STRNGLV/PELKTOPIA
“Noosphertilizer III” C62 (Aubjects)
“[Holland] Tunnel construction required workers to spend
large amounts of time in the caisson
under high pressure of up to 47.5 pounds per square inch (328 kPa), which
was thought to be necessary to prevent river water from entering prior to
completion of the tubes. "Sandhogs",
as they were termed, entered the tunnel through a series of airlocks, and could only
remain inside of the tunnel for a designated time period. On exiting the
tunnel, the workers had to undergo controlled decompression to avoid the bends, a
condition in which nitrogen bubbles form in the blood from rapid decompression.[27]
Fortunately, no workers died as a result of decompression sickness: the work
involved "756,000 decompressions of men coming out of the compressed air
workings," which resulted in 528 cases of the bends, none fatal.[28][29]
Completion of the tunnel took nearly seven years and claimed the lives of 14
workers.” ~Wikipedia J
I’m pretty sure that STRNGLV’s side of this split, a half
hour’s worth of layered, ever fluctuating textural synth loops, a la Alessandro
Cortini, could give anyone who worked on this project an immediate flashback.
Whenever I listened to this tape (a good full ten times before writing this
review), I kept imagining myself several stories below a major metropolitan
cityscape, exploring tunnel after tunnel of hissing, gurgling pipes, scurrying
fauna and the faint tribal echoes of vehicles passing over distant, loose storm
drains. Somehow, the passages were all well lit, never feeling overtly
ominious, nor commercially polished. This is an excellent soundtrack for
dreaming big time weird shit.
A great pairing for this split, the Pelktopia side feels
somehow not quite fully out in the open, but definitely in open air, communing
with the great elements. Imagine taking a long stroll along a busy pier, but,
defying gravity, you get the whole underside to yourself, gentle waves lapping
just inches above your head. Pelktopia trades synths for heavily processed electric
guitar effects that stretch patiently plucked single notes into infinity.
The mental space provided by each sound artist alone is its
own worthwhile journey, but doing so while looking through the beautifully curated
16-page color art booklet provided by Aubjects, the fostering DIY label, is
thrilling. Busily squirming pictures of organic chaos are juxtaposed with the
spirit of cold-hearted order, unrealized blueprints of ambition. I’m pretty
excited to look more into this progressive label.
and/or
-
- Jacob An Kittenplan
MILK PEOPLE “Vintsvon” (Electric Kite Records)
Alternate pop-music universe superstars Milk People dropped a two-fer of high production tunes. Sure, the “Sultans of Swing” and No Doubt comparisons are legit, but there’s something more for the attuned listener, as the Milk People lived through the 80s and 90s and aren’t planning on making the same mistakes. I have no idea if this is true.
Electric Kite Studios in Nashville looks like a fine place. I especially like the wood paneled sauna/drum room. Vince Vaughn really needs to check this out.
--Adam Padavano
V/A “Red Bolatiero” C62 (Teen Action Records)
There’s a whole lot of really great stuff going on with this
here experimental/noise/drone/soundtrack compilation of sound sculptors from
all over the western map. Some tracks
are chaotic, a mantra of repeating synth ditties and out of sync, repeating
field recordings looping in and out of time with each other, sometimes creating
warm, serene poses, and others, outright
I-lost-my-four-year-old-by-the-dunk-tank nightmares. Between these vignettes
lay hefty swaths of electro-acoustic feedback manipulation (most notably Wound
from Italy, Hollowfonts from Tampa, FL USA and Qrux from ???) that I’m damn
glad I got to hear and will be looking out for future releases by, redirecting
my attention to the fine sound-art that Phinery Records in Denmark and Sacred
Phrases in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, USA are steadily churning out! It’s a pretty
wild ride to have so many stylistically different artists, all tied together
through abstraction and the ability to create moods out of thin, vibrating air
molecules, and I think this release is wellllll worth repeated,
eyes-closed-with-headphones listening.
See: Not quite a snuggle soundtrack, praying with dying
machines, meditative swaying, blank stares
-
- Jacob An Kittenplan
PLEASURE CURSES “Pure/Lust”
(Prince George Records)
Pleasure Curses are a synthpop/new wave duo comprising of
two guys with three names each: Jahn Alexander Teetsov and Evan Maxwell Grice.
They hail from Washington DC but make music that sounds like it’d fit best in a
Miami nightclub sometime during the 80s. This casingle is part of a larger
project they made outside in a studio outside of Chicago that includes two
corresponding videos and a third song that isn’t on the tape.
“Pure” centers on themes of feeling pure and togetherness
with others. “Lust” is a much more sexual song that has some edge to it.
Teetsov’s vocals are a perfect fit over the on point instrumentation. The two
sides flow cohesively together. Fans of acts like Hot Chip and The Human League
who haven’t already given these guys a chance should do themselves a favor and
pick up a copy of the tape. Even those among us who don’t like those bands
should still give it a try.
Stream all 3 songs from the project including “Concrete” (not
on tape): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jnao80JEIc&list=PL5ICwEsf_17a_f9ta4Z1Nc25RM0Q4AGss
-- Roy Blumenfeld
TWIN WHIPS
"Wallowing in Excrement & Lost Horses"
Some sadomasochistic reverberated pulsating depth charges hit the depths of the ocean, like real Canto 48 level inferno, you're surrounded by these pieces of shit level anxiety. They're occasionally accompanied by motorcycle Doppler effect diminuendo being interpreted by some type of demonic strobe light whoopie cushion.
Intermediately through the ominous haze and bottom feeder sand clouds of mink carcass pollution and unknown yet to be discovered additions to the periodic table colliding with toxic waste gets all these luminescent monsters of the deep sea PCP level high, real uppers, which is nothing to say of whatever God knows what which was just flushed down the toilet at the Chinese spice synthetic pot factory. Stoplight Loosejaws with jagged fangs, oversized dislocatable jaws and teeth in their throats, a Humpback Anglerfish lingering between the Abyssopelagic and Hadopelagic zones ... ready to pick a fight with whatever lies at 12 'o' clock.
A gurgle accidentally squeaks through this sonic forcefield of a radiating death wall, exposing a victim for a half second. But the sound quickly drones away back into UFO abduction sonic abstract noise.
Tribal drum patterns can be heard in the distance played simply and stoically. They are gathering volume to sonically illustrate and exemplify their approach.
Airplane engines, lawnmower motors, contact microphones and plexiglass, God's moan - old testament wrath invoking, snare drum & sheet metal, automation accompanying the immortal angst of the slave to the grid and the grind. Contemporary urban electronic anxiety. Post-industrial.
Ah fuck, what is that? A dissonant chord from a Cello? It's some type of creaky pirate ship oak on steel being gently rocked by a windless current somewhere in the baltic.
The cassette tape skips and the side turns. This brief end from this impressive harsh noise tape snaps you back to reality and out of the deep ocean hell.
Before you know it, you're tripping acid at 6:45AM while on your garbageman run. The Moby Dick nightmare was a disillusion, a daydream. Those Humpback Anglerfish were the maggots that just spilled on your work gloves and stained wifebeater as you craptastically thrusted a half broken trash bag into the compressor with your bad sprained wrist hand.
Luckily, at least you got Twin Whips 2 song cassette in your walkman. At least you're a CASSETTE GOD! At least you're still alive and stoned inside, feeling the wind and maggots in your garbage hair.
Any Cassette God noise boy or girl would love to add TWIN WHIPS to their audio collection.
-- Jack Turnbull
JASON MILLARD “Second Based” C32
(Lighten Up Sounds)
So,
hypothetically speaking, if you were to tell me that the picture on the front
of the above J-Card was, in fact, aside from the transplanted face, lifted from
an old baseball card that fetches a pretty penny nowadays, known in many
circles as the ‘Bill Ripken- Rick Face’ card, the words ‘RICK’ and ‘FUCK’
looking a helluva lot alike when sharpee’d on the bottom of a baseball bat, I’d
probably tell you that I may or may not have it somewhere in my parents’ attic
just outside of Dayton, Ohio.
