MARK RITCHIE “Kidology” C38 (Gertrude Tapes)

Mark Ritchie speaks into a microphone on a tape recorder in his home in Glasgow. He reads what he’s written. He plays it back. Satisfied, he sends the results to Gertrude Tapes. Gertrude Tapes releases the results.

Know this: “Kidology” is entirely just what I’ve described.

https://thegertrudetapes.bandcamp.com/

--Lenster Blangs

DAX PIERSON “Live in Oakland” C44 (Ratskin Records)

Dax Pierson’s “Live in Oakland” CS out on Ratskin is not one but two distinct journeys trekked along the mesmerizing outcrop of EDM that rises and falls in a meadow of patiently recycled soundbites, dissociated textural cracks, industrial pulse, minor-key drones and faded pastel synth posits. And, as per RR’s MO, there’s plenty of harsh noise accents to go around the block & back.

The movement is constant, Reichian at times in its paced revelation, yet still managing a chaotic feel amongst the synced up, disparate layers. Peaks & valleys between formations are at constant transition in a race to become the other. It is a journey, yet comes full circle back to the love of movement*, and repeated listens will continue to inspire visual fireworks to the backs of anyone’s eyelids who take the time to listen.

https://ratskinrecords.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-oakland

and/or

https://soundcloud.com/dax-pierson

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*read up on DP’s current relationship with gross motor movement and how his medical devices inspired a great bit of how he now makes music/sculpts sound.

HARSH NOISE MOVEMENT / LÄRMSCHUTZ “Faux Amis Vol. 5” C40 (Faux Amis)

Not an easy one here. Or, maybe it’s so easy it’s insane. Either way, Ade Rowe, aka Harsh Noise Movement, joins the Lärmschutz gang (like they’re a Scooby-Doo-esque mystery-solving team!) for vol. 5 of the 2019 Faux Amis split series. Rowe is accompanied by Akano Shibahito on saxophone, and the result is a pretty intense collaboration. On one hand, you have an artist that goes by “Harsh Noise Movement,” so you pretty much have an inkling as to what that sounds like. On the other hand, that static HNW cut with the sax is a pretty vibrant and unusual addition to the noise canon, so there’s a lot to be invigorated by. There’s not a wasted second on Harsh Noise Movement’s side of the tape.

Also, the HNM track is called “Thug Life.”

So of course Lärmschutz’s side is called “Junior M.A.F.I.A.,” because why not? Taking a cue from their splitmates (as they tend to do throughout the series), the Dutch experimentalists get wickedly noisy, spewing forth bile from the their lovely instruments like they’d never met feedback they couldn’t double, triple, or quadruple with a few tweaks of a knob. Over the course of their 20-minute side, they lurch and shiver, creating such a racket that you might mistake THEM for a harsh noise act! You’d be so wrong. But sometimes so right.

Hee hee. Lärmschutz is cool.

Bring on more of this series! I can’t get enough!

https://larmschutz.bandcamp.com/

https://harshnoisemovement.bandcamp.com/

https://fauxamisrecords.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

BRIAN TESTER “Spectral Capital 2 & 3” C55 (Freaks)

Brian Tester’s newest work, “Spectral Capital 2 & 3”, starts out by building up a tipsy base of amelodic, busy-body techno beats…only to let devil-may-care loose with swirls of gaudy swells, shrill drones, & dirty-neon phasings to whoosh on by like fog that’s late for a date and bury those beats under an avalanche of distress. The mess is where the jam is at and BT keeps it unpredictable and chaotic amidst the faux-metronomic aesthetic. When not subverting the technosphere, BT wades arms first into a sea of dying machine moans, electric hum, organic pulse, and power-vac static. This is all just side 1. Side 2 plays much the same game, but with a different, jammier palette, favoring greater emphasis on space, hypnotism, groove, & release. Throughout the hour-long journey, entropy and stagger are the major driving, cohesive forces, but there are certainly some parts to tap the toes along with and other parts to nod-off to. Just don’t plan on getting comfortable. Don’t plan on anything other than ceaseless stimulation and bewilderment and you’ll be fine. Probably.

https://thesefreaks.bandcamp.com/album/spectral-capital-2-3

and/or

http://freakslabel.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

LÄRMSCHUTZ / TERBESCHIKKINGSTELLING “Faux Amis Vol. 0: Terbeschikkingstelling” C60 (Faux Amis)

This is ground zero. The very first experiment. Where it all went horribly right (or wrong, depending on your perspective). Dutch sound terrorists Lärmschutz initiated this split series on their label Faux Amis, where they were like, let’s make our online friends our real friends. Let’s sign a bunch of them up, then do a split a month with them throughout 2019.

