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.
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 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.
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.
I am sent an astronomical amount of things and I have to tip my hat to the individuals that brave import fees and customs checks to bring something to Tabs Out to have sent across the country for play in my Yamaha; you all are heroes in my eyes, people that truly believe that the right ears will get what you are doing. Anyone who reads this though should know, I’m not always the right ears, and that I come into 2023 with a chip on my shoulder and a belief there is more out there than I am often immediately able to give credit for.
In 2021, I did receive a tape from Harold Turgis, and let my biases get the better of me. Turgis is “members” of a post-punk band known as Hygine. An act that existed at both ends of the 2010s, early as an act pushing records out on La Vida Es Un Mus and Static Stock, and on the other end in 2019 emerging as on Upset! The Rhythm. In that time, a figure known as Pat Daintith emerged that provided keyboard and seemed to be doing something of their own under this Harold Turgis nominer. Harold, I know at the time I was undervaluing your Satellite: 1997-2021 compilation. The fact that the Quietus decided to cover The Sentinels release already warranted a “hmm, I should probably see if I got that in the mail” from me sort of confirmed that I’d been a big dingus here. Turgis has been staunchly off the books when it comes to social media–sans using Twitter dot com to express a fascination and affinity for modernist architecture. But neither the Satellite comp nor “the Sentinels” wasn’t pressed on brutalist grey or modernist carbon or what not. He used a half red, half black shell, and his cuts of ambient synth charging and drum experimentation that sorta teetered a weird unclassifiable realm.
Side A’s tracks were edited all as one piece and side B itself is just a long form. But it does pay off. Side A is able to metamorpihize through almost-industrial experiments and video game interlude music that seems too cunning for its own good. And it is! Especially as it coalesces into The Sentinels (West) and The Shining Pyramid, where it feels a little gurgle-laden and aquatic, as much as sandpaper laden and splashy. It makes for a gripping seventeen minutes. Although, the journey of Xeethra seems to warrant the tape itself. Picture yourself on a train coming back from the new year’s festivities and passing through a series of crossing and unregulated stops. The kinds where ghastly aberrations and misnomers seem to haunt and almost pierce the veiled windows. All while the gentle lulling and loops of the train’s systems continue on schedule. That’s what side B sounds like, and if you learn to conquer your demons (via going downstairs to the cabin car for a 22oz bomber), you’ll actually find that you can get quite a lot of work done; especially as it lulls and bobs into a stable reference motion. The kind of reference point that seems to play out in reverse and lull you into a breathing routine and blissful out of body state. It’s a morose loop at first I’ll credit that, but it’s stability and near-trancey qualities it gives off as it pushes down into a blissful state warrant me genuinely curious as to what this Harold Turgis figure is all about.
Limited Edition Tape Available from the Harold Turgis/Noble Lowndes Annuities Bandcamp
It’s early January and new things are afloat everywhere. We turn our attention to Seattle, WA, headquarters of the esteemed Drongo Tapes operation setting up for their 47th release and 1st of the 2023 season. What’s this? They’re asking us to turn our attention to the Green Mountain State, Vermont, for a selection and smattering of selections from a film entitled the Inventor Crazybrains and the Girl Called Bird, aka “The Pink House?” Color me intrigued, Drongo, color me intrigued.
Ethan W.L. is a sizable portion of “the big nest” recording project, although Ethan set out for Vermont in 2021 to help film and compose a score for an independent feature. And lo and behold, he brings a series of riches and “film appropriate” American primitive guitar finger picking back not just for the silver screen, but for our own home listening. No such thing exists in the big nest catalog, partially because Ethan really had not pivoted with such devotion into playing acoustic guitar. The acoustic was acquired last year at a thrift shop, and that which became a catalyst for a series of sonic explorations deeper into folk, bluegrass, and blues music that the big nest catalog has yet to feature.
