Tab Out | New Batch – Spring Break Tapes!

New Batch – Spring Break Tapes!
2.22.17 by Scott Scholz

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Spring Break Tapes! proprietor Joe McKay had a busy 2016 that included the launch of the incredible Dinzu Artefacts label, an experimental/sound-art focused imprint with a thoughtful, unified art/layout design scheme. But fear not, Spring Break fans: SBT shows no signs of slowing down, either, with a recent pair of jams that may be the best yet on the label.

 

Hainbach – The Evening Hopefuls
Berlin-based composer Stefan Paul Goetsch’s electronics side project Hainbach takes a fascinating turn with “Evening Hopefuls.” Previous Hainbach jams have mostly incorporated beats, though 2015’s “Ashes” heads into more ambient pastures. While these pieces still ebb and flow between layers of loops, the source material is generated from rehearsal recordings of Goetsch’s debut orchestral composition, a long piece intended to be performed in sync with a showing of Wiene’s silent film classic, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” Many composers record ongoing orchestral rehearsals if possible, as they’re invaluable for helping to improve scores during the rehearsal process, but Goetsch took his rehearsal tapes to a whole new level, using his downtime between rehearsals to create Hainbach-styled arrangements of the material.

The result is an incomparable ambient album, with mesmerizing, gentle layers of sound. While very small fragments of sound are deployed to create these soundscapes, the timbral richness of its orchestral origins comes through with a variety of sounds one doesn’t hear in albums made of modular sounds and field recordings. Worlds collide, and charmingly so.

 

Bus Gas – Live On Leave Us
Nebraska ensemble Bus Gas returns for their second tape on Spring Break, and fourth overall. Past recordings have found these gentlemen processing their drone-oriented improvisations into complex tapestries that sound highly composed, but this outing finds them tackling a pair of composed pieces instead. Recorded live at O’Leavers Pub in Omaha, Nebraska, richly orchestrated layers of sound turn this trio lineup into a massive force of drone, and for guitar tone aficionados, you’ll find some of the most satisfying tube-fueled melodic lines of the Obama-era outlining the mysterious architecture of these pieces.

2014’s “Snake Hymns” highlighted shorter pieces that often took on a more Faust-ian sound-collage delirium, but the alternating delicacy and weight of these new jams takes a classical kind of solemnity, like Sclesi’s harmonic-based minimalism hefted into Ligeti-esque sound masses. There is a deep current of melancholy woven into this music, but to make sure you don’t turn into a ball of ennui sobbing in a corner, Bus Gas helpfully provides a little brevity in the form of the album title itself, a play on “Live at O’Leavers.” This performance marked a sort of geographical split-up of the project, but considering how each of their tapes has reached new heights of beauty and darkness, let’s hope they find a way to continue working together regardless of distance.

It should be mentioned that Spring Break has really stepped up their already killer j-card game on this new batch as well: both tapes feature intricate zillion-panel artwork, printed on both sides, that provide a lot of visual interest while listening. The metallic inks on the Hainbach tape really pop, and the enigmatic artwork for Bus Gas fits perfectly with the music. With only 100 copies of each in the wild, you’d best step up to Spring Break Tapes in a jiffy.

Tabs Out | Jake Tobin – Sorta Upset!

Jake Tobin – Sorta Upset!
9.12.16 by Scott Scholz

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Lately it seems like the most interesting kinds of new musical activities are leaning toward the softer side of leisure: relaxing synth jams, sustained, meditative drones, vaporwiffled chillwaves of stay-in-tonight. This totally makes sense. We all need to nurture some calm and immersion and consideration in an increasingly-frantic world. But truth be told, I’m a bit of an anxious person by nature, and some nervous tension is the kind of fuel that gets me through the day. I’m learning to relax, and it feels pretty good, but sometimes it’s like Noah Creshevsky observed in his essay for Arcana II, “Nothing is saved when we save a note.”

It’s rare but incredibly exhilarating to hear an album that sounds kind of like the weirdness perpetually bouncing around in my own head, and Jake Tobin’s latest opus, “Sorta Upset!,” stokes every synapse in my skull and fires up a few more. While this tape barely clears 15 minutes of running time, it’s a concentrated quarter-hour with a career’s worth of phenomenal ideas. And for as complex and layered as it can get, it’s somehow catchy as hell, too. You will totally find yourself humming along with this music, and humming more acrobatically than ever before.

