Genital Shame – Lion Piss + Arm Vulnerability

3.6.23 by Matty McPherson

There was a point before my decent headphones broke and the holidays happened and it was suddenly the middle of February. It was a sunsoaked November day before Thanksgiving and I had to leave the house; I needed a book I had spotted a week earlier in Berkeley that I knew was only a bus trip away. I had been on something of a Scarcity kick around that time, with a burgeoning interest in Aveilut’s symphonic characteristics that often pushed the music out of black metal and into straight gothic industrial noise scowling. There was a thought line and even immense nods to downtown music that I was inkling with more than approaching it from straight black metal tropes. It reinforced a personal belief that the fidelity and speed of the tape are second to the pure underlying riffage and unique displays of intensely carnal visions. That is when I mend with black metal in the present.

I was a bit dazed I’ll admit, especially when I had finally taken a dive into Genital Shame’s Lion Piss + Arm Vulnerability cassingle/EP type beat. When I heard it back then I was gripped by the ambience, a different intensity outside of immediate black metal sound aesthetics that gave me something to grip on to. For, West Virginian Erin Dawson and her C15 is a concise, deft batch of homespun cuts that display a sound palette that is not so much as going full into black metal, but seeing it in a larger tapestry that connects to varying intensities of Dawson’s own endeavors in her life. To make this music is a personal project and approach it from this manner can be seen as a critique, but that can often miss reveling in the noise of a singular entity so esteemed and precise and Dawson.

Her sound is still perhaps assuming an evolved form beyond what we have been left with today. This is not appalachian folk-tinged black metal, nor symphonic black metal, nor blackened pop metal; Dawson’s 3 cuts err closer to though to the revolutionary “last flag standing” apocalypse worlds of Constellation Records. The emphasis on acoustic guitar (specifically during the final cut) put it more towards Mt. Silver Zion’s somber soundscapes, with tingles of the raw catharsis that has always defined Efrim. However, both Gnostienne and Ego non sum trust-fund puer recall the work of the sorely missed Lungbuter–not exactly a metal outfit mind you, but an absolute wonder trio when it came to fuzz. And across those swift blast beats and moments of jagged droned out ambience, there’s a lotta fuzz on the hi-fi. And yet, these 3 cuts all retains a carnal, jagged vision that also entices and invites comparison towards code-breakers (Liturgy), agnostics (Sprain), and revolutionary spirits (Agriculture) without playing to black metal trope adherently. Needless to say, it fits well with that weird lineup of Flenser tapes I’ve started to amass, and is quite pretty as the newest Pink Tape in the collection.

The tape sat in a holding cell without much of a second consideration of when to revisit or WHY NOT revisit it daily. I’ve re-opened the tape for the first time in a few moths and I’m still entranced by it’s simplicity. More than a mere proof of concept, Genital Shame’s “Lion Piss + Arm Vulnerability” is a staunchly gripping introduction to Dawson’s work. From its snarled swagger to acoustic vulnerability, whatever she’s cooking with down the line is to be of consideration.

Limited Tape Available at the Genital Shame Bandcamp Page

OPLA – GTI

2.16.23 by Matty McPherson

About a year ago I contracted the first in a trilogy of food poisoning adventures that marred the year 2022. There is no fondness or nostalgia for these days, just a buttered-up sense of apathy. This first incident was noteworthy in that it seemed to correspond to the time when the family’s Bosch dishwater did what all mid-00s bosch dishwasher are prone to doing: catching fire and (almost) causing an irreversible damage to the current state of affairs. It crackled and coughed up a black lung when it caught fire that night, creating a raw carnal smell that still echoes a year on; I still find myself in that catatonic food poison shock scarred by the noise. Although I’m not certain I really miss the old Bosch now that we have the new Bosch, nor if that this story has anything to do with the latest release from Polish-based Pointless Geometry cassette label, OPLA’s GTI.