The Pink House does have function as the film soundtrack it was composed for; in particular humongous pieces like Bird that seemed designed for room tone droning and Nora’s House, which has rustle and bustle, is reminiscent of the ambient dread that Marble Hornets had tapped into over a decade back. As well as his first two pieces, “I Will Rise” and “The Pink House” that amply build off Traditional Melodies, while checking the boxes of someone creating motif-oriented, thematic musics. “Ompompanoosuc” is a piano piece that lets its notes often breath and reverberate as a balance from the guitar, while also serving to highlight an emotionally broad moment. Yet, the decision to provide these pieces, especially in their placement, gives Ethan’s exploration more resonance. It feels as much a document of personal discovery and tribulation to a tradition that found him, begets over an hour of jams and fingerpicking that could become your own winter delight. And therein lies what makes this sudden shocker of a release, only seven days into the year mind you, such a delight.
The few big nest-esque moments come near the end, and leading to them is a humongous trove of stunners. And without traditional percussive, Ethan’s ability to pull tenacious thumps out of the guitar give each track robustly rudimentary pace and melody. character that savors long after the campfire. The harmonic razor-fingery loops of “Mad River Lament” present one such dance. Meanwhile, rustic blues that peek through the chords of “Appalachian Gap”. The yearning, steadfast run of “Indian Love Call” that paces itself in adding small surprises and a tempo kick that feels of it is detailing a small tumble. The process is often similar between the cuts, but the change in tuning and reference points give a flair.
Perhaps it’s best documented and captured on White River Rag’s. The dilatory pacing harkens to a sweet spot between High Aura’d’s works for Unifactor and Astral Editions, as much as the blues traditions that 75 Dollar Bill can be tethered to. The tracks incorporates a spectral drone that hits akin to a low winter sun coming through beams in the house, before finding a galloping pace that giddies-up with finesse. It still drops out of a shock, coming back in more ragged glory during its finale. And there, I’m left more curious than ever as to when the big nest is incorporating acoustic guitar into its field of vision.
Patrick Dique & Jordan Christoff have been in it for awhile. The duo’s work as PJS has followed from Aural Canyon to Crash Symbols; Leaving Records to Muzan Editions. Stable utilitarian zones for the plant enthusiast, the birdwatcher, the skyscraper designer, and so on and so forth. What defines a PJS release is its ability to engross a baseline atmosphere and from there, handedly either explore haptic textures, chill out room synths, or impart an undercurrent of movement and droning trance; the kind that endears them closer to raw Environments or field recording tapes than often given credit, as well as still having imaginative qualities towards sensing and creating one’s own future and spaces within. A trio of tapes across 2022 have been graciously picking at these threads and expanding PJS’ capacity for texture and endearingly nice spatial music; each slight deviation tailored to a specific moment or mood or possible time of PJS.
Origin Stories
Origin Stories was released on Strategic Tape Reserve in Spring of 2022, and well…it does date back to some of the earliest archived material of their time working together. As a C60, it’s a hefty display of their sound systematical approach. What the tape lacks in motion, it makes up for in the amalgamation of sounds that pass through; an absolute spa of glimmers and quips that reveal why Dique and Christoff’s project has had an endearing longevity for the two chaps. I kept coming back to the tape over several evenings because I felt as if they had crafted such a pleasing snapshot of a time and place; I felt as if I was in a future looking outside the window of an apartment, watching flying automobiles and neon-light advertisements whiz by. To chill out and take in the vaporous surroundings of that timeline, more or less, could be a story enough for any brave dweller.
Time?
Back in November, the burgeoning and charitable Distant Bloom welcomed PJS into their small roster of maverick underground talents for “Time?” C50. Two longforms of near-equal length maintain the same flavor of Origin Stories, more or less. Yet, the cuts themselves are spacier and haptic-oriented. Myriads (Meridians), features slight percussive markers chewing the scenery, as a whimsy of analog effects tickle by like UFOs in the sky, as well as what appears to be somewhat processed field recordings in the mix. What’s clear as the piece goes on, is the depthless bounty of their low-end. It truly feels of a levitation that creeps up on you; an acid test in real time lighting up. Pyramids (Labyrinths) carries the same open-ended optimism of old VHS tapes on NASA rocket launches. The baseline synths create that feeling of a grand rocket launch, as all sorts of windy-synthesizer harmonics and bubbling crescendoes graciously floats and glides about the space. It’s never intense per se, but it carries all the nervous jubilance of those moments before a huge rocket launch.
