DAO STROM “Traveller’s Ode” C44 (Antiquated Future)

From PDX by way of Vietnam, established author, poet, spoken word artist, and sonorous/spooky spell-caster, Dao Strom, has made it her mission to explore story and mood, song and summoning, plea and command. Her crisp, soft utterances beg and deny emotion by way of ambivalent intent. She is and she is not singing to, for, about, in, or from, anything or anywhere, and her mesmerizing meta-message-koans will haunt any observer who comes within earshot. Not catchy, they’ll latch on anyway. Noncommittal sentiments; they’ll do the same. 

One could expect nothing less from PDX’s Antiquated Future!

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/travelers-ode

and/or

https://www.daostrom.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

YAARA VALEY “Deshecha” C23 (Antiquated Future)

Dabbling within ditch and gloom, glitch and doom, Yaara Valey leads a seance of one with lute, breath, and a mastery of mixing chanted loops, reverbed out tribal percussion, delay-heavy pluck, and passing tech anomaly. Her dynamic, contralto delivery is only matched by an expertly layered mile-high pile of harmony & counterpoint; the end result is nothing short of bewitching.

With all tracks repeated on each side and clocking in at 23 minutes, it’s easy to listen to this entire release back to back to back before you even notice it’s over. Bewitching!

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/deshecha

and/or

https://ingrown.bandcamp.com/album/fluid-electric

—Jacob An Kittenplan

DAO STROM “Traveler’s Ode” (Antiquated Future)

 

In what can only be described as a “waking dream” (my words), Dao Strom’s Traveler’s Ode connects roads and rivers and thought patterns as it eschews sense of place for a more universal concept. Wherever you go, there you are, am I right? (That’s a little Buckaroo Banzai wisdom for you there.) Traveler, wanderer, doesn’t matter what kind of title you get stuck with, it’s on you and you move from place to place, never sticking anywhere, nowhere ever sticking to you. That’s where it blurs – that’s where the “waking dream” occurs.
 
Dao Strom utterly embodies the paths she treads, soaking in the interactions she has with people and places and internalizing it for rumination later. It actually seems to have become a part of her – over ethereal instrumentation (recalling, among others, Julee Cruise and Grouper’s Liz Harris), Strom sings lullabies in a hushed voice that barely stick to the physical plane, becoming mist and memory as soon as the words pass her lips. All devolves into light particles and drifts into the sky. The energy of human interaction is what kept them tethered in the first place.
 
What also keeps them tethered is a limited-edition poetry/art book called Instrument, published by Fonograf Editions. This will only assist in deepening your understanding of Dao Strom’s process and mindset, and will undoubtedly affect you in profound ways. I haven’t even read it, and look at me – I’m weeping! Oh right, that’s the tape.
 
https://daostrom.bandcamp.com/
 
https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

YAARA VALEY “Deshecha” (Antiquated Future)

 

Once Indira, now Yaara Valey has clearly spent too much time bingeing Game of Thrones during the pandemic, siding for some reason with the Greyjoys and lobbing a softball of a joke setup that I can only manage to get out of the infield because of the surprisingly obsolete, nay antiquated reference. (That’s two jokes in one. You’re welcome.) Seriously, doesn’t it seem lame to talk about Game of Thrones already? Pop culture truly moves at dizzying speeds.
 
Now that I’ve got that out of my system, we get deep into another superb EP by the Portland, Oregon, high priestess of ritualistic freak folk, the droning and engrossing Deshecha. Over five hallowed tracks, Valey concocts pagan ceremonies to nature, of “emptying” our earthly vessels, “undoing” our conceptions, “and surrendering” to the earth, the natural state of things. The quoted items are paraphrases of three of five song titles, so you can really get a sense of the theme running through Deshecha. As such, the EP isn’t a lighthearted one, even though the touch is quite light. I mean, of course, that the sounds produce (or are produced by) magic, filling your body with tingling sparks and lifting you (maybe literally) into the night sky. Valey then tends the fire she has built and continues to draw in more followers. Let’s join up.
 
