2.1.22 by Matty McPherson
The Torrey Pines are sick around the neighborhood. There’s a tree bug that’s going around and will undoubtedly lead to a lot of tree trimming this year. No one to my knowledge seems alarmed by the browning and pilfering piles of pine needles amassing around us. Our trees are fortunately cared for in this time of crisis, but that doesn’t mean one won’t fall or a branch won’t suddenly impact the disc golf hole we set up in the barren orchard (Tabs Out West Coast HQ is perpetually stricken by drought). Public displays of grief over the friendly giants as well seems to be at a trickle; this sucks because it causes a nine-car alarm in my mind that I can’t shake. Change is coming and I’m not privy to it.
It’s why I take my silent grieving towards a tape as private as Little Prince Sigrid’s My Ghost’s Boundaries Are My Horizon, the latest dispatch from the venerable Katuktu Collective. LPS may not be a tape enthusiast household name currently, but her C40 could render her one such. Her six song tape is a compilation of droney organ noises, bolstered up by a sparse astral drum here or ambient horn or wind instrumental beamed in from another dimension there. She sings and contemplates over these instrumentals in a fashion akin to a lullaby. Everything feels made for contemplating and finding your way to a smile.
Sometimes that makes for tracks like “Milky Weather” or “Cloudy and Opaque”, which stretches her droney, harmonic delivery into a tangible hand stretching itself out towards you. Yet, those are the short ends of a tape that opens with a ten-minute mantra entitled “Grief Lessons” and includes a ten-minute sparse, “Untitled” exploration. It’s a leap of faith that could glue you to your headphones and have you humming and harmonizing to that drone and Little Prince Sigrid’s earnest “come on” spirit. If the previous tracks were a hand, this is a full on arm. “Untitled” meanwhile shimmers as a mediation, reminding me of the immediacy of those darn trees…
First edition of 50 copies, 25 on red glitter shells and 25 on blue/green glitter shells at the Katuktu Collective Bandcamp
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