MALAHAT
梅レコード, aka Umé Records, is putting out a late December edition of PJS’ zones with the MALAHAT cassette and its two gigantic “real time, no computer, no overdubs” approach. Nautrales in indeed, the most naturalistic recording the duo has of all their 2022 era recordings. Plant life aquatic spa vibes, glistening and basking in the glow over 50 endearing minutes. Side A’s Natures often features a liquidity flowing through its choices of textures, as if rain was moving down wind chimes or into small puddles. Echoes of aberrations or cryptids stop in, but never blow the delicate and coruscating nature of this piece. Meanwhile, Nebulas is a more astrally inclined longform. The harmonics of the piece give off faint traces of white dwarf half-lifes or starry romps aboard a slow-orbiting space station above a heavenly body. There’s a weightlessness across its 25 minutes, and the duo are careful not to try and speed the peace towards an escape velocity, instead letting glimmers and woodwind-esque textures pass like friendly space debris. It chills hard, and with majesty.
Open Letter to Thrill Jockey + Body & OAA, Sam Prekop n’ John McEntire, and the Soft Pink Truth
12.27.22 by Matty McPherson
Dear Thrillist Jockiest,
I’d like to formally congratulate you on making greater strides when it comes to providing cassette releases to the general public. I understand this has been going on for a bit during the last decade–please note that chrome Circuit des Yuex tape in the image above! However, I know the label’s portfolio was never designed around cassettes. So much so y’all licensed a bunch of titles for the Polish cassette market with Sound Improvement at the end of the 90s/early 00s. The 94diskont one is pretty high quality ngl. I use it often when I’m editing my radio show to maintain a steady work flow state.
Anyways though can we bring out those pull-up chairs have a serious talk here? I’ve been fascinated by the more frequent and recent dives into limited, borderline-private press runs of recent releases on CD, but really cassette. I’ve been taking note. They’re pretty nice nuggets, but why the limited promotion and pressings of these releases? Im pro-major indie labels releasing new and repressing old titles on tape, irregardless of whether they’re tied to a subseries (like Trouble in Mind’s curatorial goldmine the Explorers Series). I just don’t understand why y’all are A) not outright promoting them in such a manner that implies exploration and B) opting to let it stay OOP instead of fostering this further into a real deal. At this point, an artist isn’t gonna do a 7” as a promotional teaser, the delays just aren’t going to warrant the timeliness. Although an 8-12 minute cassingle? Huge opportunity right there.
Forgive my tone if I sound salty, condescending, or trite; this letter comes from a privileged fella who has the time to go on Discogs and watch tape markets and thinks to themselves “a 12 minute Sam Prekop/Mute Gospel tape shouldn’t ever be hitting the $35 range. Seriously though, if one of these is going to nab an 8.3 BNM AFTER the tape is sold out…exactly what is the deal here? I do sincerely believe people want to buy physicals that aren’t vinyl; there are dozens of us and yes, we are built different. People (myself included) would also probably shell out some hard cash to revisit canonical Thrill Jockey classics on cassette without having to sign a DHL order from Poland every time they wanna shell out big dollars.
Truth is though, I don’t understand the economy of running a label like Thrill Jockey; I don’t live in Chicago and I will never bullshit my way to being a premier customer that walks down to the Thrill Jockey HQ to shake someone’s hand and pick up an order. I just enjoy tapes and I like this label enough to spend time typing this out. Please know, it’s a godsend that this institution, which makes such alpha dog moves like putting Oval and Liturgy on a split because it CAN, does these things in the first place. You all taught me to use my ears bigly and I needed that for this absolute stampede of three recent tapes I found exceptional in the year. So I attached brief reviews below. Much love in 2023!
