Peter Kris – Mandan / Moroni

9.17.19 by Ryan Masteller

Peter Kris’s “Mandan / Moroni” is the latest ambient guitar double-cassette masterpiece from the German Army maestro …

I have to stop.

There’s only so much I can handle, only so many hits I can take before it all becomes a burden not worth shouldering. So do I make the effort to get to the middle of “Mandan / Moroni,” or do I retreat to the safety of several feet away from this double-cassette artifact? I do feel I’m in some sort of danger.

Let me back up before you slam down your laptop in fury at my inability to properly form thought (laptops are expensive because of Bill Jobs!). “Mandan / Moroni,” on the ever-Portuguese OTA label, is a double cassette “wrapped in sandpaper” – like, a strip of sandpaper was glued around two Norelco cases and folded nicely. So not only did I probably get some kind of skin injury on my fingers when I first picked it up (lawsuit!), it scratched all my tapes and CDs and records in proximity to it. (This is only because I couldn’t decide how to file it at first.)

But here’s the thing: there’s no way I can stay mad at Peter Kris (or OTA for that matter). First of all, they’re both awesome, I hope that goes without saying (even though I said it). Second, you pop on a Peter Kris tape, you’re immediately in the midst of a sea of tranquility (though hopefully not in the midst of the literal Sea of Tranquility – at least not without a spacesuit). Peter’s guitar tones literally billow like an encroaching fog bank, enveloping you when it arrives, getting into your body and your bones, into your lungs and your mind. How can one man and one instrument (with accoutrement, obvs), wrench such distinct emotional responses from a few notes and an imaginary landscape? A better question, maybe: how does he do it so freakin’ often?

And OF COURSE he named a track after postcolonial scholar Edward Said. That just goes without saying.

Rediscover the feelings of your own human heart with the latest epic from the maestro. Just be careful with the artifact itself, or use it after listening to sand away all the rough and jagged edges of your psyche that are bound to be unearthed over the course of the adventure. Or don’t – those edges and jags are what make us us, right?

“Pro dubbed; C56 / C58; Double cassette wrapped in sandpaper 180 black. important to be careful handling.”