February 3, 2021 at 5:39 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Staffers: In the Pigeon Hole tape
Ryan McKeever is the frontman, guitarist, and songwriter of the Washington, DC-based
Staffers. The group play a scrappy but spirited brand of hook-heavy post-punk which at times brings to mind certain aspects of Country Teasers, Oh Sees, and poppier Siltbreeze and In the Red bands. Saxophone, pedal steel, and toy piano add some color to the fuzzy guitars, and tracks like “Fuck the Brixton” (an ode to a shitty bar) are full of character and swaggering charm. “Jeremy” is the soaring climax, but “Getting Thinner” is also an anxiety-riddled highlight. As nervy as the album gets, it all winds down with a bitter country lament, “Just Another Tuesday”.
February 2, 2021 at 8:10 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Keleketla!: Keleketla! Remixes
The Coldcut-assisted South African/British collective gets the
remix treatment, largely keeping the messages of freedom and independence intact while varying the rhythms. Machinedrum’s mix of “Papua Merdeka” preserves Benny Wenda’s plea for help from Indonesia’s genocidal takeover of Papua, while adding some atmospheric breakbeats. Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound works magic on “Freedom Groove”, dubbing the Watts Prophets’ scream for humanity’s freedom and making more room for Tony Allen’s righteous drumming, the Antibalas horns, and other elements. Detroit’s DJ Stingray turns the gqom heater “Future Toyi Toyi” into a deconstructed don’t-say-electro banger, actually coming closer to post-industrial. Skee Mask’s “Swift Gathering” is ambient drum’n’bass with precision-engineered but full-of-life breakbeats and lush, gorgeous textures. Doesn’t sound a think like the original, mind. Floyd Lavine adds a smidgen of acid to his Afro-house mix of “Papua Merdeka”, and Esa does both deep house and Afro-synth interpretations of “Shepherd Song”. Henrik Schwarz and Project Pablo also do some smooth work on the house side. Of the two versions of the Yugen Blakrok’s poetic showcase “Crystallise”, J Saul Kane’s is by far the most bugged out, truly wonky in the best way. Jungle Drummer’s “5&1” is another incredibly organic-sounding drum’n’bass track, and Mr Raoul K cools things down with the abstract, simmering “Broken Light”.
February 2, 2021 at 6:33 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
AntiHamlet/Szdanik Tuuutiitak: split tape
Yet another absurdly limited tape from Psy-Fiction Recordings’ Alexey Nakhodkin, the first side is taken up by AntiHamlet’s “Electric Throne”, a vibrating buzz-drone which gradually gets sharper and noisier until it gains a sort of reverberating attack. Some interruptions trip it up a bit, but then it gets right back into its dirty fluctuations, while seeming basically lodged in place. It’s very monotonous and doesn’t go anywhere but I love it. Later on it seems to catch an electrical fire yet somehow resists getting totally singed and keeps fluttering, thrashing, and crackling. After a while, though, all that’s left is an intensely hissing signal that just can’t quite get extinguished, until it finally bips out at the end. On the other side, Szdanik Tuuutiitak’s “Transparent Alphabet” is a more lonesome organ drone that wavers in the moonlight and trudges in distortion, then gradually disassociates and becomes a ghost. After nearly disappearing, it switches to a more haunted drone, one that sounds more like captured souls.
February 1, 2021 at 10:58 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Szdanik Tttk/Mexika/A. Kustarnik/Vin Rar: split tape
Limited to 5 copies, this 90-minute tape showcases 4 different aliases of Psy-Fiction Recordings’ prolific owner, Alexey Nakhodkin. Szdanik Tuuutiitak (in slightly abbreviated form) starts this shindig off with what could be grainy loops of at least 5 calliopes playing at once, with faint melodies managing to poke their way out but nothing really changing apart from the tape speed at a few points. The Mexika piece starts out extremely minimal and sounds like a distant furnace that you think is either strangely humming out a melody or your brain’s playing tricks on you, then a louder, more distinct vibration buzzes in. Some more irritated screeching emerges, but then somehow this plunges into a bucket of blue fluid and glitches/freezes for a while. Eventually a swarm of harmonicas cut in, some whirring out with distortion, but generally revolving around the same beehive. Peridically it crumbles and mutes a bit, but then comes back slurrier than ever. At one point it feels like it’s basically been ground into dust, but it crawls back slightly before the side ends. A. Kustarnik, on the second side, is guitar-based, with wayward twangs and clangs splayed across a wasteland. Gradually it seems to lift away from the guitar-based source material, with more vibrations, distortions, and just a creeping ominousness. Like the end of the first side, it gets super smudged and cruddy by the end. After this is Vin Rar, maybe the artist’s most playful, minimal synth-esque project. Bubbly tones quickly whizzle around like a pinwheel, while a drum machine patiently drips away underneath. Like the rest of the tape, there’s periods where it seems like nothing is changing much, but it does get out of wack, getting brighter, less busy, slowing down, piling back in, etc. Even though it doesn’t really progress, it does seem stuck in the same fluttering moment of joy.
