Obsidian Shard – The Marble Animal

7.11.22 by Jacob DeRaadt

This isn’t a huge departure from the other tape I’ve heard by this project: lots of quick dynamic edits, unique crackling and popping textures in some parts, generally a fractured take on ambient textures mixed with music concrete editing takes this into some very good zones. Most of the songs on this tape are under four minutes, which means a couple blinks and you missed 50 different sound objects. What I like is there isn’t an over reliance on one type of editing or playing technique, but it’s consistently messing with your attention span by purposeful asymmetry.

I would one to see this project perform live, but they apparently live in Antarctica, so the folk lore goes these days. Well Stapleton me to the wall of a painting, but this gets into a little dark surrealist territory that is all it’s own slimy tendril bath of purring synths and looping acoustic field recordings. Things are filthy and weird enough for my liking on this one much more than “The Ganser Syndrome,” which I like for different reasons than this one.  

There’s some intense tape fuckery going on during the second half of this tape, dissolving into fluttering bells and back into acoustic looping awkwardness. Bewildered ears ponder sound sources and are left guessing and grasping at fragments of ultimate cut up goodness that I haven’t heard since the last Id M Theft Able tape I listened to. Repeat listener, I’ve listened to this at least four times and will go back for more later this year, highly recommended release from this baffled buffoon.

Reclaimed cassette tapes, dubbed in real time with j cards assembled from salvaged craft paper, and cut up art from a diy guide to energy alternatives. Each cassette has unique album art.