There are 13 miniatures within “Sorta Upset,” many of which clock in at less than a minute, but the whole thing flows together incredibly as a suite. Tobin demonstrates that he’s a killer multi-instrumentalist, too, overdubbing perfectly-executed guitars and keys and saxes that feel as unbelievable as they are inevitable. Though the occasional vocal parts are a bit hard to make out, topics covered balance humor with genuine humility, from burning out on office work to the neurosis of hovering at the mailbox. It turns out that portraying simple things in complex ways is just as valid and sometimes a lot more fun than the opposite.

The whole Haord discography totally rips, but the hard-earned effortlessness of “Sorta Upset” feels like an ideal manifestation of the many influences shared among a new batch of artists both on Haord and Tobin’s own label, Truly Bald. This whole new scene is like a rad update of weirdo Oughts electropop acts like the Zom Zoms or Yip Yip, but drenched in the eccentricities of prog and the assertive energy of no-wave. What a time to be alive. “Sorta Upset” is almost gone, but you can still snag one at the Haord Bandcamp if you put a motor on it.

Tabs Out | New Batch – Notice Recordings

New Batch – Notice Recordings
9.9.16 by Scott Scholz

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Notice Recordings, currently a Portland-based operation, has been dropping excellent drones, textures, and sound art for a lucky seven years so far, featuring artists like Coppice, Haptic, Jon Mueller, and Rafael Toral. Their latest batch features a pair of heavy tapes from our neighbors to the North that are well worth your analog attention.

Chris Strickland – Excruciating Circumstances in the Kingdom of Ends

Montreal sound artist Chris Strickland opens this batch with a trio of deep listening experiences. Opener “Excruciating Circumstances” launches into a sort of upper-mids focused electroacoustic prelude, with excellent violin work by Guido del Fabbro that serves to ground some otherwise otherworldly drones made from, y’know, the usual “acoustically filtered broadband noise.” From there, strings become a dominant texture, focusing mostly on higher-range harmonics played senza vibrato, and Strickland carefully weaves sine waves of similar frequency around these sustained pitches. Short movements continue to unfold, balancing strings and electronics in carefully-measured proportions that generally sustain a particular dynamic within their part of the timeline. Ultimately, though, the passages with high-freq addition tones give me a little fatigue after sustained listening.

“A Little White Space” is an excellent companion piece that’s much more full-frequency. Field recordings create ambient contexts for similar high-freq sine wave/instrument duets, and the subtle addition of those textures really opens up the perceived space that this piece occupies. Solomiya Moroz’s flute replaces the violin here, playing with a similar non-vibrato approach that focuses instead on resonance and overtones. The piece evolves slowly, but it feels like it’s traveling in a relatively specific direction that’s a delight to follow on headphones.

The B-side captures a single longer set entitled “Kingdom of Ends.” This piece has a more continuous-feeling structure, and the environmental recordings that lurk within its folds dissolve into the ambient sounds of the room where this performance was captured. del Fabbro returns here on violin with an even subtler approach, blending seamlessly into this excellent lowercase/EAI kind of experience.

Nick Storring – Exaptations

Composer/multi-instrumentalist Nick Storring’s Exaptations matches a pair of deeply layered pieces whose focus on particulars of texture and space expand on some of the less tonally-focused moments on his excellent 2014 “Endless Conjecture” tape for Orange Milk. “Field Lines,” a composition created for an Yvonne Ng dance piece called “Magnetic Fields” provides a beautiful series of dreamy soundscapes, heavy on pitched percussion. As this piece drifts between sections, sounding at times like some of the lower-density sections of Partch compositions, the pauses themselves take on a palpable weight, sustaining the unresolved tensions of each movement. While some sections coalesce around stable rhythmic pulses, percussion often functions more as punctuation in the midst of cautiously-evolving textures and drones. The last third takes on more of a melodic/harmonic role, with pianistic flourishes and string crescendos, before settling back into the surreal fabric of earlier sections. It’s a surreal listening experience that’s surprisingly delicate considering the complexity of layers behind its construction.