Also,
if you were to tell me about how quite a high percentage of blackmetal bands actually
take pride in their recordings sounding like shit, and that one renowned drummer
went on record as to explicitly request of his sound engineer that their (the
blackmetal band’s) album should sound like they were being recorded in a
trashcan, well, I’d ask you if that drummer’s Christian name was, in fact,
Oscar D. Grouch.
Moreover,
if you were to tell me, in earnest, that Jason Millard, notably a pretty all
around bad-ass, jack-of-all-trades musician from Minneapolis, Minnesota was somehow
inspired to record a concept album, whereby all recorded sounds were painstakingly
labored over to simulate a fight-to-the-death sequence (in song form, spanning
a half hour plus) between the remaining Sun City Girls gents and all them rascally
members ever involved with Harvey Milk (the band, silly)- and that this fight
would not be hand-to-hand, but rather sonically, with rhythmic and lead
acoustic guitars traded off randomly between these axe-men- and that these
fight-sounds would only be recorded (or, really, simulated to be recorded) through
chintzy, piezo pick-ups that were, in turn, shoddily soldered onto the four
walls and rusted underbelly of an industrial sized dumpster, acting as
container/fighting ring for these aforementioned participants, this dumpster,
itself, situated in an abandoned, spacious, concrete bunker that has, over the
past twelve seasons or so received its own fair share of flooding, rusting, and
subsequent mildewing/dead-vermin-soup-gone-dehydrated-relief-sculptures- and that
this, get this, that beside this industrial, hypothetical dumpster, situated in
this abandoned bunker, there has also perished an ancient reel-to-reel
recording mechanism, stitched together by time’s deposition of excrement and
detritus, this recording mechanism’s sound output being a hard-won watermark of
ingenious novelty, whose ‘property of…’ sticker has scrawled into the blank
cream/mold-colored field, in all lower case English print, but with an Aramaic
lilt to the descenders, “MOSES”, this built-to-electrocute mechanism was
responsible for recording aforementioned sound-event’s faulty EQ fidelity,
warble, decibel drop-out, and all around general feeling of “Boy, it’d be
impossible for someone in their bedroom to accidentally consistently record so
many tracks with such dedication to sounding like baby Jebus hisself were just
shitting on the microphone like half the time, well, I’d probably humour you
and ask for a hand-written lyric sheet so that I could play this brilliant
concept album at peak volume on my shitty stereo speakers and sing along in my
most proud falsetto, to display that I, finally, have something more obvious
than the Nick Drake discography to play when less heavy handed clues have
fallen short in inspiring my dallying guests that, as dawn has far since
vanished, it is, indeed, time for them to leave.
-
- Jacob An Kittenplan
I CUM DRUMS “The Girdle” C30
(Sick Sick Sick Distro)
A
solid half-hour of industrial noise, Midwestern 90’s hardcore punk
chugga-chugga breakdowns and…deep jungle music? This one man sweat-fest manages
to make enough racket for a full five piece, simultaneously “pounding them
skins” as they say, whilst also hollering through a mélange of effects pedals.
The toms and cymbals (?) are also triggering a buncha noisy/texturally
amplified gizmos, thus confusing the shit out of anyone who might want to
pigeon-hole this genre-bending chap. I imagine ravers and, for lack of a better
term “those prone to mosh” all scratching the backs of their bobbing,
perspiring noggins to these unforgiving
beats.
If
you get the tape, there’s a bonus track of some of the deepest, ugliest, bowel-churning,
near-brown-notes I’ve ever heard strung together…for a solid 10+ minutes. My
tummy hurts.
and/or
-
- Jacob An Kittenplan
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