RE-CLIP “Noon” C43 (Hyster Tapes)

Don’t adjust that dial; your tape playER isn’t giving up the ghost quite yet. It’s just that Finland’s RE-CLIP have REnegotiated how time and rhythm of fairly mundane souRcE matERial will now REveal itself to each and evERyone of your individual EaRs in a disoRiEnting mannER via loop manipulation/vicious-bastardization.

Bird chirps, wind, bells, bass, tape hiss, recordERs of various stRipEs; they’ve all been thrown undER the bus to be destRoyEd, disfiguREd, and RestitchEd, for maximum dEliRium inducement.

HystER Tapes, as per their MO, has dubbed this half-noxious, half-hypnagogic* audio-stumble onto a single side of RecyclEd tape, & if you’RE lucky, you get an esotERic sticker, to boot!

http://www.pcuf.fi/~plaa/hyster.html

—Jacob An Kittenplan

* Sleep on your side if you wanna try & take a nap to this.

LEITMOTIV LIMBO/RNPno.2 “Split” C (Hyster Tapes)

Robot heart and lung; pipes, wires, hollows & spools. Leitmotiv Limbo’s side of this esoteric split is all charming hiss and white-noise whisper'd transmission, minimally excited circulatory system, a hushed circle spinning, off axis, sleepy cycle wobble & rock self on back to sleep.

Machine worry, fret, and weight, dictated straight to electric guitar, amp, & cymbal, RNPno.2 just adjusts clicks & hum, feedback to back, all scritchy-like. What in tarnation was that?

https://soundcloud.com/leitmotiv-limbo

and/or

http://www.pcuf.fi/~plaa/hyster.html

— Jacob An Kittenplan

ZOE POLANSKI “Inertia – Music from the Motion Picture” (Hyster Tapes)

There’s something about handmade objects that is much more special than your plastic-wrapped, machine spit-out, printed and stamped bric-a-brac. I got a whole bag of tapes in the mail and the soundtrack to a movie called INERTIA was one of them and it’s the cheapest and crudest of the bunch but also the best one because it’s made from a recycled tape, which in this case means a tape got recorded over and someone used a piece of griptape from their skateboard or maybe some sandpaper from the garage to buff out whatever was printed on it originally. You can feel the roughness with your thumb and connect with the person who scratched it. You cannot do this with a computer or a machine. If a computer or a machine makes something it is not an art object in the same way as someone grabbing a Jesus tape, buffing out the titles, and recording some new sounds over the rambling pastor. This is the best way to do things, the freest way, and the friendliest to mother nature. Upcycled tapes, not recycled. Why don’t more out there do this? Of the large stack of tapes I received this was the only handmade tape, hell the only one that a human folded the jcard. But whatever, the real reason to be sitting here typing away is to describe the SOUNDS on this artifact. The sounds are made by Zoe Polanski and they are haunting, anxious and beautiful, if not a little dark. A voice echoes through empty space, perhaps there is a forest of dead trees, the wind blows, something is missing, the voice fades into something else, an organ, then returns, brighter, dark brown turns to orange and is cold. Mist, a moonless but starlit sky. Mother’s Theme. Dawn breaks and Benny is Gone. The heart beats faster. The mood is anxious and blue, dark blue, a frozen blue and the sound lifts. I have not seen this movie which leaves me at a strong disadvantage in being able to describe what the sounds are describing. I know I am at the cinema. I am not watching something happy or joyful. I am not watching something horrific. I am watching something paranoid, guilty and perhaps scared. I am scared and I am sad and I am unsure. Hush, sleep comes and Mira Dreams. Sleep is peaceful at first, slowed, lulled and torpid but Mira dreams deeper and the voice comes back whistling through the trees and then it is gone again, replaced again by a slow, bright swell that soon will ebb and leave us alone, silent and alone before the storm comes roaring overhead in a televised nightmare. Yes I am at the cinema and when I leave I will take with me all that I have seen and heard and keep it in the front of my mind from years to come.

