PRANA CRAFTER “3rd Ear Incantations” C30 (\\NULL|Z0NE//)

And with the release of 3rd Ear Incantations by Prana Crafter, \\NULL|Z0NE// becomes the North American hub of Hypnic Jerk Tapes. Well, maybe not really. But it is true that the stalwart Atlanta label has pillaged two of the acts appearing on the Aussie upstart’s initial tape run. To be clear, this isn’t a bad thing at all – all it means is that Michael Potter, \\NULL|Z0NE// honcho, knows winning tunes when he hears them, and he just wants to release some winning tunes. And with these winning tunes, in the end, everybody is a winner.

Prana Crafter is William Sol out of the great state of Washington in the Pacific Northwest. Using guitar and synthesizers, he crafts a far-out ambient adventure to the stars and beyond. It’s all awe and overwhelming size on side A, and the mysteries of the universe flit by in slow-mo, sometimes penetrating you and granting you the knowledge you desire. On side B, Sol bursts through a vortex and into one-man shred territory, a Floydian dystopian narrative that resolves in acoustic strums and more cosmic synth. With knowledge comes power, with power comes shredding, with shredding comes destruction, so rebuilding is a must. Trip back over to side A to return to that mindset. The shredding will come again, don’t worry. Circle of life.

See? We all win enlightenment.

https://pranacrafter.bandcamp.com/

https://nullzone.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

ROOTLESS “Emptied Spaces” (NULL|Z0NE)

Rootless is the project of Jeremy Hurewitz, who specializes in making spacey, freeform electro-folk. Sometimes he sings, but it’s the lush instrumentation that does me in, all of that laid-back synth and guitar like the aurora borealis shimmering all around you at all hours of the night, at all times of the year. On Emptied Spaces, he clears out the clutter of expectation and intention, creating room for the mind to wander. It’s sort of like a beat-inflected guided meditation, one where the journey is ongoing and goal is experiencing the passage of events. Things are consistently chased from place, and you’re left trying to catch up and cope with the removal. It’s the inverse of the intentional betterment of self.

Which turns into self-betterment anyway. Only by approaching this realization is one able to embrace the constant motion, the fleeting wisps of knowledge at the edges of perception. Rootless, by self-definition, is not grounded to one location anyway, so Hurewitz is able to experiment with his environment and enable multiple points of reference even as those references turn to ghosts. Not content to leave us in a realm of his own devising, he invites Mukqs and Geneva Skeen over for some remix work, thereby leaving us an exit strategy in case we want to trip off on a new adventure. Little do we know, we all inhabit the same trip – it’s all interconnected anyway.

https://nullzone.bandcamp.com/

https://rootless.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

MATT ROBIDOUX “Brief Candles” C38 ( \\Null | Zone// )

Freshly released from the timbre-worshipping ashram of Mills College, Matt Robidoux shares with us an avant-pop collection that puts reeds and brasses to the very fore, shining a surgical spotlight on their nuance-rich, layered swells & trembling binaural tremolos, all sonic posits’ curliques each donning fractal-flirt-worthy flourishes of their very own, and this is a triiiiip! Whether upbeat or glacially stretched out, the scenes MR sets are spacious and sweltering, are thick enough to sink one’s claws &/or teeth into, each and every one, and the leaps he takes are daring and righteous, yet make total sense, once all the dust settles. 

Listen to at your loudest responsible volume, all in one sitting, and you won’t be disappointed; but if you’re on a time crunch, at least do yourself the phenomenal favor of taking in tracks 6 and 7, the former featuring Ylang Ylang’s vocals that blend seamlessly with and somehow still scratch against some brilliant classical drone-tones and a deceptive percussive pulse…and the riffs on track 7, *chef’s kisses*, just remarkable!

Matt Robidoux has come up with something truly original, fairly accessible, and an all-around dee-lightful here! Big ups to Null Zone for taking a chance to put this beautifully weird release out!

https://nullzone.bandcamp.com/album/brief-candles

and/or

https://www.mattrobidoux.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan