Lucas Abela – Making Corner / Full Body Promise

9.20.22 by Jacob DeRaadt

On this tape we find Lucas doing something completely fresh and new, which keeps me wondering how many tricks he has up his sleeve. Yes, we think of a caveman howling into a contact mic’d shard of wartime glass, but this is an affair altogether psychedelic and manic in a way that reflects Abela’s use of technologies broken down. It reflects a hyper-tonal universe of rubbery tones that confuse and fascinated for much of the first side.

Surprising bright tape manipulation gets out of control bouncy with raw sound jumping out at odd points in the stereo field. At some extremely choppy moments I find myself thinking of some sounds that remind me of my favorite parts of Skozey Fetisch. Hyperdelic shifting music concrète/synth squelch stretches in-and-out of tape manipulation techniques that are constantly shifting.

It all becomes very human with the inclusion of a sudden voice in the mix.  

We’re constantly shifting between different sound perspectives that range from bells, the human voice, oscillating tones, string abuse(?), a mashing mixer making thudding rhythms that fade in and out of the mix. Interrupting vocal tape scratching punctures the bubble and things begin to move around in asymmetrical fashion, dissolving back into kindergarten twinklings sparkling behind the dark mass of other tape manipulation. Truly confused by what’s going on here and I’m very happy with that… Raw sounds buzzing around the stereo field towards the end with expert control, violin stabbing into liquid space. 

Side two goes beyond this into some sustained spaces of looping fragmented voices warbled by a mutant tape device. The signal dissolves from view and is replaced by a thick soup of interrupting ticks: an ADD nightmare routine. A severely individual realm of sound manipulation opens a pulsating new drive of the glitching tick that holds us to the accidental rhythms band departures that the sound takes from its original form as it encounters different acoustic treatments. There’s more of an emphasis on a grooving throbbing loop of material that quickly dissolves into the signature midi doorbell equipment sound, Abela signaling that the experiment is over. Great tape. Great evolution. Luca is no one trick pony. Copies still available as of this review, don’t sleep on a good one.