Well maybe the C34 is having these memories run amok again because of the sound palette. Hubert Zemler (drummer/free improvisor/compser) and Piotr Bukowski’s (guitarist/composer/film score enthusiast) work as OPLA is supposed to be a “reinterpretation of traditional Polish dances”; if you’re a regional music head then you’ll likely raise a hearty glass towards the oberek phrases and tripartite metros embellished within this electronic sound of plastics. In other words, yes the “folk music” here sounds akin to the family’s Bosch giving up the ghost during that fateful terminal dishwasher cycle. Over the course of 6 tracks, Zemler and Bukowski marry the abstract to these patterns and movement, both finding a rigidity flourishing as well as a space for the eerie.

There are, in other words, two logics at play. Take a cut like LOP for instance. On one hand there is an arpeggio that moves akin to a 16-bit platformer that gives the piece its core. Yet, on top of that palette are the percussion “booms” and “clanks” that appear on their own logic and with the sharp crash akin to what a synthesizer afforded Keith Levine on PiL’s Careering. Meanwhile, FAX bleeps and bloops as jagged guitar glides over and improvises a heart to this movement. YPN’s one cantankerous synth loop fences against guitar jitters and hi-hat debris that swings uptempo and flourishes with curiosity. RAM is about the only cut that strips back the electronics to present rudimentary loops and clanks akin to a dusty folk sound.

These kind of patterns–deep listening synths and hyperrealist POPS–that give GTI its deftness and a gripping listenability. It begets a dance music, but the context it comes from has been warped through mechanization and industrialization. What’s left of those Polish dances is akin to showing up to the ballroom at 3AM instead of 3PM; all that’s left is a low drone of an HVAC and a scratchy karaoke machine no one loved enough to return and get their deposit back for. The spaces between become something new, akin to washer cycles and daily alerts flowing like ephemera. OPLA might be capturing a modern tension as much as expanding a regional sound into electronics to find a new truth of sorts within the routinization such tools offer. What I do know though, is that it won’t catch fire and suddenly explode on me. At least I hope not.

Tapes Sold Out at the Pointless Geometry Bandcamp!

Ryley Walker & Jeff Tobias – It’ll Sound Different Once We Get Some Bodies In The Room

2.9.23 by Matty McPherson

There’s new 2023 curatorial efforts from Ryley Walker (Husky Pants) & Jeff Tobias (Strategy of Tension) either out or coming on their labels, (Sam Goldberg & the Echoing Department’s Some Songs Are Sung & Feast of Epiphanies’ Significance, respectively). Endearing excursions towards a plane of pop enjoyment the experimental ferric enthusiast ought to take note of. Although neither of which happen to string a set of syllables together that warrants rare use, and I assumed both were stopgaps towards a greater objective, I had not anticipated that objective was actually going to be another Walker jam session. One recorded on January 27th, sent hot to the Bandcamp on February 3rd, and to be shipped off in about a week. And just like that those syllables melted out of my mouth and into the atmosphere.

“EUREKA!”

Ah there it is! We miss this term, don’t we folks? Back in the 2010s when you saw that term you knew where the quality laid and that the album had an intended effect that perhaps extended beyond mere technical precision or dexterity; the kind towards the emotive, primal core of why words are drawn up and transmitted online. We miss that term and its implications for discourse 3 to 4 years down the line. And yet now, I’m bringing it back. “EUREKA!” and say it loud.  As Walker and Tobias’ It’ll Sound Different Once We Get Some Bodies In The Room feels of a small achievement in the current tape world.

Firstly is the aforementioned immense speed of release. Right here and at this moment is a picture of two label heads and long time players cutting to the brass tax and just presenting it as fast as possible. Secondly, the thing shreds, threshing out a love for both Astral Spirits noise and cd era Louisville post-rock; a match made in heaven played like Texas hold ‘em.

Although please understand, we have been told little about the occasion of this release. Just “Jeff and Ryley sit down.” Practically a fairy tale in title form. Jeff’s duo tapes have shown two sides to him. The type of spirit that can follow a game (as with Jack Cooper of Modern Nature on Astral Spirits) or outright entertain a wrestling duel against his own. And I assume you’re aware of how he’s feeling, from back last fall. Jeff’s character with the saxophone (amongst trombone and reeds that aims between deconstructive noise or swaggering croonery hasn’t been as prepared as this kind of player.