– <3 cmm
The Body and OAA – Enemy of Love
The Body have easily one of my favorite promotional photos taken. Two ripped dudes with shotguns. Great! I don’t care what it sounds like I just know its gonna hit like a sledgehammer. Such was the case when the Body hit the road and found a nice power noise fella, OAA to tag along and collab with. The duo’s been voracious collaborators between Thou, Uniform, Full of Hell, Lingua Ignota. What makes them such a consistent collaborative outlet with all these fellas may come to that the Body are rather blunt practitioners of sonic exorcisms. This is always going to be an “at’s states end” world and with OAA, it’s just like being crunched up and sizzled. If you fuck with 30+ minutes of that heavy and just appreciates “guys being dudes with their loud noises”…well “Enemy of Love” was exactly the calling card for the year!
Sam Prekop and John McEntire – Sons Of
Of course, not everyone though wanted “guys being dudes with their loud noises”, which is why Sam Prekop and John McEntire’s “Sons Of” was an excellent breadcrumb excursion. Prekop’s synth work has been fascinating to watch in the past two years; perhaps most extensively when I caught him in Chicago opening for Luggage and spent half an hour, deep in the process not looking at the audience. My friends, who miraculously came through in spite of having no idea of Sam Prekop, were incredulous, and I was texted “when’s he going on?” just as his set finished and Prekop left the stage to smoke an American Spirit outside the Empty Bottle. That set though, was a pretty good framework for “Sons Of”. For a few, it is just literally two long-time musicians who love gear, letting a little maverick energy and quiver about for 53 minutes. Sam continues to tease out and meticulously move the melody, entrusting the process as John tinkers with drum machines in search of the proper beat to carry the sound forward. It’s not rave nor chill-out though; it’s just exceptional Sunday morning cleaning music. The kind that consistently reorients itself and POPS to life in unexpected ways, just without trapping the listener. No one asked for this, but also it gives me everything I love and seriously piques my interest with just what these two mavericks are teasing down the line.
The Soft Pink Truth – Was it Ever Real?
Going back to my early notion of “early release as trailer”, well crack commando mr. Drew Daniel just did that with his long running, sonic treatise of a project, the Soft Pink Truth. Remember in 2020 when Daniel made a bonafide indie gospel classic with Shall We Go on Sinning So That Our Grace May Increase? I did, I own a CD. And then he decided to pivot back into making house with floor stomper “Does it Get Any Deeper Than This?”. It’s a good question that warranted a rhetorical clapback, “Was it Ever Real”? The C22 itself ends up being a well-warranted expansion of the album’s palette and focus. The Dark Room mix of “Is it Going to Get Any Deeper Than This” is cunning. “You Don’t Know (the Full Rose of Dawn)” features a simmering, seductive bass under a gaslit kick drum unfurling into glistening keys and legit euphoria. “Was it Ever Real?” skirts n’ skitters without ever losing its welcoming, sauntering chords and keys. There’s also THAT cover of “the Anal Staircase” that goes far beyond any worship, homage, or mere forehead. Daniel’s work (including Matmos) has always given queer identity–such as music n’ idols–a dimensionality; flippant playfulness, opulent tomfoolery, communal revelry, and even cloying ASMR sinisterness all convey more than tragedy. And at once, a cover of Coil’s wickedly righteous pop bop becomes all those things; a vivid document of club hedonism. No tape, not even the actual LP, had that this year.
I came out of pit retirement for Gee Tee. I do have an overreactive gag reflex that often hinders any necessity to mosh. But when in Memphis for Gonerfest and the men from Australia, “where the beer flows like wine,” are on stage, anything can happen. And well I’d lose a pair of leggings somehow and almost crowdsurf like a doofus.
