ROBERT TRAXLER “Study for Synthesizer and Spliced Cassette Tape” C30 (American Damage)


This is so great, so freaking far out there. Robert Traxler drops a space-age sound collage that’s beamed from a million places around the various arms of the Milky Way. The title of this tape says it all, doesn’t it? The sound sources interact with each other in amazingly alien ways, yet ways that are awesomely relatable to these ol’ human ears.

Over thirty sci-fi minutes that sound like they were birthed in a deep-space science lab, Traxler whirls around like a mad scientist, goggles affixed, a bubbling beaker in each hand, triggering delightfully nutty experiments. Exploring the depths of his instrument, he rummages through unforeseen tunnels of circuitry to tease out future-facing sonics, discovering some crazy stuff along the way. And although the title sounds like this is a paper published in an academic journal, Traxler has way more fun than the average postgraduate bookworm, eyes constantly widened by the thrill of invention, grin plastered to face whose cheeks are constantly blown back by the winds of intensity. That’s what you want from this, isn’t it???




--Ryan