PADANG FOOD TIGERS & SIGBJØRN APELAND “Bumblin’ Creed” (Northern Spy)

Inhale that precious country air, cold and crisp. Folk heroes – heroes! – Padang Food Tigers (the UK’s Stephen Lewis and Spencer Grady) have teamed with Norwegian harmonium player Sigbjørn Apeland to craft the most intimate cassette release that I’ve heard in maybe forever – but hey, why let a little hyperbole stop me? It’s the most intimate cassette release of all time. There, I have your attention, and now you can be transported to the front porch of a rustic cabin on a cliff overlooking a fjord in the blinding sunlight of an early spring afternoon. The sun sparkles off the water and the patches of snow, the green grass whispers in the breeze, and your chair creaks on the floorboards. There’s actually quite a bit of chair-creaking and other ambient room noises on Bumblin’ Creed, asserting the players’ intention to capture specific moments and particular environmental touches. The languid folk stretches over the peacefulness of time and space, recalling such luminaries as John Fahey, Loren Connors, and even Olivier Messiaen, a French composer whose organ works permeate as inspiration. But all of this is covered in the press – you really haven’t done yourself any favors until you immerse yourself in Bumblin’ Creed’s pastoral beauty. How can you not feel hope and contentment with a tune like “Barley a Breath in Your Parenthesis” wafting over the meadow? Or the call to spiritual awakening of “It’s in Thee, Frittering Away”? And did I mention, there are no words to trip up the dreamer, nothing to detract from the sense of personal discovery and betterment? It’s as if this cassette exists as a primer, a companion, and a portal, an artifact whose sole purpose is to assist one through life. Maybe that’s the case – you can sit, you can dream, you can exist, or you can stand and move forward, exhibiting the serenity that Padang Food Tigers and Sigbjørn Apeland conjure in their playing, projecting that serenity into the lives of others. Ugh, FFS, I’m gonna say “pay it forward,” aren’t I? I totally didn’t intend to end up there, but hey, I did. Make everybody happy. Play Bumblin’ Creed anywhere people go for anything, be it a remote Scandinavian precipice or a crowded train station. Let the vibes unfurl and change lives. I’m a new man at the end of this.

Northern Spy

Padang Food Tigers at Discogs

Sigbjørn Apeland at Discogs

CASSETTE STORE DAY

--Ryan Masteller

HORSELOVER FATS “Liberty Ashes” (Northern Spy)

“So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.” If Padmé Amidala was a historical soothsayer rather than a fictional senator-cum-queen (you’d have to research the politics of Naboo, I’m not 100 percent clear on the succession thing either), we’d all be praising her premonition and lamenting the present it foresaw, all Sith lords and jackboots. While I kid, a little bit, Horselover Fats (more on the heaviness of that moniker in a minute) appears to follow Padmé’s lead and extend it just a bit further – that thunderous applause has become thunderous drumbeats and guitar shredding, and liberty has been stomped to death, spat upon, and burned to a crisp, leaving nothing but its ashes – Liberty Ashes, yes – to disperse upon the wind over the everlasting march of time. And that’s just the A-side, the title track! You don’t need Jar-Jar Binks to stumble all up in your business, blabbering incoherently before inadvertently saving your life as the so-called “surveillance state” swoops in to gather up all the bad apples, no-goodniks, and countercultural warriors. Any way you look at it, “Aria for the Surveillance State” is an ode to chaos in a time after the hammer’s been dropped, a neo-future wasteland like the ones Los Angeles and New York became in 1980s sci-fi action films. Oh, sure, you can exist in it, but it’s not the greatest existence you can imagine. Horselover Fats, the name lifted from Philip K. Dick’s semiautobiographical character in VALIS, oozes paranoia over unseen forces as the musicians conjure unease in every conceivable capacity, but these days we don’t need to be drugged out to hallucinate the madness – it’s already in front of us. Liberty Ashes is like a road trip away from the decaying metropolises and toward some distant unseen rural hope – you steal car after car to keep the authorities off your tail, you hitchhike when you have to. Before you know it you’ve been stabbed in the ass by a stranger at the bus station. Hey, he’s just as freaked out as you – put some Bactine on it and give him a break.

