New Batch – Lillerne Tapes
9.4.15 by Ian Franklin

We over at here at Tabs Out know what you like. You like the raw and the experimental; the challenging and the contemplative. The perennial and all-out awesome. We hear you. Well, Lillerne Tapes knows what you like too and lemme tell you, they just dropped a new batch of varied experimental sounds crossing a broad range from lo-fi art pop to semi-autonomous modular synth explorations to sprawling and introspective ambient universes. There’s a little bit for everyone here so let’s jump in and take a look.

LL67: Wage, the duo of Daniel Luedtke and Ana Raba, throw down four tight jams of angular, deceptively catchy synth pop.  Using a small instrument setup of a few synths, drums, and vocals Wage really pushes the limits with their songwriting approach. The third track, “Holy Light”, starts off with a fluttery low-oscillation before picking up intensity with a driving bass drum and squealing synth lines converging halfway through in a menacing and abrasive heaviness. The album opener, “Neutral”, pins angular drumming with blasts of fuzzy synth tones around the edges of the beat. A little bit Black Sabbath at times, little bit Genesis, little bit Jefferson Airplane, little bit 10,000 Maniacs, and so much more; these songs retain a sense of grounded exploration that most lo-fi pop tries to retain but falls just short of. Without dissolving into strange esotericism the duo calls forth an immediately recognizable and distinct sound maintaining a sincerity that’s undeniably attractive. Edition of 50 home-dubbed Type II’s with some killer screen printed J cards from Daniel.

LL68: Gora Sou’s “Modular Environments For Home Listening Vol. 1” is a largely unmanned journey. From the artist, “The Music on this cassette consists of one-shot recordings of a Modular Synthesizer System. It was patched to create and play on its own, with little or no human interaction. The recordings were edited down and sequenced into two programs for continuous play. The idea was to leave every aspect of the musical creation solely to the machine, resulting in ambient textures to contemplate everyday activities.” The cover image shows the system patched up accompanied by various candles and relics and metaphysical ephemera I can only assume helps get the machine in the creative mood. Drifting in on a slow creep, hazy washes of filter-swept synth cascade through the growing molten bubbles of arpeggiated tonal bloom. Tripping over delicately plucked synth strings, passages fall and rise gleaming with resonant pops and echoed footsteps. An elemental theme running throughout, if there is one at all, is that of rhythmic dynamics: the slowing down and speeding up of sequences and triggered events; of the mind’s perception of time and space. The machine moves in defined ways but through the patterns of complex maneuvers, conjuring scenes from the electronic depths and spread into our consciousness through voltage control. Edition of 50 home-dubbed Type II cassettes.

LL69: Like the overlain image across the cover of Body lvl’s “Petri”, the sounds within mix together the same interplay of dissonant themes into a dance of complimentary forces. Breathy synth tones drift through open stretches, mutating and transforming shape along the way. A couple of the longer tracks like the second track “Baudine” and the 14 min. closer “Panama Disease” have their own microcosms all together: mixing major and minor tones, extended transitions, and with compositional elements that hint at small universes within. The extending mood is that of introspection through outward transcendence; to see within by seeing throughout. This is captured well on the third track “Cavendish” which begins with a slowly pulsating synth repetition that comes to an almost standstill before growing bolder with layers of gain and slightly distorted tones building up the framework before ultimately dissolving into a pool of digital resonance. This is a wonderfully introspective album which demands repeated listening for full potency.

The edition size of that one, like the others in the batch, is 50 copies. Which means you should hop to it. Grip all three from Lillerne’s Bandcamp.