Walker’s guitar channels a playfulness and style-nodding prowess that recaptures the beauty of DRWZI DOORS. Still, that release is a whole other noisenik affair. If there’s a baseline to be found (both with the tape + jeff), then it’s in Gastr deconstruction; brevity laden pauses and awe-ridden freakouts break through the C35 in half the tracks. Ryley will lead with breadcrumb chords like small stakes blinds and he needs Jeff to call, or Jeff will fire up a buzz of chords or a trombone drone. Sonically, it starts at 0 and the other will check or bluff to create an imperative; the kind where both of their noises meet and create a deep listen and an impressive show of force. Across six tracks, their high stakes poker game challenges the two to think of how to force a tell out of either. 

When tracks develop, they can start to move like the community flop; a creep of free-jazz cacophonies or post-wolk ambience. “Guest of the Government” opens a pathway to trance with just an inquisitive guitar loop and a low drone.  “Burnt Toyota Sienna” becomes practically caught up in a sax tornado that feels natural. The delicate “Buzz and Glide” plays its cards slowly, teasing out a gorgeous gliding guitar melody that breathes and pervades the space when it shines for its few seconds against the brass of Tobias’ horn; a dialogue and resonance indeed! If the tracks do tangle to the 7-minute mark, then the river portion of these cuts reveal a faithful devotion towards The For Carnation amongst the ghosts of Quarterstick’s past. “Cigarette Lake” retains a spooky tales from the crypt vibe as it approaches the five minute mark, where Ryley invokes southern gothic hallows and Jeff creates the sweltering atmosphere. It’s in these moments I find my quench sated, the nicest sonic jackpot of a tape in recent memory.

Limited Edition Tape Available at the Husky Pants Records Bandcamp

Reverse Death – Stretching to Infinity

2.7.23 by Matty McPherson

The Reverse Death trio of Daniel Onufer, Connor Johnson, and Ben Rea seemed to arrived on Drongo Tapes near the end of 2022 too blissed out amongst the endless listening pile. Yet, within the tumultuous soak of January’s winter rains, it’s found its way into my walkman and hi-fi once more, and as such I realized the curatorial ear of Drongo does not fail. The trio’s emphasis on a Side A/Side B affair across 5 tracks was purposeful; the result of a tour in Mexico imparting new wisdom in sequencing. As such, this wisdom results in a lot of sounds that beckon to be returned to for concurring reasons.

The opening “Water Orbit” shares a common thread with the droney, longing textures of Shells’ recent for Astral Editions, but often shares a keen ear for aquatic acoustics. The kinds that put it in lie with Scissor Tail tapes of early 2020 as much as vague debris of new age listening scattered across thrift shops. But the approach is neither spendthrift nor cheesey; there’s a sauntering lullaby quality to the movement, one that turns inward across “Floating Delight.” It’s here where reverb laden jangly guitar strings (amongst a cello!) and soft keys work in tandem to create a harmonic bliss akin to Bitchin Bajas’ search for the ultimate transcendent loop. Reverse Death doesn’t champion perfection here though, instead letting the improvisation and their own recordings of bird sounds or synth drones endlessly welcome you across the Side A.

Side B meanwhile, is the vocal psychedelic pop side; yet that sells the process short. The 4 cuts on this side, seem to carry a naturalistic ambience to their palette. The way the effect-laden drum crashes like salty waves on the jazzy Teapot, the almost-dub bass and twinkling melodies of Sweet Flower Moon’s slow waltz, Infinite Syd’s infinite looping reverb chords that invoke mid-aughts Paw Tracks, and the lo-fi reverent textures squeezed out of Temporary Ground. These are little elements that imply a distinct adherence to a subterranean silence second and virtuosic patience first and foremost the qualities that are of utmost necessity with what makes this style music so rewarding. Their PR mentions they’d been listening to Jessica Pratt, and it does show in the sheer amount of reverb and acoustic space amongst lo-fi recordings they’ve netted out of these 6 excursions. Their ability as such to use these drawn out cuts as a way to craft immense zones becomes their own private press achievement in that respect. Stretching to Infinity’s slow burn effectively rewards the wait, with each nugget becoming a knockout zone of its own volition so you give it the chance.