Northern Spy

Horselover Fats

CASSETTE STORE DAY

--Ryan Masteller

JOE WESTERLUND “Mojave Interlude” C30 (Northern Spy)

Raleigh’s Joe Westerlund traveled to California at some point, and the experience must have stuck with him if Mojave Interlude is any indication. Consider too that this tape took its form between August 2006 and November 2015, and it’s obvious that Westerlund, with a great sense of admiration for them, carefully considered the places he had been and crafted the music that reflected them over the extended period of time. It’s true – Mojave Interlude parts I and II, on side A and B, respectively, carry the dust of the desert within their compositional frameworks, and whether they stretch out in their stillness or erupt epileptically like a sandstorm they still retain their identities. Electronics hover, broken periodically by the madness of percussion. Brass and reeds bleat life into the night, and sound fragments, even trickles of water, appear here and there before ceding the spotlight to the next element. Somehow, these compositions also accompanied a dance piece called I Am Come for You, choreographed by Carson Efird – the performers clearly had to be at the top of their game for this, as their interpretations of this music likely consisted of slowly moving for periods of time followed by intense freakouts of flailing limbs. I’m also somewhat of a modern dance Philistine, so I’m probably imagining the comedic result of outrageous pretension. That’s all in my head, though, because Westerlund’s music certainly doesn’t waste time or effort getting to a tangible place where elucidation is fairly straightforward. The cassette’s cover image even evokes the movement, the restlessness that Westerlund imbues within these two pieces. It imposes a sense of joy, too, and satisfaction in knowing that the result of so much effort has reached its rewarding conclusion.

Northern Spy

Joe Westerlund

CASSETTE STORE DAY

--Ryan Masteller

MEMORY SMOKER "Synth Eternal" C60 (Self-Released)

With four spooky folx from Boise, Idaho all collaborating together through modular synthesizers and a microphone, I was expecting something a little more reproductive-organs-to-the-wall, but Memory Smoker are wise. They know that you don’t need to scream to say what you mean. And they are savvy; with those synths, they align and impose many an atonal, effect-tweek-d layer above and below others, never stepping on toes or distracting, but amplifying the moods & meanings. Distortion is sparse and reserved for punch, not just an energy default. Tortured howls, few and far between, maintain their focal status, as do ever-rarer visitations from (dare I say “minor-key”) drones amidst tasteful feedback and haunted factory bump-in-the-night textures.

The effect is a controlled séance by a well established coven who have it down to a science, documenting recurring demonic possessions with the same familiarity one might the shrieks of an electro-shock patient in the psych ward, both emotionally detached and physiologically attentive. It’s a chilling experience, for sure.

https://memorysmokers.bandcamp.com/
and/or
http://www.memorysmoker.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

NATHANIEL YOUNG “Stringed Exploits” C14 (Phinery)

Hear the strings that struck themselves, the artist (magician) overseeing, casting spells upon instruments and computer software and bidding his subjects to their own internal sense of euphonic creation. It seems, although it’s not true, that Brooklyn artist Nathaniel Young merely stood back and let the music happen upon his watch. This is not Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 (although I would never fault you for listening to that). This is a carefully controlled supernova of unexpected tonality, a burst of creativity and meaning in fourteen short minutes.

Long a fixture of experimental music circles, Young operates labels such Blankstairs, Debacle Records, and Motor, the influence of his near-infinite connections coalescing into a singularity of compositional thought. Distilling the ideas of instrumentation, melody, and mood into pure waveforms, Young expands the ideas of what this type of sound manipulation can mean, and he keeps the listener within arm’s reach even as his concepts spiral further from a universal center. Pointillist rhythms, splotchy harmonic vapor trails, and sometimes even discernible instruments swirl around one another in a miniature maelstrom. All “exploits” lead to pure, weird satisfaction on a micro level.

That Young found a home among likeminded artists on Phinery is no surprise – the label continues to churn out amazing releases. And Young’s entry into the larger pantheon, while small in size, resonates deeply. Guys like Seth Graham and G.S. Sultan better watch their backs (and yes I realize that’s shilling for Orange Milk too, so what?). Academic-minded electronic music has never felt so alive! Now wave those magic wands in the face of logic and reason and be transformed.