“Yield Criteria” occupies the B-side of this release, and it cultivates a related kind of ambient, texturally-oriented voyage. Though synths aren’t listed among the instruments used, many sections deploy layered drones that recall cinematic synth pads sonically. Other passages are almost purely focused on texture after further processing, recapturing sounds transformed in unusual spaces and through a battery of transformative speakers and mics. On the whole, this piece stays closer to a “traditional” electroacoustic vibe, and it’s a little colder and harsher than “Field Lines.” Considered together, they form a thoughtfully-contrasted pair, and since both have found life outside of pure music-for-listening (“Yield Criteria” passages are featured in Eva Kolcze’s film “All That Is Solid”), the album title speaks beautifully to the idea of musical traits finding new kinds of significance in extramusical environments. It would be a pleasure to experience this music in its ballet/film contexts, but it stands on its own perfectly well, too.

Like previous cassettes on Notice Recordings, both of these tapes feature gorgeous letterpress j-cards on heavy cardstock made by Fitzgerald Letterpress in New Orleans. Their editions of 100 usually don’t last long, so snag ‘em while you can via Bandcamp.

Tabs Out | Pierrot Lunaire – Dog Chakra

Pierrot Lunaire – Dog Chakra
8.5.16 by Scott Scholz

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“My theory is that when it comes to important subjects, there are only two ways a person can answer. Which way they chose, tells you who that person is. For instance, there are only two kinds of people in the world, Beatles people and Elvis people. Now Beatles people can like Elvis and Elvis people can like the Beatles, but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice. And that choice tells you who you are.” – Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction

When I was a little squirtle, I was totally an Elvis person—it wasn’t about musical styles so much as the notion of solo artists versus bands. The psychic weight of responsibility on solo artists seemed so much more interesting to follow, y’know? I still find myself more attracted to folks who strike out on their own musical path, and for the last five years, Pierrot Lunaire has been my Elvis.

I’m super pumped and a little bummed out about the arrival of “Dog Chakra” on Opal Tapes: another tape is great news as a huge fan of Pierrot Lunaire, but it’s bittersweet to know that this is the end of the line. Like the project’s namesake protagonist in Giraud’s poems, Pierrot’s mission has neared its end, and the entheogenic ritual circle must be closed with his role as stand-in poète maudit, the poet iconoclast who leaves us too soon. Another 45 minutes, and we’re on our own.

Taken as a whole, previous Pierrot Lunaire jams on labels like Sic Sic, Hooker Vision, and Tranquility Tapes always felt a little like pieces of a larger puzzle, each made of collaged freakouts as alien as they were deliberate. While it might be possible to “solve” this wild ride now that we have the final puzzle piece, let’s have a little fun with it instead.

PL’s recordings have always combined bits of synth, saxophone and found sounds, and “Dog Chakra” immediately drops us into this weird-but-familiar world. Opener Elegy for a Plastic Bag is heavy on manipulated thrift store tapes, which turn into a kind of dark ecclesiastical memory foam in the hands of Mr. Denizio, a bit of funeral music for the end of the project. Like previous recordings, the formal structure is a sort of “block form,” with abrupt and spatially jarring transitions between ideas.

Looped and layered saxophones play a major role again on most of these pieces, and Denizio’s unique approach to horn playing is one of my favorite things about Pierrot Lunaire. Combining the wild flurries of folks like Arthur Doyle, the hermetic weirdness of Jandek, and an all-in onslaught of psychedelic delays and overdrive, “Dog Chakra” takes horns into refreshingly non-jazz territories. The psych-infused spatial distortions of Transient Surroundings (Too Much LSD), the harsh/subdued contrasting sections of A Conversation with the Flowers in My Kitchen, and the incredibly distorted solo sax passage in Pathetic Oasis that almost morphs into guitar feedback mimicry are among the best sax moments in the Pierrot Lunaire discography.

One subtle deviation found in “Dog Chakra” is that percussion is more prominent in this final chapter, including some lowercase pots & pans and a tabla loop in A Conversation, as well as significant portions of the final two pieces. Stimulus Delta makes for a fine farewell piece: clanging percussion takes focus in the foreground while aquatic and interstellar drones murmur below. Looped, manipulated voices eventually haunt the joint before an abrupt switch to some minimal synth lines that walk us into the final moonlight. RIP, Pierrot Lunaire.

