict. Cooper’s synths are a skittish group that act on pure impulse. They belch up knee jerk giddiness before looking around and wondering “where they h*ck are we??” Lost in a libythth (a scary labyrinth most likely home to goblins) with moldy guitars and candy-stained drum kits, the entire gang makes the best of this Sid-and-Marty-Krofftian fantasyscape. No, actually, they thrive in it. Personally, I would panic in this environment. We are in a zone that is too surreal for Hoarders, too Haord for reality. Cooper apparently has the map to this place.
Welcome Haord to 2020, and transport yourself to whatever year Libythth resides, by purchasing this C50 pro dubbed high bias cassettes (blue) edition of 100.
It’s 4/20, baby! The day Jerry Garcia invented the joint (I think?). To celebrate we have our 5th annual TAPE LABEL or WEED STRAIN quiz! All ya gotta do is decide if the names presented before you belong to cassette labels or weed strains. Duh. Go!