Edition of 100 Tapes Available Now at Drongo Tapes’ Bandcamp Page!

India Sky – Somewhere Over the Mystic Moon

2.2.23 by Matty McPherson

Take a moment to reset yourself with approaching India Sky. It’s the latest release from Ratskin Records, the Oakland based mecca for sublime and smatterings of non-hegemonic arts within the region. The label’s no stranger to noise and industrial, but often times its in their pop-oriented offerings that blessed diamonds and sublime matters seem to come to fruition. India Sky’s Somewhere Over the Mystic Moon is precisely in this realm.

An unexpected, but not uncommon theme with the 2023 releases I’ve been noting so far is that they happen to stem from film works. India Sky originally composed over half the material on Somewhere Over the Mystic Moon for her short film, The Life Cycle of Rainbows, released in 2021. But here, this is more a piece of context than an immediate epiphany about the recordings. Her nine synthpop cuts (two of which are simple interlude-sized sleights) are based within a simplistic, yet engrossing songwriting structure: large synthesizer loops that become a periphery for India Sky’s open-armed vocals and steadfast percussive rhythms; enough to grip one on their own. At times it can really slink off and transport to its own galaxy. In other moments it recalls Spellling’s Pantheon of Me as much as the brevity of downtime present in house music. The tempo and its genre-magpie nature are never languid though and the cuts and their emotive affects slowly reveal themselves over time; thus what is often presented in front of you at first warrants a keen ear and a patience with the process.

This is what made Bottom of the Sea and in particular, Breakdown, such gripping singles. For the former, it gave a sugar rush of an intro and a punchdrunk, thumping pre-chorus before it’d even completely built up. Yet, it subverted the whole affair by staying in that liminal space and enveloping you like a cocoon. Breakdown’s paean to a love found between the dancefloor and stars is ingenious in its subtle ability to chart a love with euphoric synths and sudden heartbeat-pining percussion, as India Sky weaves a small situated tale together with minimal detailing that is enough to feel universal and open-armed.

Yet outside of these two singles, there’s still a slow burn kaleidoscopic vision of India Sky’s intersection of theatrics and visual projections. The slinking yet seductive, telgraphed crashing clanks of Like a Wave. The Northern Lights evoking cut Begin Again that casts a regenerative spell in it the way India Sky’s voice is dubbed over and harmonizes into a liquid, glistening bliss and mantra. The reverb and pitter-patter of Dark Symphony that serves to champion India Sky and her own self-actualization, as much as guiding us to the Rainbow Gate. All of these cuts provide a glimpse though outside of her short film. They are an actual tantalizing image of her turning to synthpop for an evocative kind of soul-bearing release; one that’s angelic harmonics can become a form of healing and communal respite. In other words, India Sky’s latest for Ratskin Records indeed hits at a special prowess the label has, amplifying a heartfelt and personal call to one’s own community.

Limited Edition Chrome Hi Bias Cassette with 4 Panel Cassette JCard and full color stick on labels available at the Ratskin Records Bandcamp Page

Torrello – Out of Office

2.1.23 by Matty McPherson

Kenny Torrella, “D.C.’s sleeper cell groove sensation” sort of just wandered into 100% Silk last summer with arguably the label’s best effort since Ascultation’s III back in Summer 2020. It was so noteworthy, the label decided to revive their defunct House of Silk imprint just for the release of the Out of Office cassette. And when I was doing the Tabs Out Top 200 of 2022, I ended up stumbling into the tape and the last available copy from Torrella personally.

