7.24.19 by Ryan Masteller

This here “alto saxophone/electronics/modular synthesizer/mixer” shindig from Ryan Wade Ruehlen, “Time Agnosia,” was recorded in Denver and Boulder, Colorado, in March 2019. In July 2019, I was rushed to the emergency room in Denver, removed from my connecting flight because I was having difficulty breathing after sprinting fifteen gates (and fast-walking the remaining seventeen) to make sure I got on the stupid plane to begin with. (OK, I so it ended up being more of a gentle ambulance ride filled with pleasant conversation with the paramedic and me being diagnosed as a sea-leveler, but why ruin a good story?) 

With shimmers bursting from the edge of my vision, I was in the appropriate frame of mind to appreciate “Time Agnosia.” “Science fiction,” mentions the Shadowtrash Tape Group site as a plausible categorical description. “Topographical disorientation.” Got me there. “…Quicksilver movements in sudden formation. Inability to recognize. Lost in familiar environments.” Sheets of high-pitched ambience lay the groundwork for the saxophone meditations, and program glitches and shorting nodes accompany the slow march toward completion. Tones hangs in the atmosphere in humid ambience, the sax slowly stirring them until they curdle. All of this penetrates my mind and adds to the feeling that nothing is real, nothing makes sense, not till I get another hit from that sweet, sweet oxygen canister. Even then, “Time Agnosia” coats my mind like some jackweed is all up in it with a can of puke-green paint, coating my senses till I’m in a state of perma-semi-blackout. 

Only in Denver!

Anyway,  you can grab a copy of the tape from Shadowtrash Tape Group’s Etsy site.

And don’t worry, I’m fine.