Nathaniel Young

Phinery

--Ryan Masteller

MOON LAGOON "How Do I Get Out Of Here" (5nakefork Records)

Moon Lagoon is a 14 track offering with titles ranging from fifty-two seconds to the end piece, which weighs in at 14:12. There is no track listing on the tape casing, so it's helpful to have the Bandcamp page open while listening.

The first thing noticeable is what incredible sound and texture he gets using the voice memo app as a recording unit. Opening side one is a dreamy collage that may or may not have some distant guitar in the mix. It's a lovely piece and it's obvious that this is not going to be your run-of-the-mill experimental/ electronica. This segues smoothly into the next selection, which, while starkly different, nonetheless continues the smooth sailing features on the previous cut. Moon Lagoon's use of synth instigated effects is outstanding, clearly Colby has a keen ear for layering. This music could easily be implemented in film as well.

Careful not to prolong a good thing, the artist builds know a soundscape, reaches the sired heights and promptly weaves into the next track-maintaining the mood, but shifting the design. Several listens through brought me to to the apt conclusion that this, as an electronic soundscape, is stunning and well, beautiful. Repeated listens continue to bring out fresh ideas as to allow the listener almost a new experience with each playback.

The tape doesn't offer much in the way of information but does include a download code so I followed that to Bandcamp and found some additional data. Moon Lagoon is Colby Dean Short.
He recorded this, his first solo release, using only a voice memo app. Very interesting. A digital album exists but here we are focused on this limited edition tape run of 54 cassettes (this one is number 24).

This was released in 2015, so it's not clear if the tape version is still available but for those not format strict, the download version is still up as of this writing. If you are a fan of electronica/noise/soundscape this tape is highly recommended. Brilliant work...

www.moonlagoon.bandcamp.com

-- Bob Zilli

FORMER_AIRLINE “Our Fantasies for Science and Pornography” C44 (Hylé Tapes)

Maybe it’s not so odd that former_airline, aka Masaki Kubo, has decided to equate science and pornography, two things that on the surface don’t seem to have much in common. There does seem to be a nexus point where the human response to the result of each subject intersects, and it’s actually not a terrible stretch to deduce the common denominator. If we look at one of the points of science – betterment of conditions of existence for humankind – we can conclude that forward thinkers have our best interests at heart for both survival and comfort, the utopian endpoint where balance is achieved between scientific discovery and levels of happiness. Progress begets beneficial improvement across the board, and reaping the benefits of science can only increase those chemicals in the human body that hit the pleasure centers of the brain. Pornography, or sexual activity of any kind, pretty much does the same thing, except instead of progress it’s really just about getting off.

That said, the music of former_airline doesn’t necessarily hover much around the common perception of pornography; rather, it takes a more analytical approach, for the most part, and resembles that of scientific exploration by way of experimental electronics fused with psych, drone, krautrock, shoegaze, and even pop. Although the quick gratification of early tracks like the MIDI waveform freak funk of “In the Error World” or the twitchy, giddy electro-pop of “Facing the Wall” might initially seem like pleasurable experiences for pleasure’s sake, a look under the hood reveals a precision in composition that’s less the strict embodiment of headlong enjoyment than it is a calculated construction for maximum gratification. That said, though, even the clinical kraut passages of “Gate” and the subdued meditation of “What the Ocean Said” contain enough propulsive endorphins to keep your attention transfixed.

Maybe the point is that former_airline is charting the movement of science and pornography toward some sort of asexual combination where procreation is stripped of sexuality, becoming more a robotic method of preserving the species. Or maybe the idea is to inject a little bit of fun into the serious process of improving life on this planet. Or, even further, maybe former_airline is simply trying to manufacture an extended climax through the scientific method, an attempt he’s certainly succeeded at with closer “Spinning Dreams with Angel Wings,” a glossy Neu!-indebted treat that stretches its high for over eight minutes. At any rate, regardless of the outcome, the gist is that it’s harmless to have a little fun in the face of serious endeavors, and Our Fantasies bears that out to its furthest extent.

former_airline

Hylé Tapes

--Ryan Masteller