New Batch: Hausu Mountain
5.27.15 by Mike Haley

There comes a point when you must realize that you inhabit one world and others inhabit a totally different zone. One with cybernated landscapes and insect-sized drones buzzing about. Where the songs of birds are light years removed from the ‘tweet tweet’ we’re accustomed to, and closer resemble a montage of mechanical cranks and herky jerky twitches. Where the water sparkles like it’s been infused with glitter, but numbs your insides if you drink it. A place juxtaposed by the outlandish and alluring. That place, my friends, is the peak of Hausu Mountain.

For a potato sack full of years HM has been wrecking the crowded field of experimental tape labels. Their bozo artwork is like a Who Framed Roger Rabbit for pill poppers, and the selection of jammers (from Grasshopper to Jerry Paper to Moth Cock to D/A/D) spins the compass needle like a never ending round of Wheel Of Fortune. We spoke with Pat and Vanna, er Doug and Max, for a Laser Focus last year if you want some more background. But I’m here to talk about the presents they’re providing in the present. THE NOW. The latest batch from these windy city warriors.

Along with the Hausu Mountain fellas, Natalie Chami is 1/3 of Good Willsmith. Alone she is TALsounds. “All The Way”, her C42 contribution to the May batch, is a sprawling supply of harmony and exceptional subtlety. For the most part, Chami keeps the focused synth work minimal and sharp. She sends drones gliding down the edge of a straight razor, so thin they don’t even slice. It’s more like a crystallization of sound when they reach their culmination. And in that powdery haze of charm are the distant echos of glorious vocals, midnight massages of keys, and aerial fragments of electronic nudges. No doubt one of the most elegantly eerie tapes of 2015. The artwork for this one is outside of the HM canon, but still baller as h*ck. It was made by Marie Sommers.

“Light and Dark” is the name of the Potions portion of this threesome. The solo project of Chicago’s Tom Owings, Potions takes part in what I (someone very much so uneducated in the ways of “musics”) have been referring to as 16-bit lounge jazz. It’s probably my new favorite genre, with it’s awkwardly booty shakin’ appeal and scintillating use of samplers and drum machines. And Potions sure does a great job at it. Possibly because Owens, the polar opposite of myself, is very much so educated in the musics, having studied jazz guitar at Uni. Rhythms get plopped right in the listeners lap then jiggle like a bowl of Kraft Foods JELL-O dessert on this C40.

Thee most confusing and desultory jammer in the bunch is Piper Spray’s “Krolorog” C49. Getting past the rabbit/unicorn hybrid cover, aka: the thing of nightmares, Piper Spray’s jams are spastic collages. The work of a distressed creature spackling a hole in space/time before whatever is on the other end gets through. In the rush to save it’s home planet, Piper Spray has no time to remove the bugs, bird seed, and brains. It all get’s mixed into the patch. Sort of like a Jackson Pollock painting converted to audio files, with beats added as an epoxy. I fucking dig it, even if it doesn’t want me to.

All three are available now from Hausu Mountain online internet e-store, alone or in a nice bundle.