There are two things that have struck me about this tape and its illustrious qualities. Firstly, as lo-fi house (balearic stylings and bells and whistles are abound) it immediately warrants tape listens when applicable over any other sound system. The songs, specifically Magic Mirror & The Zone, are washed out and soaked in glitzy, effervescent textures that tingle and pop; they are funky fresh bops that are often otherworldly heartfelt and emotive. Other cuts, like the OOO mixes of All the Time & With You, Yeah purposely stick out of the low end, in lieu of imparting a crisp, ghostly layer of airy amber-laden synths on top of the crunchy beats. Tackling a sound like this can be merely pleasurable or it can impart a longing; any tape on 100% Silk could be this at any given day. Yet, Torella’s beats and smattering of almost-voices across the mid-range give the tape these feeling of window shopping on an abandoned stretch of the Miracle Mile. Bittersweet only could capture so much of what makes the tape ingenious.

This brings me to my second point: Torella’s synths LONG and YEARN in a rather resonate manner. While the fetishization of 80s/90s technology is merely a given at this point, the logic behind chasing these sounds and what one is supposed to do with them can be situated in many frameworks. And from there, why a sound becomes so hypnotic you want to live in it becomes its own mission statement. The synths that often ground a majority of this album are encroaching on a particular snappy n’ soppy or punchdrunk drone quality that puts the tape in a lineage dating back to mid-80s The Wake and their own emotive synth laden works. But they did not dance, they brooded unnervingly; whereas Torella purposely is chasing daydreams and crystalline midnight hours with brevity and gentle ease.

Anyways, if you haven’t heard Magic Mirror, it’s streaming below. Tapes Sold Out at the Bandcamp, but still available at the 100% Silk distro page on Midhaven dot com.

Permanent – museum ao

1.31.23 by Matty McPherson

Another steamer of a Hot Releases tape complete with a tasteful nude. Permanent is Mimi Luse, who in the middle of June last year, laid down 10 cuts all without names outside of “Museum A0.” What ensued was not quite the synthetic populism of her previous tape, nor is it quite a minimal wave excursion even if the set-up is distinctly raw and “one-box”. Over the course of the ten pieces, some of which sprawl upwards of 6 to 12 minutes (but often come back down to earth at the 4-minute mark), Luse is in search of an industrial grinding trance that is slimey, gelatinous, and downright sinister. Brute force thumps and high energy razer lazers, are amongst the insanity of what a singular multi-effects pedal mindset willingly provides. And most of the cuts themselves aren’t really labeled but just edited together into a live-piece that’s always slightly shifting its focus, bringing in a new thump or blast beat, amongst big ‘ol noise with jarring shocks and sudden left turns.

The result though is that you have a tape that’s one-track mindset is going to work wonders on one long-tail end EXCEPTIONALLY well: private press industrial with a big libido. And across the 10 tracks, Luse’s steadfast adherence to this lane actually does pay off in strides. The raw four on the floor of the first twelve miniutes does mutate into a slicked up bass ditty by the 3rd movement that features a radiant tang of guitar feedback. There’s the 4th movement’s “big!” hype synth, one that bass stabs bounce off at first, before it mutates into a giant omnibus blob that often threatens to eat the entire track out in between deranged jitters.

The B-Side opens with the 5th movement, a hi-nrg inversion that proceeds over the course of the following two pieces, to be scraped apart and built into a lurching carnivorous hulking mass. On the 6ht movement its practically stripped of its fleet-footed nature and turned into a glass shards breaking over and over amidst feedback. By the 7th movement its sped back up into a rave inversion that it’s 8th movement turns into noise goo. That it moves so nimbly and with such a minimal but hypnotic set-up gives it that energy needed to carry it to the 9th movement where it almost returns to its original state on this side. Except now it dives deeper into feedback and lashes fanatically. Although I can’t say I was the fondest of the final bonus, a piece of vocal feedback and spoken word psychedelia that is crass and cantankerous in its layering, and demands a sense of time and place that is missing compared to the rest.