Whether you’ve been into PL for a while, or this is your first taste, “Dog Chakra” is a great place to jump in. Snag one while you still can from Opal Tapes.

Tabs Out | Paperbark – Forgotten Narratives

Paperbark – Forgotten Narratives
7.28.16 by Scott Scholz

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We’re in a golden age of killer synth jammers right now, with folks like Kyle Landstra, Norm Chambers, Joe Bastardo, Daryl Groetsch and many more combining melodic and textural synth work into provocative and introspective soundscapes. It can be a daunting task to keep up with the embarrassment of riches all these folks are dropping, and there are some great newcomers worth hearing as well. Among those, “Forgotten Narratives,” the recorded debut of Jon Mulville’s Paperbark project, has spent a lot of time in my decks over the last few months.

Conceptually, Paperbark embodies a measure of disappointment with the easy, cheap entertainment that defines modern life. “Forgotten Narratives” demands a more mature relationship with its listeners, with an emphasis on layers of texture that frequently dominate more immediate melodic/harmonic considerations. Mulville puts in his fair share of effort to forge these sounds, working with homemade modular units toward a palette of unique, gritty timbres that help to actualize a very personal approach, like the distinct tones of fellow DIY synthesist Günter Schlienz. A little extra effort as a listener is richly rewarded, as these song-length pieces often feel much more expansive than their modest running times.

Where most folks tend to emphasize either melodic or atmospheric development in their work, “Forgotten Narratives” explores strategies to keep both in balance. Several pieces here, like “Letter as Symbols” and the title track, feature some harsher sounds that remain anchored in tonality, while others like “Past the Wooden Fence” and “Tree Verb” are dominated by rich melodic sweeps that are tailed subtly with squarewave industrial percussion. While most of the melodic fragments on this tape are built from drones and pads that gradually drift into one another, this is a great album for deep vertical listening, with some fascinating melodic relationships between different synths cloistered several octaves apart. With lots of heavy stereo panning, it’s also great on its horizontal axis with headphones.

Denver’s Black Box Tapes has released Paperbark’s freshman outing in an edition of 100, and you can still snag a copy at the Paperbark Bandcamp.

Tabs Out | New Batch – Never Anything

New Batch – Never Anything
7.25.16 by Scott Scholz

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Fledgling cassette label Never Anything Records may be less than a year old, but this Portland, OR and Chicago co-located label founded by Jeff Lane (Tereshkova), Tyler King, and Clay Mahn (Lustana) has already established a curatorial momentum you’d expect from veteran pressure-pad Pilgrims. A few of my favorite tapes of the last year from folks like Amulets, More Eaze, and Bret Schneider have passed through the hallowed duplicators of Never Anything, and their new batch of four releases (including 2 double-cassettes!) lays down a serious gauntlet in terms of both quality and quantity, Here’s a rundown of this killer quartet:

Mortuus Auris & the Black Hand – The Journal of a Disappointed Man
The latest in a long run of great releases on labels like Stunned and Hyle Tapes, Peter Taylor’s work as Mortuus Auris continues to reach into a unique pocket between outer-space and chamber music vibes. There is a lot of piano on this tape, an instrument that rarely gets its due in experimental circles nowadays. Simple piano motifs shift between solo and chamber music textures, manipulated with delay pedals and looped fragments. On the whole, this is a very tonal and approachable set of pieces, rich with melancholy, but the centerpiece of the album is the longer and more abstracted “Temporal Anomalies of the Mind,” whose cosmic excursions feel like bits of satellite transmissions coalescing into new forms.

Charles Barabé – Cicatrices
Barabé’s solo work is divided into several different approaches that have each been progressing in their own series, including Stigmates and Confessions. With the release of Cicatrices, we get the latest in another series, expanding on the work found on last year’s Cicatrice, Scar, Eclair on 2:00AM Tapes. And what an expansion it is, both in length and depth. At 110 minutes spread across 2 cassettes, the intense integration of composed and repurposed sounds in Cicatrices has the epic scope and narrative strength of a feature film rendered entirely in audio.