https://indiravaley.bandcamp.com/
 
https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

INDIRA VALEY “Yemas” (Antiquated Future)

Singer, poet, experimental musician, and actual living spirit Indira Valey uncorks the bottle and lets the genie out of it on Yemas, a wonderfully original freak-folk ritual from the surrounding Portland, Oregon, woodlands. Like a collection of séances more so than a collection of songs, Yemas taps into that natural ancient elemental aura, weaving gossamer atomic threads and connecting them via symbols and runes, a pagan call to action, or at least to attention and remembrance. This incredible celebration of life and physical and mental connection through secret and universal language fills you with its magic and its joy, lifting you from an existence marked with meaningless drudgery into a realm where so much more matters, and more importantly. It’s easy to get lost in the mysterious atmosphere, and you might even come out the other side forever changed in some way.

https://indiravaley.bandcamp.com/

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

VARIOUS ARTISTS “Antiquated Future Records: The First Seven Years” C72 (Antiquated Future)

Label retrospectives can be pretty bittersweet. For example, did you know that Rosie Steffy* was in a band called Upside Drown?! I had never even known the band existed before popping this tape in and hearing RS’s distinctively gorgeous voice melding ridiculously perfect along with Colleen Johnson’s…and I know I can’t know like 3% of all the great stuff going on in the Bay Area, but GODDAMN would I have LOVED to see that! &I may be overgeneralizing a bit here but I’d wager to say that there are a lot of bands on here that you West Coasters didn’t know about either and probably wish you’d seen while they were still kicking ass…and were still slinging tapes at said shows!

Antiquated Future have not only been around for SEVEN YEARS NOW, but the tapes they send in for review are constantly reminding me that I actually don’t hate lo-fi indie/folk, because pretty much every release they’ve put out has found me either pleasantly surprised or outright hooked and/or floored. If you’re into quirky bedroom folk or psychedelic-indie-singersongwritery-wierdnesses and are unfamiliar with AF, this’ll make excellent homework for ya…& if you’ve been a long time fan as I have, it’ll act as a nostalgic montage of left-field pop goodness for your Sunday afternoon pen palling & journaling for sure.

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/antiquated-future-records-the-first-seven-years

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*Aimless Never Miss, Tall Grass, La Dee Da, and a ridiculous amount of other great bands from here (SF-ish)

INDIRA VALEY “Yemas” C21 (Antiquated Future)

With calculated stagger and lean might, PDX’s Indira Valey is a true Drunken Master* in vocal acrobatics, her playfully unassuming baritone delivery but a red herring of a focal point, casting abstract symbols down below to get colored in, obfuscated, and all but obliterated under the ensuing tidal wave of her enchantingly chanting Fursaxan/Sacred Harp-ian choirs, bells, tribal rhythms, and barebones electric guitar accents all frolicking in a swirling hertz-o-sphere of crystalline treble.

Due to the freakish dynamics, this album is wildly different depending on the volume it’s played at and I can’t even recommend low, medium, or high** right now; you gotta explore that for yourself. 

I already can’t wait for the next release!

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/yemas

and/or

https://indiravaley.bandcamp.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*see Jackie Chan's weirdest/possibly greatest kung fu mastery ever!

**they’re all great!

GUIDON BEAR “Downwardly Mobile: Steel Accelerator” C49 (Antiquated Future)

Olympian songstress, Guidon Bear, springs forth from the cap of Mount Rainier a fully formed, psych-pop-punkish, 90s indie-diva, wielding the drive of Liz Phair (circa “Exile…”), the vocal flexibility of Tanya Donelly (Belly’s “King”), and the sputtering ninja-diction of Alison Mosshart ("Crash Diagnostic”) all seamlessly melded into one super-being, to spin spell-binding yarns about comfort zones, nomadism, goats, and vocational unrest. 