January 31, 2021 at 10:32 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Yasuyuki Uesugi: Psychosis Is A Condition In Which Nerve Cells Can No Longer Tolerate Defects tape
12 copies of
this tape exist, making it one of the larger pressings on Russian label
Psy-Fiction Recordings, which usually releases tapes in editions of about 5 copies each. It’s also one of the few releases on the label created by someone other than multi-monikered founder Alexey Nakhodkin, and one of the more professional-looking tapes I’ve seen from the label. Noise artist
Yasuyuki Uesugi has released dozens of albums since 2019 (!) and they’re all deeply psychological, filled with titles related to mental health, suffering, and the abuse of experimental substances intended as forms of medication. The tracks on this tape reflect a never-ending vortex of confusion, dissatisfaction, and severe migraines, and all of them are basically 4-minute vacuum cleaner drones with slightly varied effects on them. The second side definitely has more variation, as there’s more of a swirl to these tracks, and more of a psychedelic tinge. “My Failures Always Stimulate the Brain” is harsher and more cutting with spaceship oscillations fluttering underneath, and “People Trapped In Social Mechanisms” seems more like a tub filled with bubbling acid. All of the tracks basically sound like the artist is setting the controls a certain way and just letting it run for several minutes, but they all feel like being captured at a certain state, and the pieces on the second half seem more agitated, more stimulated, a bit more removed from reality, but also more alive.
January 29, 2021 at 6:17 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Terry Gross: Soft Opening
The title of
the first album by the newest project of Trans Am’s Phil Manley is totally misleading. This one freely storms out the gate, playing Neu!-style rhythms and riffs with the energy of a garage-punk band. The drummer breaks up the rhythms a bit so it doesn’t get too samey, and then it totally breaks down and heads into a group chant for a bit. Once they steer back onto another course, they sound more determined and charged than ever. “Worm Gear” does more Motorik-style trancing out, but feels more sideways and wobbly. Eventually the riffs get a bit more metal, and there’s some epic vocals that blast out at one point, as the band sludges toward the end, yet still keeping their composure. “Specificity (Or What Have You)” is shorter and more anthemic, starting with spirited verses before unleashing some dazzling guitar pyrotechnics. Just a joyous quest all around.
January 28, 2021 at 8:29 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Von Hayes: Wa La!
from Von Hayes sports a quote from Tobin Sprout, who states that there are no grand secrets to 4-track recording, just use tracks for overdubs and bounce the vocals to one track. “Mix and EQ to taste and wa la.” With that, Von Hayes keep doing it as they’ve been doing since the ’00s. This one has a few big rock singalong moments (particularly “I’m Tired” and “Zamp”, which has both harmonica and guitar solos), a mini-power ballad (“I Had No Idea It Was Today”), and tracks that are a bit mellower and more singer/songwritery than the band’s older material, like the nostalgic “Decades in the Breaking”. Both of the group’s singers duet on “And Always” while surrounded by brain-electrifying guitar noise and rumbling drums, but the second half of the song is sparse, barely audible acoustic strumming which gets interrupted by sudden, hair-raising jolts. “No Title #11” is a queasy, punch-drunk number backed by a swarm of creaking violins. “Quarantine Dreams” sounds like an R.E.M. demo, but with weirder, messier guitars. The album triumphantly ends with the space-themed pop epic “Message to the Sparkled Egg Star”.
January 27, 2021 at 9:00 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Reynols: Gona Rubian Ranesa
The legendary Argentinian experimental group Reynols returns with their
first studio album in 17 years, following a gargantuan 2019 box set and a collaboration with Acid Mothers Temple early last year. Blazing opener “Cameso Cator Sitero” definitely finds them in a sort of AMT free space rock mode, with leader Miguel Tomasin pounding out shaky but driving rhythms and excitedly shouting and la-laing to another galaxy while guitarists Anla Courtis and Rob Conlazo blaze paths to infinity. “Lintiri Teperoli” is slower, calmer, and more mystical, Tomasin improvising on an organ and Pacu Conlazo beating out earthy rhythms on hand drums. “Acotan Silago Foli” is more meandering and has multiple Tomasins wailing away, sometimes expanded to supernatural heights with reverb and echo effects. “Corlo Saturu” basically feels like their Krautrock jam, albeit looser and less disciplined than most of the bands associated with that term. Still, the flanged guitars and trebly, whistling flutes guide the music to some different spaces.
January 27, 2021 at 8:21 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Sverre Knut Johansen: Dreams Beyond
Norwegian composer Sverre Knut Johansen produces rich, expansive soundscapes typically exploring topics such as deep space and extraterrestrial life.
This one seems to be about the more fantastic aspects of nature, and how it shapes our dreams. The synths imitate bird cries and synthesize the feeling of flying over lush forests and between snowy mountaintops, also simulated by the soaring guitars. The beats are generally downtempo, but the music is in no way sluggish; tracks like “Skylight” feel like rushing over a landscape and you can’t catch all the details at once. “Dawn” is shorter and beatless, and mixes analog chirps with synthetic sunbursts. “Tatra Mountains” is another majestic flight over a grand range. “Causeway” actually does have some sludgier beats and textures, especially towards the end. “Human Connection” features cellist Henrik Silfverhielm, and feels closer to music for an Olympic procession. Still, there’s enough synth roughness and strange textures to keep this from sounding too clean and polite.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 