Alternately playful, funny, serious, and foreboding, Barabé unites deadly serious and campy musical traditions in a strikingly original series of “parts” divided by synthesized speech pronouncements. Along with its “Stigmates” and “Confessions” companions, there is a Catholic literary reference unfolding across this body of work (“cicatrice” appears in Latin New Testament texts in reference to the post-resurrection scars on Christ), but it seems more general than particular, pointing toward the imposing foundations of Western culture. These pieces employ a truly incredible range of Western musical traditions, adopting idiomatic passages for their familiarity at first glance, but ultimately using them as calibration points for assertive journeys into new and unfamiliar territory. A serious contender for album of the year.

Peter Kris – Labrador
As half of the impossibly prolific German Army, Peter Kris has launched a series of solo albums over the last year. If you’re into German Army, you definitely want to spend some time with Peter Kris, as these guitar-centric and warmer albums are excellent companions to the GeAr discography. But like many of German Army’s 2016 jams, Labrador finds Peter Kris expanding his usual 2- or 3-minute-per-piece approach into longer pieces and new approaches to arrangement.

As a lengthy double-cassette release, Labrador feels like the manifesto to a fully-realized Peter Kris approach, with some tunes that are more ominous and industrial than redemptive. There is a sense of distance in this album that’s new to the PK sound, lending the music a more universal magnetism. While guitars remain the dominant voice of this project, longer pieces like “Trawl” and “Full Circle” are instead constructed from drones and field recordings of unknown provenance. These are balanced with some of the most melodic guitar writing on any Kris albums to date on tunes like “Visiting” and “Evening Grey,” making for a perfectly balanced and immersive exploration of poverty-stricken margins of the Inland Empire and beyond.

Lustana – Pt. II
Rounding out this summer batch, Never Anything’s own co-founder Lustana returns for a second tape on NA. It’s a nice way to round out the work of the label so far as well, since Pt. I was the first NA release last fall. This is the only album of this batch with an emphasis on relatively traditional song-with-vocals writing, and it perfectly captures the long shadows of humid late summer atmospheres. Some tunes employ full band arrangements, like the hazy guitars and gate reverb-laden vocals of “Anywhere But Here” or “Strawberry” that evoke classic 60s vibes with a little twist from more contemporary synth sequencing. The B-side introduces some serious midtempo soul, with the funky basslines of “Swimming Pools” and shimmering organs of “Dance Away.” It’s a great tape to put on for a gentle landing after the long, wild ride of this batch.

Never Anything has kept their consistent design aesthetic going with this batch, featuring simple one-color j-cards with minimal designs printed in black, and simple white tapes with stamped labels. The double cassettes pit the vertical against the horizontal, with the Barabé in a double-height Norelco box, and the Peter Kris in a butterfly case. Most of these are small editions of 50, so don’t delay: hit up Never Anything on Bandcamp.

Tabs Out | Comfort Food – Waffle Frolic

Comfort Food – Waffle Frolic
3.30.16 by Scott Scholz

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Chicago’s Comfort Food has been laying down their heavy jazz/rock/tribal/math jams for a few years now, but their latest tape for Already Dead, “Waffle Frolic,” is a whole new party power-up for your ears. Their previous tape, “Dr. Faizan’s Feel-Good Brain Pills,” displayed an admirable kind of gutbucket rock/jazz blend with some serious swagger in tunes like “Dem Grapes,” but look: ain’t no Frolic like a Waffle Frolic, ‘cause a Waffle Frolic don’t stop.

“Waffle Frolic” most closely reminds me of the first pair of Sex Mob albums, or Joey Baron’s “Raised Pleasure Dot,” mega-fun jams from the 90’s that found some seriously next-level players laying back, focusing on sloppy-but-sexy grooves and the occasional “bad note contest,” rediscovering the pleasures of jagged edges, weird forms, and other perfect imperfections. Those are some of my all time favorite albums for their total commitment to fun within a genre that was increasingly self-serious. But Sex Mob and Barondown were all-live lineups that could go wherever the music took them. What makes Comfort Food especially remarkable in comparison is their existence as a simple duo, with Daniel Wolff layering his work on bass, trumpet and vocals with clever looping strategies, while Jake Marshall finds the perfect beats to keep building these jams toward the sky. Where most loop-based music can’t help but feel a little subdued in terms of groove, these two have unlocked the mystery to using loops while still making music that feels confident and unrestrained.