There is not one single wasted minute in this entire synth-accented, outsider-indie concept album, and the pot is sweetened all the more if you read the accompanying comic/lyric sheet provided in the link below. If you love PNW indie rock, this is going to melt your mind; if you don’t love PNW indie-rock, this’ll still melt your mind. Antiquated Future don’t release no junk!

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/downwardly-mobile-steel-accelerator

and/or

downwardlymobilesteelaccelerator.com/comic-book/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

THE WASHBOARD ABS “Lowlight Visions” (Antiquated Future)

Finally, a band that truly speaks to me! The Washboard Abs, clearly inspired by my indelible six-pack, make music for the athletically inclined. Actually, that’s probably not true at all. As I listen, they seem more geared for the bookworm set, the library crawlers intent on teasing out every piece of knowledge and wisdom they can from the tomes around them. Actually, if I’m honest, I’m kind of a bookworm myself anyway, not some gym-haunting meathead who’s more interested in protein shakes than his emotional state. I mean, look at me – writing constantly about music. You think Lou Ferrigno ever did that?

But my abs. Oh, my abs.

Anyway, let’s forget about all the crunches I do and focus instead on “Lowlight Visions,” a dreamy indie rock excursion down paths blazed by Archer Prewitt and Sam Prekop and Prewitt-and-Prekop bands (like, uh, the Sea and Cake) and decidedly non-Prewitt-and-Prekop bands like Real Estate and even non-electronic and pretty Radiohead. It wouldn’t surprise me if it came out that the Washboard Abs played instruments made out of clouds instead of conventional instrument material, such is the weightlessness of their sound (which is reinforced by images of clouds on the cover). So if you’re in the market for super-wistful and feather-lite songs about love and fear (sadly, this record was conceived in the midst of frontperson Clarke Sondermann’s experience of becoming the primary caregiver to his partner following a cancer diagnosis), then the Washboard Abs are for you. And you won’t even have to bench press anything to get into it! You’ll actually find yourself uplifted in spirit more than anything.

https://thewashboardabs.bandcamp.com/

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

REIGHNBEAU “Slight EP" C20 (Antiquated Future)


Not content to merely have their work fit in with other visionary seminal works by Grimes, Sylvan Esso, & Múm, Reighnbeau’s “Slight EP” shows the band kicking their composition & mixing skills up a few notches, toeing the line between entrancing and mania-inducing.

&whilst each azz-shaking track (save the last) keeps solidly infectious, a closer listen reveals brilliant shifts in rhythmic accents & negative space that might otherwise slip by the ear whilst that booty oscillates oso wildly.

This electro-pop masterpiece is a perfect mood-lifter, work out jam, or going-out soundtrack. Pump it up!

………………………….

Antiquated Future continues to be an undeniable source of inspiration and proof that pop\accessible music not only doesn’t have to be boring, it can playfully challenge what it means to be <s>catchy</s> intoxicating.

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/slight-ep
and/or
http://www.antiquatedfuture.com/
http://www.reighnbeau.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

TUCKER THEODORE "LSG" C52 (Antiquated Future)

Tucker Theodore gives zero fucks about your expectations; unless, of course, you only expect that he’ll turn ordinary pop/country/folk tropes on their twangy ears, leaving you asking, “Now, how exactly did he get That sound out of a Guitar?” I had the privilege/curse of getting to review “To Make the Sun Hurt” a few years back and only recently have I been able to listen to anyone else’s freak-folk albums with any interest. Which is to say, TT’s creativity in meta-composition is exemplary, and his spirit of sonic exploration is truly inspiring.

Take LSG, here, a bewilderingly sprawling sound collage of moody, meandering, psychedelic alt-country solos (both forward and backward!), ominous organ drones, and brief, visiting vignettes of punkish power chords and drums, each dropping by for a quick-but-powerful bull session, like halcyon thoughts of old friends. As the title hints at (a capital G is pretty much just a slightly cracked D, turned 180 degrees, right?), Tucker Theodore is setting us all up for a breaking down of consciousness-barriers, not so much a yoga-ball-meditation as a full on wrecking-ball-vision-quest in re-realizing the guitar’s potential for turning melody into rhythm into texture, & then right back again.