I do not know what energy is emanating out of the state of Tennessee that it can produce arguably the two strongest independent music festivals in all of the Continental US. Knoxville, TN’s Big Ears in Spring is a stately communion. A global meeting of particular sorts of crate digger and private press enthusiasts that descended upon the downtown for the chance to hear a bro whip out a laptop and drone it out or see Meredith Monk play vocal games. Rarely though, does the festival reward the same kind of crate digger and private press enthusiast that exists in the Gonerfest circuit–which itself is a global meeting of a punk-continuum that truly showcases the state of affairs for Goner and many labels within its orbit. Big Ears has you in bed by 11:30 PM if you so please. Gonerfest suggests you walk 3 miles stoned off a weed tonic, grab a late night Rueben, and head to a dive bar to catch showcase at 1:00 AM.
If that sounds old fashioned and dangerous, well that was the predominate energy Gonerfest tapped into pre-COVID . Late night red-eye punk showcases of frantic nervy jitters have been corralled to afterparties though, as a post-COVID move to the Railgarten has given the festival a newfound lease on the daytime. The ample amount of food and beverage options (including a gas station where you can buy unfathomably cheap craft beer that uses the finest water in the Continental US) gave Gonerfest’s centralized midtown location a colossal bout of energy and efficiency. Few shows ran late and only half of one band cancelled (the BBQ Show component of King Khan caught COVID; there were replaced by the Oblivions in a wildly rough and fun, borderline practice session). It slightly drizzled. We saw hardcore punk stalwarts Negative Approach close a song right as a lightning struck with cosmic coincidence. I made new friends. I met old compatriots I’ve talked shop with online.
Trends of sorts do emerge if you pay close attention; both in the lineup AND at the merch tables, which were flush with tour tapes this time around. Gee Tee’s fanbase erred younger than most at Gonerfest. These fellas were a colossal draw for Friday and arguably were the definitive act of the day/festival (if you had missed Freak Genes in any capacity). Gee Tee have an album coming to vinyl on Goner Records. Yet, due to pressing delays and like MANY bands, they’ve decided to reward the tape community with it first. And goodness gracious, what an absolute wrecker of a tape these kooks seemed to have cranked out. And I did grab at least 8 of these various tour tapes, but words don’t come easy nor often enough to express why THIS release is built different from the rest.
In fact, I honestly didn’t quite realize it myself until I heard an exceptional power pop cassette release you can buy from a major indie label (hint: it’s the one about “blue alcopop” and it comes on a smoky gray cassette; idk why they used that shell). I do enjoy “Blue Alcopop,” but I’m sticking my guns with Gee Tee’s deeply fried style of power pop as the best display of raw talent and veracity. Their pals in Research Reactor Corp also had a tour tape that plays along the same lines of “HAM radio vocals, kitchen-synth, dishwasher guitar n’ bass, and coffee grinder percussive” that sounds like it was recorded in a mouse box and plays to a one-track mindset. Gee Tee’s is just slightly more polished and takes the edge.
Gee Tee goes deep in the red, plays about ten cuts that all sound borderline identical, but also totally raw-dog masterful. It’s cathartic stuff that “lo-fi garage” doesn’t quite surmise. Brute force shit that carries an absolutely unvarnished punchdrunk-pop quality that was made for smooching deep within the chaos of a mosh pit. They repeatedly make their synth sound like mythical “lottery noises” (not the “Blue Alcopop” song, the sound effect), especially on Within the Walls and 40K, special kinds of jukebox wonder. And good god that’s all I wanted at the end of the day when searching for the best punk I could hear all year.
Again, you’ll probably have to do some shenanigans or politely mail a letter of sorts to the Gee Tee world hq down in Sydney, Australia–“where the beer flows like wine”–if you want a tape. These songs are coming supposedly next year (late ’22 was not on the table as hoped), and at least Stuck Down and Rock Phone (as well as non-album cut Someone Else) are available as a righteous, economical digital at the moment.