Great idea!

It has worked out incredibly well so far, as I’ve had the opportunity to dig into a couple of them over at Tabs Out. But here’s the flagship. Here’s the genesis. And who better to do it with first than fellow countrymen, am I right? The Lärmschutz gang roped in fellow Dutch sonic terrorists Terbeschikkingstelling, and the match is one made in heaven, also the Netherlands. Over the course of two lengthy tracks each, the new best pals run through all manner of desperate no wave dynamite tinged with electronics – well, that’s the Lärmschutz MO anyway, the trio plunging away through a half hour with reckless abandon. Terbeschikkingstelling takes a more deliberate electronic approach, wrenching noise and static from whatever it is they get their hands on. I’m sure it’s pretty solid gear, with lots of electrical components they can wring static from.

This split is a phenomenal start, and, take it from me, the series maintains its momentum!

https://larmschutz.bandcamp.com/

https://sturmunddrang.bandcamp.com/

https://fauxamisrecords.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

DINOSAUR LOVE “Dinosaurs Have Feelings Too" (Related Records)

“I know you threw a fuss
When I ate your best friend
But I didn’t think it would cause
Our relationship to end”

And so goes this February 2019 release from those zany folks at Related Records. That lyric is drawn from “Triceratops I Think I Love You” which leads off thid collection. Song titles will give you a hint at the direction here. “Godzilla Flick,” “I Wanna Be Fossilized,” “Dream Of Dinosaurs” and maybe the most revealing one, “Human Wife.”

This creation BC is the tiny brainchild of Peter Kulikowski, who apparently resides in a crater somewhere in the vicinity of Phoenix. These are simple songs but Mr. K. gets good mileage from the concept which extends beyond this release to at least one other tape and possibly more.

All said, it’s a novel idea though by the end of side two, I’m maxed out on the schtick. If you like unusual, prehistoric pop music, by all means get onboard with Dinosaur Love.

https://i-love-dinosaurs.bandcamp.com/album/dinosaurs-have-feelings-too

www.relatedrecords.com

-- Robert Richmond

TYLER HOLMES “Devil” C32 (Ratskin Records)

Welcome to the funhouse, don’t touch the soot-coated mirrors. Neveryoumind, they're on your insides, anyway. Listen to the muse, also within, whilst chasing your own counterpoint tail in circular figure-eights. Cello in, synthesized breath, heavy, on out. Obey the siren call, their voice a loosely layering croon* growing more and more distant the deeper through catacombs we venture. Neon and glitter, grime and distortion, twinkle and trickle, metallic gleams and gelatinous sheens, all vaguely visible in just-short-of-pitch-black.

Tyler Holmes’ “Devil" is a welcome poison, disorientingly complex in its hook-game. While rarely repeating an entire phrase, the first pass will keep the listener on the edge of their seat, while, by the second time around, they’ll know AND FEEL the heaviness of TH’s consciousness and intentions. Through prosey lyrics rife with subtext and sky-wide open for interpretation, the first three songs are nearly exhausting in their playfulness and versatility. Side B, a 17 minute re-self-excavation of their prior releases’ more grimly grimey themes**, on the other hand, will scrape that intoxicated look right the fuck off one’s face, for sure. Listen to each of these sides thrice in a row, with great headphones, and you'll be hooked!

https://ratskinrecords.bandcamp.com/album/devil

and/or

https://tylerholmes.bandcamp.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*not exactly like Antony, TVotR, or Dave Doughman, but a gorgeously haunting mix of all three’s best qualities…

**I mean, this IS a RATSKIN release, right?

WIZARD APPRENTICE “Dig A Pit” C22 (Ratskin Records)

Along minimalist backdrops of shadowy avant-ambiance & littered with industrial throb and scuffle flickers the stoic projection of Wizard Apprentice's voice, a dusty stream of spoke-sung psycho-drama detailing a period in her life that, a fading hell, will shine lights (and lend shadows) across your own post-poisoned trials with sociopaths, abusers, and the frail thornology of growing through traumatic reconciliation. 