Great for daydreaming, art-making, or playing along with on your own lute!

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/lsg
and/or
http://www.antiquatedfuture.com/
https://inanambulancerecordings.bandcamp.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

PLEASURE SYSTEMS "Antumbra Pull" C38 (Antiquated Future)

It’s no new recipe to mix chillll indie-folk with electronica. It’s been done before, and well, by well and many an artist, but usually by relegating the synth to drum & bass, all vocals layered and thoughtfully, thickly arranged (with maximum singalongedness in mind) and with rhythm guitars fingerpluck’d or metronimically strum’d, any leads taking a wee, e’r-tasteful solo here & yon. This guit-fiddle exploration, and a more sincere vocal execution,  is where Pleasure Systems adds to the dialogue, big-time.

Clarke Sondermann’s axe-use spans a wide range of genres, from Sea & Cake and Minus the Bear jazziness to an almost Slint-like angularity, whilst still keeping with indie-folksy prescription clean amplification. Maybe Papa M’s “Live from a Shark Cage” would be a more apt reference here? On top of this, sporadic field recordings add yet another element of diversity I don’t see often. The vocals aren’t meek by default, nor crooning, but a hazy, nomadic presence between the two, which fits well with said guitar/synth/arrangement chemistry.

Being from Olympia, CS will undoubtedly carry the weight of comparisons to the PNW sincerity of Phil Elverum and the honest/raw aesthetics of K-Recs, and that’s a fairly good place to be, right? Having been acquainted with Antiquated Future for some years now, I think I’m ready to drink their kool-aid, cz I really appreciate the plethora of sub-genres they promote along “left-field folk” lines, even though I usually don’t dig it that much, these days. Thanks for bringing me back around AF!

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/antumbra-pull
and/or
https://pleasuresystems.bandcamp.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

INDIRA VALEY "No Me Tengas Miedo" C27 (Antiquated Future/Spirit House)

On “No Me Tengas Miedo”, Indira Valey’s canonical slow-motion séances-of-one blur the line between wood, fire, & smoke; strings, vocals & percussive noise. The ceaseless interplay between subtle permutations amongst all that deceptively complex mixing of sonic strata is so well crafted in its nuance that I’m having a hard time believing this wasn’t compositionally mapped out with a fine tooth’d comb a million times before recording, but it’s also too loose to possibly achieve that, right? Right? The way the Simone-esque contralto foundations of witchy choruses contrapuntally tug and shove against the caterwauling sirens above, letting barely enough light in for the fingerpick’d mantra of electric guitar to meander through, for a quick sec…that can’t be transcribed, right? Only harnessed. &then there’s the almost imperceptibly executed layers of effects pedal-work that never oversteps, but always adds just that extra bit of texture to bump the focus away from the canon by a hair.

Yet another gem from the Antiquated Futurists up in PDX! Do listen loud and/or with headphones to get lost beside yourself like a dozen times in a row.

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/no-me-tengas-miedo
https://spirithouse.bandcamp.com/
and/or
https://indiravaley.bandcamp.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

SARA RENBERG "Night Sands" C38 (Antiquated Future)

It’s hard as hell to listen to Exile In Guyville when your bedtime is fast approaching and you know damn well the nostalgia will just rile you up and you can’t just objectively enjoy the music because all that teenage acne and embarrassing thoughts of exes are but one clean guitar strum away and even if you could maybe manage to somehow repress the reservoir of emotions and associations that Liz Phair’s voice triggers, any number of songs would be stuck in your head at once and they’d all run willy-nilly through your dreams all night long and you’d just be singing “Fuck & Run” all day the next day at work, only you’d have to sort of bleep/hum instead of singing the expletive cz you Really don’t want another meeting with the boss about your potty mouth, right?

