10.14.19 by Ryan Masteller

Now why wasn’t anybody doing this in Allentown when I lived there? Granted this was a while ago. We don’t need to go into the details, but I haven’t lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where Endangered Species Tapes is headquartered, since I was still in some form of grade school. John Terlesky was a god to us. Still kind of is.

But we didn’t have these tape labels, these incredible purveyors of experimentation, these vendors of vast sound artifacts. We had a void in our lives, and that void can now be filled with … more void? Well, we leap into it anyway, with the soundtracks to that expanse of whatever flowing through our tape decks, our headphones, our PAs, our hold musics. We have Endangered Species Tapes to thank for that, an unusual beacon among the sagging and creaking populace of eastern PA. 

To quote someone much smarter than me: too weird to live, too rare to die. It is there, and it is something to behold.

NGC 4414 / THOMAS WINGATE – FIVE SONGS

So fun fact, my family (not me) moved from Allentown to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which is where “Five Songs” was recorded in April 2019 (although the j-card says April 2009, so – temporal anomaly?). Might be a temporal anomaly. Here me out. Matthew Plunkett plays keyboard, and Thomas Wingate plays guitar and bass, and together they swirl galaxies with their celestial playing, and what’s at the center of a galaxy? Black hole. Boom: temporal anomaly. Seriously, though, Plunkett and Wingate make music that make you feel very, very small in relation to the unfathomable size and distance of the entire universe. Do we know if the universe has expanded enough that there’s also a ton out there we can’t even see, like light is too far away for it to even reach us anymore? I’m going to have to look that up, but “Five Songs” – a mere five songs! – has me dropping all pretense of what “number” even means and letting my body and mind exist in some space in some fragment of existence while matter churns around me for light years in all directions. “Five Songs” or infinite songs? Put it on repeat and find out.

CLOUD DWELLER – Apocryphal

Hey, why does it have to be “cultural divisiveness” all the time, huh? Cloud Dweller asks the same question, as ice melts and peepers peep. I’m pretty tired of it. I like the idea of a “peaceful New England winter” myself, thanks for bringing it to my attention. There’s nothing quite like the utter solitude of rural Massachusetts in the dead of winter – sure, it’s cold and dry and desolate, but it’s also invigorating, and it’s something that everyone can agree on that they’re all in together. Cloud Dweller merges field recordings and synthesizers in a mournful wail toward the frigid north, harnessing the sharp spikes of low temperatures and longing for common understanding. By the time “Solace” rolls around to end the tape, you’re there, you feel it, whether it’s the vacancy its left now that it no longer exists within you or the final moments of toil and turmoil that turn into the genuine article. Regardless, the peace is deep – let’s hope it’s not fleeting.