Tapes Sold Out at Hot Releases! But Perhaps Available at the Permanent/Mimi Luse Bandcamp Page

Constellation Tatsu Winter 2023 Batch

1.18.23 by Matty McPherson

Constellation Tatsu had a steady and immensely giving 2022. Their 10th anniversary offered a chance for the label to decide to dig back in and champion over 20 of its chill-out, deep zones, and sonically veracious releases. All with an additional 2 batches of tapes. Lockstep pattern that seems to be going about right on time in 2023 with a batch of electronic veterans and label newcomers. Keeping to around 30 minutes a piece, each tape stays to a particular lane of techno runoff, amplifying different modes of dub, ambient, and lo-fi variations.

Grim Beazley – Big World

Grim Beazley is an entirely new name from all that I can tell. At least only holding a single appearance on a 2021 Australian 12″ 4-cut compilation. Big World’s 4 cuts across the C27 minutes are still a nifty fit in the CTatsu star chart, a sauntering display of new agey synths and four on the floor that remains starry-eyed and funky fresh; vaporous and gaseous zones that cruise like midnight interstates. There’s still a level of character building and finding one’s sense of self that Beazley’s music is working itself into. Arheron Way and Eucal Regnans more or less chill quite hard, with rigid drum programming that often lacks an immediate flair or trait to them, and yet slowly spurn and prove themselves over the cuts. Meanwhile, Reefer Red Gum, the tape’s standout, often brings in metallic textures and clap-beats that combo off of each other in snappy, tantalizing manners. All the while, synth noise, hi-hats, and beloved bird-sounds feel of a chiller strain of transient electronic listening music that was hiding on Artificial Intelligence. On Big World, a sample about technology and its affects away from the physicality of time & laws of physics. It’s a lofty sample that comes across the ethereal piece, which recalls Ki Oni’s own works. And I bring up Ki Oni because this piece indicates an MO and perhaps an argument for mutating the chills of “stay indoors/plant life” type music with a heart for creation and physicality; if anything alone, it all edges towards why this music is destined for rave spaces and I’m curious for what Beazley is tuning into next.

Strategy – Graffiti In Space

With a long spanning catalog that dates different eras and ideas of his approach to music, Paul Dickow can turn wildly between releases. Graffiti In Space has precedent in the catalog, perhaps stray invocation of Drumsolo’s Delight’s glitzy textures or a more looser approach to the Infinite File’s rigid psych dub. There also stands a deep thought line towards DJ’ing chiller and more sinisterly playful works than where his last for Peak Oil had done only months prior. Over 40 minutes, Dickow gets to the brass tax with custom instrumentation attempting to tackle a larger summation of dub aesthetics in the process. His approach goes in two directions splitting half the album. 3 lighter cuts that play up the ambient and house textures of the bass’ rhythm, having patterns on his synths or keys work in focus and towards pleasurable repetition; bubbly, if glitchy “Daydream Space Graffiti” or “Surface Words” ensure.

Then there’s the moments where he strikes lightning in a bottle, when he lets his technology create noises that are each their own acid tests. The lazery twitches of Fountain of Youth find a cyclical trance that dub bass refracts and reflects further and further. The Pan•American nod and dubby fun of “In Space No One Can See Your Screen” is bolstered by glitches and wobbly keys that skip around the edges of the piece. That this is all rendered in a lo-fi, vhs tinged fidelity adds to the tape’s highest moments. It also gives a crisp feeling, the kind like mountain air, towards “Remote Dub” and “Message from Ouroboros.” Across the 40 minutes, the bass remains both a reliable bolster towards dance and equal to the general alienness that his sounds are easily mutable and fantastically easy to lose themselves in.

Hoshina Anniversary – HakkyouShisou 発狂しそう

Yoshinobu Hoshina is a DJ based in Tokyo, having released a series of recordings that date back more than a decade across letter soup imprints like TCY, GND, BNR, & ESP–as well as Impatience and patience sister labels. He’s a busy fella you have to tip your hat. HakkyouShisou 発狂しそう’s six techno cuts are omnibus pocket dimensions that brilliantly balance ambience with crushing beats and twinkling details. HakkyouShisou 発狂しそう is a deceptive C32, a bonafide mula of lo-fi dubby drums, orange milk-esque left-field midi magic, and Japanese house aesthetics–pockets of gaseous space and the time between climaxes feel of mini-orchestras or beat sequences. I’ve seen works from 99 Levels and Row Arai before that have played to this, but the addition of more “goo core” type sound effects give this noise a precocious and unique quality.