Well, good news. Sara Renberg is here to fix our little problem with her slightly more chill, pared down version of EIG which has no direct riffs or words borrowed but like ALL the exact same guitar tone and feel. Plus, her lyrics are maybe a li’l more glib and balanced. Like, imagine this is an unreleased Girly Sound Demos tape with a new Nom d’Plume and it’s kinda perfect, okay?

http://www.sararenberg.com/
and/or
http://www.antiquatedfuture.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

THE WASHBOARD ABS "Recurring Chasms" (Antiquated Future)

Soft guitars, windchimes, a bit of a lilting male voice. A pulsing, driving bass line.  Still that voice, which works very well here.  Full band kicks in with drums, that interesting guitar.  I'm feeling this, a muted and muffled recognition from somewhere to the side of the center.

Olympia, Washington's The Washboad Abs come at us with arpeggiated guitar over muted drums, and an almost a hushed reverence over a driving rock beat.  Travelling through some coma dream, some fever on this autumn afternoon.  A lightness and an airiness throughout.  There is a hefty undercurrent, a tight rhythm section locking the proceedings to ground though our head wants to embrace the clouds very often here.

Something about this feels lo-fi, though not in the way you'd expect. This is especially on side 2, starting with  something more upbeat, "One" is a bit of pop to color our Indie. But the overall feeling is so laid back, so lazy and drifting, it's sometimes hard to see the individual pieces here.  That said, the craft is undeniable, and this will get its hooks in your if you let it.


https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/recurring-chasms

-- Kingo Sleemer

TUCKER THEODORE "Lady Hope" C60 (Antiquated Future)

"Lady Hope" rounds out a trilogy of bleak, handcrafted releases by Seattle artist Tucker Theodore, the first of which was 2013's "To make the Sun Hurt" which was an acoustic album with some noise augmentations. Next was 2014"s "Kill and Dress," which was a little darker and a good bit noisier.

This album ends the story. It is the cassette that investigators discover jutting from the tape deck in a burned out car and send to forensics for testing. What is heard on the recording is the remains of a truly heartfelt expression, but where there was once a singer/songwriter, strumming a guitar slowly and singing about lost love or lost life, now the ravages of time and heartbreak have washed over his song, and have begun to even corrode the very tape that he recorded on, until an oxidized shell of brittle burnt metal, and the cinders of a well worn guitar are all that is found among the charred ashes.

I would like to know what the protagonist in the story is going through, but I do not believe we are meant to. Tucker Theodore has painted himself a shadowy figure, staring out at us in his muscle shirt, daring us to know him. We cannot. For at every opportunity, he is obscured further, until he is no longer there. That is what makes this hour-long dirge stirring, and yet indiscernible, moving, yet distant. "Lady Hope" is a beautifully sad love letter, crumpled and set alight in a rusted oil barrel full of bent nails.

Presented for you in a white cassette with black stamping. Includes a download card. 

http://www.antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com

-- Gray Lee

BUFFALO VOICE "Pilgrim Takes His Spill" (Antiquated Future)

Buffalo Voice is an indy project by vocalist and musician Tucker Theodore, described as “Psych-sludge garage-punk from another universe” on the site of their label, listed as post-punk and garage rock beneath. Upon pushing play on the stereo I was greeted by a soothing array of guitars, with an almost psychedelic quality somewhat reminiscent of Pink Floyd. As the first track, “Boy”, song picks up the tempo, I was also reminded of Oasis and The Church.

The first track acts as a nice sample platter for the rest of the album, showcasing the different sounds subsequent songs will have. I think it was perfectly placed as the first track. There’s a certain science to the order in which you place your songs on an album (an art almost lost in the age of the mp3) but this band seems to have it down, the songs flow into each other pretty well for the most bit. It’s better to look at the album as a whole piece rather than as a collection of individual songs.

Subsequent tracks feature very calm and relaxing acoustic guitar with distorted vocals. The fourth song is the album’s title track. There are more lyrics in this song, but they are hard to discern; something rather constant throughout the album. I can make out the title of the songs in the chorus from time to time, but I can’t understand anything else the singer is saying. It almost reminds me of what it might sound like if Kenny from South Park started his own psychedelic rock band.