-Ricky Lemonseed

VARIOUS ARTISTS "L'incoronazione" (Hyster Tapes)

Hyster Tapes brings forth this e.p. length compilation offering of electronic wizardry.

Opening and closing with untitled cuts by Dear Beloved Henry, my interest wandered a bit while DBH screeched through several minutes of nails-to-chalkboard audio trickery. Debt Of Nature follows with nearly eight minutes of more listenable tonal landscaping. R.S.T., Grey Park and Autumn Appreciation Society fill in the remaining space with creative but not quite captivating offerings before Dear Beloved Henry come to bat to round things off.

All said, this is a listenable but not necessarily inspiring offering. The compilation nature of the album with multiple artists does tend to break up the sameness of many single artist tapes in the genre. This format is to be encouraged when presenting relative unknowns into the spotlight. Plus marks for concept.

The tape comes with a black and white homemade j-card insert contains artists, track names and times. This is housed in a standard Norelco plastic case. The only label info is catalogue number and year of release (2015).

-- Bob Zilli

FOUR LETTER WORLD COMPILATION (Hyster Tapes)

side a
reminiscent of fusion jazz and transcendental psych-dance, the first song is a high octane repeating two chord progression accompanied by crude sax wailings and accentuated with what sounds like sticks on pots and pans. It fucking rules.

the second song is mysterious but thematically similar. It could be from the same band and the saxaphone seems to open up a bit and show a larger tonal and improvisational range. But then (?!?!?!) the cassette clicks off? Bummer! I dunno what happened, maybe a recording whoops ...

A long interval of silence occurs until a new and more intense frequency slowly rises in volume without break. Like an approaching tornado, it sounds like wind and the wind sound gradually increases in volume. Slowly its clear that the tornado is pulsating to a specific time signature, or beat. My brain slowly listens to the milliseconds of frequency until miniature melodies emerge from the wicked tornado. Subtly and mysteriously through the chaos of feedback, the noise jam evolves at a turbo rate to become on the brink of a headbanger, but alas, it remains just harsh noise. The song ends without much structural resolution; an unclear, muffled sentence is revealed, but then the cassette jets off. Pretty good.

side b
Do you watch Game of Thrones? Because the first song of side B of this cassette sounds like Calishi's husband reciting a vengeance ritual to his tribal followers while Clanging a cow bell and sawing a jagged blade through a skullbone ... one man against the universe here. Utter desperation, plain and simple, you don't get many songs like this, at least not in this galaxy. I can't say it's not extreme.

The second song could quite possibly be an example of Helsinki Mind Control, as it's some cool contemporary chill psych noise jams and I was mesmerized. A keyboard chord progression is a gentle return to structured sanity after recorded verbal assault of the prior song. Although the looping vocals and skipping record hiss cutoff is soothing, we anticipate more harsh noise, but instead we're presented a bluesy moog synthesizer... the record skip serves as a time keeper which mimics a percussion instrument. These ingredients make something both edgy but within the boundaries of a classic 4 part looping electronic rock act. It even starts sounding a little like Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack.

I have to take some points off for technicalities. The cassette had a lot of dead air and I don't know if the song cut off on Side A was intentional, but it was annoying.

This Cassette came from Helsinki... this is all I could find for a website...
http://www.pcuf.fi/~plaa/hyster.html



-- Jack Turnbull

Here's their description in their words...
FOUR LETTER WORLD COMPILATION (HYSTER17, 2013)
*23 minutes that consist of 3 minutes of mild metal clanging & saxophone blowing, 8 min crumb of lo-fi mass of tape noise, 6 minutes
of yelling and throwing around objects inside a building close by some children and recording of a 6min spacey krautish electronic drone
performed at a pub in lithuania. plays in this order: leitmotiv limbo, grey park, YOL and %20.
2e + postages, recycled tapes 50 copies


CRAZY STUFF DUDERS!!!! Extreme, Compelling, varied, ... it's a pretty wicked cassette. PLAY LOUD!!!!