My favorite tune here is opener “They Got Minivans,” a funky jazz riff piece with the perfect buildup of trumpet and bass grooves that keeps nudging toward an out-of-control frenzy, tempered by the perfect amount of compositional patience. But there are more rock/tribal-fueled pieces like “The Happy Good-Time Fun Situation” or “Tear Down Those Silos” on the B side that are just as satisfying in their rituals of abandon and release. And this is also a beautifully recorded album that alternates between reverb spaces and in-your-face dry mixes with thoughtful attention to compositional density. This is one of those “gateway” tapes perfect for getting your less-adventurous friends further into weirdo jams, with plenty of tight rhythms and riffs to hang onto while you slide toward bizarre vocals and samples and ecstatic noise.

Don’t be alarmed by that dried syrup coagulated on your chin when you return to your senses the next morning. These are grooves worth leaving in your beard for a while, even if you can’t grow a beard. Pick ‘em up from Already Dead while you still can.

Tabs Out | New Batch – Inner Islands

New Batch – Inner Islands
3.14.16 by Scott Scholz

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Generally I’m all about the most note-dense, intense, wild musical excursions I can get my ears on. Composed or improvised, bring on the multiple layers, the contrapuntal races across time, the metrically modulating tempi in odd time signatures: if it’s headache-inducing, I’ll gladly suffer for the privilege of adventure.

But I’ve been mighty stressed in recent months, and sometimes the music I (think I) want isn’t the music I really need. In the last year, I’ve found myself turning regularly to the healing companionship evident in every curatorial move made by Oakland’s gently brilliant Inner Islands, and their latest pair of tapes will guide your next meditation toward a soft and supportive landing.

Channelers is the solo project of Inner Islands label guru Sean Conrad. The followup to last year’s excellent “They Are Cloaked in Stars and Rivers,” his “Essex” brings synth-driven pieces with just the right touch of acoustic instruments and field recordings to create balanced, immersive experiences. Opening with gentle ostinato figures and drifting synth pads, the album begins to take full shape around “Safe Space,” with guitars drenched in reverb and delay while insistent synth rhythms propel the piece. This piece is more rhythmic than most here, but not to the extent that you’ll fall out of the blissful state you’ve been nudged into: just a little definition to further shape your serenity.

The B-side opens with some nicely hazed banjo work amid synth drones, but the final piece is the real stunner here. “Longing to Swim in the Realm of My Childhood Dream” makes field recordings the foundation for evolving, breathing synth work. True to the childhood dream concept, many of these sounds morph and reverse on themselves, creating a restful yet surreal space. A great end to a serene pleasure of an album.

A kinder gentler iteration of Braeyden Jae, softest gives us six “wishes” over two sides. That’s twice as many wishes as the average genie, folks. And what gorgeous wishes they are—where Channelers often feels oceanic, softest evokes those ozone-heavy moments right after a good spring downpour. These pieces progress carefully, initially feeling a little static but gently evolving as they dry off in the sun. On the A side, the first three wishes feature electric guitar figures and vaguely symphonic synths drifting in and out of the mix. Melodies coalesce out of effervescent pads, with guitar strums at the perfect points of emphasis.

The B side introduces simple but very effective percussion. In “wish 4,” a simple kick drum pushes swirling arpeggios ever forward. The repetition here feels like a mantra with just a hint of vaporwave, like a phrase snipped from a soft rock prechorus as it repeats and mutates into something transcendent. Field recordings bubble in the mists of “wish 5,” and “wish 6” hosts subtle percussion under long, luxurious pads, while a keyboard melody asserts itself toward the end of the album.

I know it’s rough out there, but be sure to add “pick up the latest batch from Inner Islands” to your to-do list, and your tensions will be melting away soon enough.

Tabs Out | Cintas Chromo’s Audio Encyclopedia Of Weird Spain

Cintas Chromo’s Audio Encyclopedia Of Weird Spain
1.19.16 by Scott Scholz

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Your average modern American might come up with Pablo Picasso or trendy tapas restaurants if pressed for examples of cool stuff from Spain, but the underground music scene going down from Valencia to Barcelona right now is among the most vibrant in the world. Wild synth zoners, updates to early industrial soundscapes, and impactful harsh noise are all well represented in the catalogs of killer labels like Cønjuntø Vacíø, Verlag System, and Atrocious Symphonies.

But if you’re just getting into this scene, there is no better introduction than the “Enciclopedia Chromo” series from new cassette label Cintas Chromo. Like succinct audio-encyclopedia entries, this series of mostly C20 tapes gives international listeners a taste of the range of deep jams coming from contemporary Spain, the perfect starting point for figuring out which artists you want to dig into some more. Already up to five “entries” in just a few months, this series is off to a fine start, with more excellent releases in the works. Featuring black & white cover designs with matching spines, these will eventually make for an attractive-looking travelogue series that’ll be easy to locate for quick reference on your shelves, too.

Volume 1 in the series features solo work from Julio Tornero, a member of the vibrant Polígono Hindú Astral. These brief jams are a great start to the series, uniting a diverse palette of cosmic synths, slightly abrasive industrial overtones, and percussion sequences somewhere between Cabaret Voltaire and EDM.

Noisegg, a solo project of Huevo, the bassist for Cementerio and Derrota, is featured on volume 2. This music veers between industrial and harsh noise textures, bookended by opening/closing tunes that have persistent modular melodies that feel like a doom/sludge variation on Perturbator.

The lone C40 in the series so far, Volume 3 is from Sentionaut, an imaginative synth-slinger who also plays in Dekatron III. These are killer krautrock-infused jams, featuring thoughtfully layered synths, uptempo percussion, and a great melodic sensibility. If you’re into latter-day Tangerine Dream or great synth albums from labels like Field Hymns, you’ll find a lot to love with Sentionaut.

On Volume 4, you’ll find solo music from the head of the Atrocious Symphonies label performing as Malacoda. These short pieces capture pensive, dark atmospheres, veering from cinematic vistas to more intimate, minimalist industrial vibes. Processed vocal work plays a major role in many of these pieces as well.

The latest in the series, Volume 5 features Noir Noir, whose black metal and psychedelic overtones make this tape the most punishing 20 minutes of the series so far. While these pieces still fall generally in the “synth zoner” spectrum, they’re more like journeys into a blackened underworld than the open skies.

All of these tapes are still available, making this the perfect time to get into the Enciclopedia Chromo series. Plus Ultra!

Tabs Out | Bastian Void / Kyle Landstra – split

Bastian Void / Kyle Landstra – split
1.15.16 by Scott Scholz

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Two of the best synth zoners to ring out a stellar 2015, Kyle Landstra and Joe Bastardo’s Bastian Void take complementary yet opposite approaches to modular mayhem. Both artists bring recent recordings of pieces workshopped over summer gigs to this split C45 on Chicago’s Lillerne Tapes, gifting us with a rare tape that explores both inner and outer space.

On the A-side, Bastian Void’s “Acorn Construction” is a perpetual motion machine, blasting off with a persistent arpeggiator section into a field of cosmic dust. Several other arpreggiator-dominated passages morph into one another, nicely balancing timbres from the three major food groups of kosmische: square, saw, and sine waves. Even when the piece eventually settles into swelling pads and fading drones toward its end, a sense of motion and vertigo remains. This side is a great companion for interstate (or interstellar) travel.

When you arrive at your destination, though, it might be time to turn within, and Kyle Landstra is ready to light up your limbic system with his “Seeking Refuge in Emptiness” on the B-side. Like Bastian Void, Landstra is no stranger to the joys of the arpeggiator, but here he focuses instead on slowly shifting pads and drones. A fine coda to his excellent “Unshared Properties” quadruple tape on Sacred Phrases just a few months earlier, this feels like a reverent embrace of stillness, made of compressed time and gentle atmospheres. From its midpoint onward, “Seeking Refuge” starts to incorporate rhythmic, arpeggiated figures, but somehow they feel more circular than linear, embracing the listener from a central position instead of defining a path of movement.

Bastardo laid down some killer infinite-regression artwork that’s just perfect for this split, and he printed up these j-cards all classy and gorgeous, too, with fine line work and vintage, muted colors. There’s a rad little card inside, too, where you can familiarize yourself with these fine fellows’ feline companions. These babies are almost gone, but you can still snag one of the last copies over at the Lillerne Bandcamp. Happy travels!