“The journey into the poem makes of the poet a burning sun that gives birth to a million shadows.”

~Jimmy Santiago Baca

The above quote may as well be about WP. It’s hard to recommend stuff like this, because it’s beyond a serious downer, the opposite of escape. This is a sonorous but no less bitter pill for those that seek an outside lens and/or parallel into their own pain. This will be bewildering to those who have yet to experience anything like it, and it’ll be a grimy indictment unto those who find themselves more important than others. 

For those only along for the sonic journey, WA’s voice is, even were it stripped of meaning, an expertly crafted balance between serenity and surrender, beauty and abandonment. Her cadences ring clear while her attack is cell-padded numb. Once you hear the intention behind some consonants’ crispness over others, it’s almost impossible to dissociate the sounds from words, the words from hurt, and the hurt from its slow recovery.

https://ratskinrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dig-a-pit

and/or

http://wizard-apprentice.com/bio

—Jacob An Kittenplan

PBK / SPYBEY / BUTCHER / JOHNSON “Heat on Earth” C25 (Humanhood Recordings)

When we wake up to a scorched planet one day, we’ll wonder to ourselves, how did it get like this? We’ll probably have this thought at the exact same time we breathe our last – human habitability on an overheated Earth is not something that’s really going to occur in any meaningful way. In any way at all, actually.

So we’re left with artists to imagine it for us, drop hints about our doom in musical form so that maybe we can be just a little more prepared. Here, Phillip B. Klingler, Mark Spybey, John Butcher, and Travis Johnson do the heavy lifting. All have been around for a while, but I’ll let you dig into their CVs. Only Johnson is younger than me, and not by much. The quartet whip up a maelstrom of windswept doom across 200-degree plains, electronics, sax, percussion, and cello manifesting the driest desert air over sun-baked landscapes. Listen: there is no more humidity in the air here – there is no more life.

It’s unpleasant, you guys! Nothing’s left. Imagine that desolation. Imagine it! These four dudes do a good job of imagining it, and I’m right there with them, as a listener extraordinaire. There’s nothing left for us except an escape route: “The River That Runs to the Sea of Stars.” It’s the only way out. We ride the sax and electrical currents, we ride the hope in liquid form, and we bust outta there… Too bad it’s all just a hallucination brought on by the intense heat as we evaporate.

We’re 95% water, right?

https://humanhoodrecordings.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

REGULAR MUSIC “Online Summer” C47 (Never Anything Records)

Deep drum kit bearing distant weight, timbrally divergent arpeggiators and drones loop around in a disorientingly elliptical search for familiar negative shapes through thick oaken canopy overhead. 

Their Bandcamp page’s tag of “American Kraut” is certainly fitting.

Much like a beefy bouncer at a belligerent biker bar's nickname might be “Tiny”, so to is Portland’s “Regular Music” glibly named, their every immeasurable measure never once repeated verb(e)atim, their morphing, unsync’d synth and percussive sequences always one step ahead/behind the other, building and (relatively) relieving tensions solely through their proximity and relative frequency.

Slightly dark & completely disorienting, Regular Music’s “Online Summer" is great for zoning out and/or taking a solo walk through the woods to, its arhythmic cycles lending one’s imagination towards unKnown spell and ceremony.

https://neveranythingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/online-summer

and/or

http://www.regularmusic.org/

— Jacob An Kittenplan

ROSS BIRDWISE “Crisis Ordinary” C38 (Never Anything Records)

Not just arhythmic, but downright unapologetically dysrhythmic, Ross Birdwise specializes in exorcizing the ghosts of familiarity and context from The Beat just before our human brains can latch onto any lasting relationship with it. The only patterns to seek solace in are the ratios* of crisp notes to muted ones, echoed beats to rests, semi-tonal movements to indistinguishable pulsations of indeterminate length and frequency, electronic patch to possibly organic shredding.

In short, “Crisis Ordinary” is a real cluster-fuck of a beat-collage, with a wealth of haunting noise and drone accents to make listening alone at night a sufficiently nape-tingling task.

File under: "Haunted House Music from the Future"

https://neveranythingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/crisis-ordinary

and/or

https://rossbirdwise.bandcamp.com/

— Jacob An Kittenplan

*and, really, only the concept of any rational association here