It’s a compressed, crisp tape as well, and the egging of the fidelity turning into sauna-like finesse in its best moments. Dakuten 濁点’s razor jagged edges slowly unfurl, providing a grungey characteristic to this. HakkyouShisou 発狂しそう’s pulsing broken-transmission melody brings out queasy jazz keys (themselves the center of Sugisaru Hito 過ぎ去る人) and frantic clap-patterns, before revealing a reverberated peak that echoes MJ Guider’s own effort for CTatsu nearly a decade prior. It spends it’s back half not building from the ground up, but digging deep into an underground tangle of wires. Dareka no Rettoukan wo Nomikomu 誰かの劣等感を飲み込む’s mechanic 240p quality pulse is a wildly versatile match under somber keys or illbient-esque hi-hats and a unnerved bass, as synthesizers give it a divine almost-transcedence that’s left in breadcrumbs. Nothing on the release ever quite feels like it’s suffocating each other and all loaded together it has consistency with massive repetition allowing for short stories to unfold.

Windy Boijen – In a Sense

1.17.23 by Matty McPherson

Ephem-Aural, the New York, NY based label recently passed 40 releases. Congraturaisins! I sent all of ’em chip n’ dale birthday cakes straight from the SFV; hopefully the chap inside has enough oxygen and hamdingers to last through that layover in Kansas City. But anyways, many folks would tell you getting to 42 is important because that’s what life is all about; although anyone in the business knows a tape label’s life starts at 40, the release number that indicates a commitment to the spirit of ferric. Of course, I wager 40 + 1 is the real sweet spot. And what a stellar lil’ fella to show up with, bringing Windy Boijen into the fold with In a Sense as no. 41 for the imprint.

Boijen’s name won’t show up on discogs nor is he a name that many households would know. He fancies himself as a sometimes blogger, running a Boogie Banjo Blog on the rare occasion, with an upload about once every 18 months on a misbegotten banjo player or sonic excavation. Although the chap has also had a steady stream of recordings that date back to 2008; including a 2021 series of “Just Intonation exercises” accomplished for an ASU online course offered by Jacob Adler—a nifty act . Needless to say though, the gentleman’s bread and butter focuses around “Spontaneous Improvised Sound Experiments,” much of which is captured and documented in precocious capacity on In a Sense. Genres like “experimental, metal, avant-garde, drone, & noise” are thrown out like it’s a pick-one candy bar bag at Halloween and one of ’em has a razor or something hiding. Except there is no razorblade; none of those genres are really ever achieved on the release. In fact, the label’s term “goofball psychedelia” serving a greater credit to Boijen’s soundscapes.

In a Sense has a freewheeling quality to its 10 cuts that allow it to channel between sunskipping almost-instrumental indie pop (Waiting), jittery digital-damaged free improv drumming and xylophone noisery (Makes Sense/Mask Chakra), amongst the occasional 75 Dollar Bill/Wilkes n’ Gendel sonic dirge (Xalam for Yari, most of side b). It’s a stable template that allows for the occasional banjo to dip in or a track like “Y’all” to harken to late-00s freak folk or Deerhunter blog ditties. Yet, when all three of these elements combine, like on Kids Odd or That Claw Fin Thing Together, the tape is operating at its fullest big brain capacity. A sudden revelatory bliss is unlocked in those two tracks; the kind that ignite a groove-laden yet everyday-ness quality to Boijen’s recordings. It warrants the “goofball psychedelia” tag! Especially when traversing the tape’s b-side, the two become a framework to exactly what makes the tape’s smattering of tracks work. Boijen is often able to ride a small drone and improvisational drum pattern into something that is engrossing, and genuinely zoned-out on its own accord.