Onto side B, the first song History Bridge is louder, heavier, more aggressive, and lyric-driven. It is a departure from the mostly relaxing songs on Side A, and stands out from the rest of the songs on the album. The rest of Side B is on the whole more energetic and up tempo than the first half, gradually returning to a relaxing and psychedelic finale with the track Distocia.

The album was pleasing to listen to, making for some great relaxation music, or some background music when you’re working on something creative. What does it mean, pilgrim takes his spill? I picture one of the pilgrims on the Mayflower falling off the gangplank of the ship into the water. Pilgrim Takes a Spill holds many secrets that I do not understand, but one might piece more of it together upon repeated listens.

https://inanambulancerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/buffalo-voice-pilgrim-takes-his-spill 
http://www.antiquatedfuture.com/music/buffalo-voice-pilgrim-takes-his-spill/

-- Suren Oganessian

APPALACHIAN YARD ART "Fussy" (Antiquated Future)

How can you not be one of a kind with monotone muted vocals and mostly guitar only accompaniment while still maintaining a rock/pop/indie format. Sort of.

Appalachian Yard Art is Colin, who wrote and recorded this pretty much by himself in his basement. Some artwork and sparse drums were added by Taylor. That pretty much sums up the credits but how about the songs?

“Skull Song” opens side One and slams you with “I am moving too fast and in and out of the past but nobody living here can make me turn back.” So now we have an idea of what we’re dealing with. It gets more foreboding (and slightly more complex) as you proceed through “Wood Clamp”, “Dogwhistle” and the track that ends side one, “Alchemy”.

Fussy is not a happy camper, malcontent with a recorder and guitar. Side Two’s “The Rise And Fall Of Mulch” is short and to thew point. Everything is mulch. “Milk Makes The Mammal” follows and doesn’t lift the spirits of the ongoings, more actually setting the stage for the closer, “Reading The Obits On A Sunbaked Hillside”.

No, AYA is not bright and optimistic but nevertheless has something to say and says it in a unique manner just catchy enough to hold your attention. While it may sound like I’m not partial to this tape, in fact I am. This is good stuff well worth a listen.

The tape comes in standard jewel case with a lyric sheet (nice) and download card (nice too).

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/fussy
http://www.antiquatedfuture.com/music/appalachian-yard-art-fussy/

-- Bob Zilli

JORDAN O’ JORDAN "Through Tough Thoughts" C33 (Antiquated Future)

With this release, PDX’s Antiquated Future label continues to promote heady, demanding artists who aren’t complacent in relying on the age old tropes and arrangements that their ancestors developed; naw, fuck that!

Jordan O’ Jordan’s ‘TTT’ sounds like every progressive Bower Birds song ever, but constantly, and not just as an explorative track between catchy hits. JOJ ain’t about the hits, but them squiggly spaces between, and, for that, this album is a worthy study item in American Singer/Songwritery.

RIYL:
Loudon Wainwright III
Claw-hammer Banjo & Devotional Harmonium Gospels

https://jordanojordan.bandcamp.com/
\and/or
http://www.antiquatedfuture.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

ELEANOR MURRAY "Jazz Demos" C20 (Antiquated Future)

Intimacy & mastery are here distilled, as one Eleanor Murray’s voice and lone classical guitar folk/jazzily place emotional/philosophical posits for your calm, considerate self-betterment, at a record-ignoring, wisdom-filled pace. The ease and candor with which said two instruments blend together is expertly bewitching, intoxicating, soothing; this is what you need to hear after work, at the coffee shop down the street, or on your garage’s dusty tape deck. Close those eyes & feel the universal fireplace warm the cheeks.

“My love for you is less like a future and more like a fix.”

“Let me wear your lens, let life make no sense, cz it shouldn’t, with so much mystery, harmonious & divine complexity.”

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/jazz-demos

and/or

http://eleanormurray.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan