AMALGAMATED / ODD PERSON"Anthropometric ixil"(Bicephalic Records)

This split tape (limited edition of 50) offers Amalgamated on one side and Odd Person on the flip. Pressing play welcomed me to "bending the last blind leg", which consumes the entire Amalgamated side. My initial impression of Yoko Ono fronting The Beatles hodgepodge track "Revolution No. 9" held firm throughout with a barrage of whimpers and sound effects done in a more interesting way than perhaps I've suggested by comparison.

As it turns out, Amalgamated is a collective (4-5 members) of experimental artists who record live performance and then edit and "post-process" to create what we have here. An interesting and imaginative electronic based effort that I found stimulating enough to warrant listens to future works.

The reverse is titled "nebaj.cotzal.chajul" by the mysterious Odd Person of which I came up empty handed in my attempts to further identify the artist(s). The performance consists of rhythmic patterns akin to taping on a live microphone (sound check?) that graduate to increasing repetitions and then transform into buzzing noises, all while maintaining some sense of pattern. Like the Amalgamated side, it is done in an intriguing manner. Unlike side A, however, I don't need to ever hear this again.

The tape is release number nineteen on this experimental music label and purports to be the first of eight releases featuring these two artists. I would recommend it solely for the Amalgamated side to those inclined toward this type of art/music.

www.bicephalic.net

-Bob Zilli

AMALGAMATED “Solvé et Coagula” C60 (Aubjects)

“The world is ending!”

How many times have you heard that, in your life? In the last year? Today? Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to listen to anyone saying that anymore, because there’s only one collective voice saying that who matters, and they’re spot the frick on. That’s right gang, your old pals Amalgamated are back with sixty minutes of viciously dour power electronics, shining the ugly mirror of our own human existence back at us and rubbing our diseased faces in the horrific reflection therein. Got hopelessness? Check. Anxiety? Check. These feelings are presented in vast, bleak postindustrial landscapes, punctuated throughout with all manner of synth stabs and ebbs and flows and embellishments, and the combined result is a monolithic head rush of impossibility. It’s like the aural equivalent of the MK Ultra experiments, but with your ears pried open instead of your eyes.

Here’s the deal, though – the point is that Amalgamated does “not [accept these things] as inevitable or irreversible.” Somehow, in the gunk and grime, there’s, dare I say, hope that we as human being can reverse this shitty course on which we’ve placed ourselves. It’s going to take a lot of work – Amalgamated thinks it’s going to be quite a dirty process, I think – but even the darkest clouds can clear, if I can get all Hallmark-y on you. But who wants that – you want the synth! You want the danger, the darkness, the meat, the gristle, the rush! You got it, mate – please for the love of god listen to this.

The Latin term “solvé et coagula” is associated with Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, a “Swiss German Renaissance physician” whose main goal was to study alchemy in order to find medicinal benefits.  He believed that “sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of man the microcosm and Nature the macrocosm. “ Anyway, the idea is to “[analyze] a substance into its components before synthesizing the desirable elements into a new substance.” Also, it seems that the term has deep occult connotations. Who knew?

So that’s what Amalgamated’s done here – their intent is to tease out what little good is left in humanity and hang their hats on it, hoping against hope that it can overcome the other, worse stuff. I hope it can. In the meantime, we can all experience the universal struggle by listening to Solvé et Coagula, and figuring out what we can do to stop the encroaching darkness of our own selves. The world may not even end, if we can fix it. And hey, look how much I learned along the way, even if it was through Wikipedia and a black magic website!

http://4m4lg4m4ted.bandcamp.com/album/solve-et-coagula

https://aubjects.wordpress.com/

--Ryan Masteller

AMALGAMATED "No Way Out"(Metaphysical Circuits)

Guitar solos and beachside sunset keyboard harmonies dance around a metronome click. Synthesizer emulating Plucked Violins drift around before falling into line, oscillating and invading your brain with sexy dancehall disco fantasies. This is space jams with whammy bar vibrato and drum machine sequencers galore.

Church bells, scrambled brains and egg tape loops and pulsing 70ties shitbots pleasantly congeal. Sign waves pulse with little logic. At one moment, a looping car engine start is presented and is then reversed and reverberated at low volume. It portrays an inner chaos that has been mastered into improvised melodies of gentle statements, a beautiful irony.

An AMEN drum beat is accompanied by bongos and low end, low frequency loop cantina piano. Great BBQ music. The laid back scratching of a record even emerges alla an early Beastie Boys jazz jam! A history of the trio in jazz lies behind this digitalized jam and ends with low tone frequency modulation and delay.

You're then inside the planetarium getting a lecture on the cosmos from Whoopi Goldberg as Ghienan in Star Trek:TNG. It feels nice, but then all of a sudden a black hole emerges which is an overdrive repeating screech. A snare drum militantly keeps beat as frequencies ascend and descend in pitch. The tape goes from accessible to anti-social within minutes before sputtering into digital delay infinity and fade out.

It reminds me of an instrumental Passion Pit at times and early Wolf Eyes on Seroquil at other times. Somewhere between disco beats and mangled howling at the moon is Amalgamated. Think the Trainspotting Soundtrack at it's more pulsating moments.

Side two blends these two feelings a little bit better but overall this is too spacey to be an awesome dance cassette to too dancey to be an awesome space cassette. I like the range and respect it, but right now I'm looking for a cassette that I can play at BBQs all the time, not just for a song here or there, you know what I mean?

But that's not this tapes problem, it's mine. This tape is good. Psychedelic, Acid drenched disco dance and expanse. Techno's back. This is the perfect soundtrack for your Halloween Harem of purple smoke, Cassette Gods.

--Jack Turnbull