HEY EXIT "Caudata" C36 (Self-Released)

There are HARP-ists and there are HeARtstringPull-ists…

This shitty pun may seem too much a stretch, but I’m too humbled to attempt a less fawning summation of this brilliant, emotional rollercoaster of a Composition. Capital “C” here. kämpəˈziSH(ə)n/. What I wouldn’t give to see the drafts/blueprints that led up to this schizophrenic mindfuck.

For background, I really enjoy listening to guitar-based drone and harsh noise. I love listening for minimal poses framed with and against other minimal poses and expertly plotted stretches of consonance v. dissonance and the worlds within worlds that they promote.

…but Jaysus Ayche Kay-Riced! How often do you get to hear all of these qualities achieved consistently AND economically condensed into a near half-hour chunk?!

Do yourself a favor and carve out 40 minutes of your day to give this a thorough, eyeswideshut, uninterrupted listen. Just a head’s up, there’s a 6 minute stretch near the beginning that the squeamish might want to turn the volume slightly down on, during the first run through…. but smoothly uneasy sailing from there on out; You’ll Know when it starts! <3

https://heyexit.bandcamp.com/album/caudata
and/or
http://www.heyexit.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

HEY EXIT “Else” (Self Released)

Hey Exit is the solo project of Brendan Landis. If “Else” were a movie starring Landis here is how it would go. Boy meets baritone guitar. Boy falls in love with guitar yet decides rock and roll music is too boring and confined to let him express what he wants to express through music. Boy decides conventions are for squares and turns the guitar from instrument to tool which he uses to craft ambient compositions and save Western civilization.

The movie would be among the greatest stories ever told. There would be romance, introspection, and a grand storyline. Since you will probably never get a chance to see it in film form you should stream + download the music instead from the link below.

Stream + Download: https://heyexit.bandcamp.com/album/else

-- Roy Blumenfeld

HEY EXIT “Slow Names 2” C50 (Turmeric Magnitudes)

The simple drawing on the cover says it all. Two birds, one perched regally, not a worry in his head, the other, levitating supine, with similar headspace; if not dead, surely making it’s way on out to the other side.

Allow me to read between the powerlines:

Side A

Tetuzi Akiyama’s guardian sparrow has grown pregnant with sorrow, hypnotized by distant church bells, the way full force gale and deluge take turns bending overtones to uneasy warble as they crawl clumsily through the lone, cracked window in their barren apartment. Songbird has given up matching TA’s patient plodding, those slow steel wires taking their sweet, sweet time to die, a new reverberation birthed just in time to see great grandfather’s death rattle shake the driest side of said windowpane. The city outside is drowning chaos, the lone swaying tapered candle within proudly lights a dust-free circle of minimal warmth on the floorboards by TA’s feet.

Side B

Tetuzi Akiyama’s agreement was this; I will feed you and play for you and keep you dry, but if you want to see the world, that sick world out there, the window is always left open just enough to permit exit. In the meantime, do accompany me as you see fit.

Songbird dreams his “escape”, journeys through electrified amplification and processing, makes friends with undesirables, gets a stick-&-poke tattoo that quickly gets infected, narrowly avoids a watery grave more times than he can count, sleeps it off under a park bench and “wakes” to the sound of his ribs cracking under a feral cat’s hunger-weakened jaws.

This recurring nightmare wakes him every night and the tape ends just before he sings and sings and sings.

See: field recordings, Tetuzi Akiyama worship, overtones, destroyed amps, tone v. texture, how many sounds can you get from that guitar?, Not Safe For Sleeping

http://www.heyexit.com/

and/or   

https://turmericmagnitudes.bandcamp.com/album/slow-names-2

- - Jacob An Kittenplan