Limited Edition Cassette from the Ephem-Aural Bandcamp is Now Available.

MIDI Janitor – Buk Order & Fumerolles – Nuit jaune

1.10.23 by Matty McPherson

About four and a half years ago, local Tabs Out legend Ryan Masteller took a mosey on down to Hotham Sounds, the Vancouver BC based label dedicated to Pacific Northwest “experimental” electronic transmissions in limited private press tape releases. Hotham Sounds is still continuing their own refinement and curation, creating dedicated batches and zoned out bliss of their own volition. Anyways, they decided four days into the 2023 to go ahead and plop down THREE tapes that seemed to just burst forth from the volcanic grounds. And good lord do these tapes pass inspection, even going as far as to break label law and sign from a providence outside BC & release an 84 minute set of synth JAMS

MIDI Janitor – Bulk Order

Jonathan Orr of Vancouver found a MIDI controller in an East Van dumpster, more at 11. Oh it’s 11 right now? Well he took said controller, patched in 90s sample packs and cheap beats and made a scrapping junkers’ delight of a tape release. Bulk Order purposely isn’t trying to hide its spend-thrift, economical nature in the amalgamation of not-quite bass-damaged beats and “casper the friendly ghost” type synth aberrations. Together, the two sounds from this approach make for a particular strain of electronic listening music. The kind that you likely have encountered in special interest vhs tapes and old gluttonous industrial arts films.

But seriously, Orr’s work as MIDI Janitor is homely and subliminally quixotic; even the cover is a brilliant evocation of private press industrial records but tuned to the current era’s fascination with synth magic. The dozen cuts on Bulk Order are small triumphs, private press “electro” nuggets that excel at melody and texture without ever completely forgoing stable repetition and a frame of reference. “Born From a Voice” bubbles and peaks with a giggly twitch and crack, before then taking its small crescendoes and bows out, moving back into the earth it came from. Whereas “Keep Still” indeed, distills these synths to their most lovingly rudderless and stilled. Even “Vapor King” swaggers on its budget, as “Athos A.M.” drones with that 5am red eye energy that makes a lot of this tape a blast. That they retain a strange familiarity (to artists I’m refusing to name bc you sorta will know IMMEDIATELY what he’s edging towards) while also offering a real genuine acknowledgement of this MIDI’s limits and STILL oozing with rudimentary flair make the tape an easy one to ponder and gush over.

Fumerolles – Nuit jaune

So forgive us if this tape comes late, perhaps over 4 years late even. Nuit jane has existed in digital format since 2018. Although, Hotham has taken a liking to the recording and provided a reissue of the brevity-laden EP. Fumerolles (aka librarian Frédérique Duval) crafted this during a hot spell (one of many that has plagued Montreal in the past 4+ years), working on utilitarian synthesizer music built from effect boxes and homemade modules. At six tracks all flirting with but never breaking the 4-minute mark, it is a sweet treat to see in the Bandcamp email pop up.

I did listen to this EP while on lunch away from helping patrons with library cards and shelving holds. It will always, without fail, move me to hear librarian music–not library music, librarian music. And I’m working on defining this genre tbh, because I don’t hear a lot of music from librarians often. While that does not mean that the copyright-free banger genre known as Library Music is shied away from (although Cyclique could easily have been slotted onto Mexican Summer’s Unusual Sounds), what I garnered a sense from Fumerolles was a deep capacity for harmony and layering that is deceptively simple; her music fits like a glove and becomes an instant sugar rush. The strings and trickles of Sismographe are bolstered by crashing waves of percussive tangs. Pulmo bubbles and fizzles like a UFO attempting to jettison into orbit, but always falling short. The buzzing synthesizer loop of Ptero takes a moment to reveal itself, hidden behind keyboard fantasies and other cresting percussive smatterings, but it feels like a thought line to a future. Un charme, the shortest cut of the EP, is especially thoughtful in how it throws itself from lazer haptics and ambient synth-lines into a whole buzzing cacophony that sucks you in.