GAMBLETRON / WREN TURCO “We Can’t See Past the Cliff” / “Artesian Pressures” (Idle Chatter / Fabrica Records)

My esteemed Cassette Gods colleague Jacob an Kittenplan has already done the heavy descriptive lifting on this V/A triptych with his writeup of the NaEE RoBErts third of the bunch, so I’m going to leave the label/concept out of this and just point you to the hyperlink above. Gambletron’s tape is all over the place, in a good way, beginning with “Guelph, Ontario,” an ode, presumably, to “The Royal City.” Beginning with layers of texture, the track morphs into a club banger before pulling back into instrumental hip hop territory. At twelve minutes, it makes me want twelve minutes more of whatever comes next. Hey, there’s a second side? Brilliant! “AM Radio Theremin Drone” packs all the menace and weirdness of hovering theremin and combines it with radio signals and static, suggesting outer-limits communication or deep-space intelligence. Or maybe somebody’s spying on you from behind the Iron Curtain, and your radio and phone are tapped, producing the interference. And this is the 1960s or 1970s or something. Creepy!

Wren Turco is the curator of the Transparens series, and her contribution, “Artesian Pressures,” glows with electronic neon hyperactivity. Never static, always restless, Turco’s tracks take on lives of their own and sustain themselves with seemingly little effort, much like the wells suggested by the tape title maintain their water levels without much interference or need for pumping. Thus, to cliff-dive facefirst into an awkward metaphor, sonic irrigation of the mind can commence. Oh, groan! But, perhaps, Turco’s tape is the closest of the trio to come to exemplifying the cover artwork, which was, in her own words, “created from a sequence of transparent sculptural projections that gradually mutate in motion.” Apply that to “Aretsian Pressures,” and you’ve got a conceptual match.

Cassette edition, limited to 100, is still available from Fabrica. Act now!

Gambletron 

Wren Turco

NaEE RoBErts

Fabrica Records

--Ryan Masteller

NAEE ROBERTS "Transparens" C51 (Idle Chatter/Fabrica Records)

Idle Chatter is Fabrica Records’ cassette-only partner label and NaEE RoBErts’ “Summer Care” is but one tape in “Transparens”, a femme-focused 3xCS set, alongside Montréal’s Gambletron and Floridian (tape curator), Wren Turco. All 3 three artists work to expand upon electronic music, with NaEE RoBErts taking a decidedly vocal focus, oftentimes singing atonally overtop droning, warbled synth lines and busy, techno beats.

These brazen vocals will likely make it or break it for you, as their time spent “between the keys” (or maybe a quarter step up/down?) can be a bit disorienting for the western ear. The tonally strong musical arrangements they’re pitted up against provide a pleasing anchor that’d be really hard to lose track of if it weren’t for such imposing singing, and maybe that’s the point, and this is truly groundbreaking? Find out for yourself via the link below.

https://fabricarecords.bandcamp.com/album/transparens-idle-chatter-003
and/or
https://soundcloud.com/naee-roberts

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

Guest Reviews by S. Howe of Montreal: Broken Shoulder, American Dust & Brizbomb

BROKEN SHOULDER "the tape of disquiet" (tape your mouth)  C40 Old school organ note a la walking the cow accompanied by unspecific aluminum pie plate drumming develops into clone robot keys only to fade out with what seems insecure suddenness.  We re-establish ourselves on the saccharinity of a sonic youth-like bass line, a more developed synthesizer idea creeping into the schizoid picture.  As a personal rule, if the synthesizing instrument occurs without a decent filter (be it distance, archaic speakers or exterior registration) I am not likely to masturbate wildly to the album a second time.  Interesting sounds like roundish feline feedback and slight percussive tinkering transport the side to a wavering close and I am verily compelled to flip the tape.  I wish I was not told that this album was recorded before the glow of some ancillary hemisphere, however, as I am nearly able to sense, now, the direct plug work and sound forgery.  The cover is simple and suitable on a crisp, well-executed j-card, and the tape itself, which is regardfully  unscathed, is an unbelievable solid fuchsia color.  On reading the revealing curriculum vitae that introduced this music, I was able to recognize, decidedly, the tragedy of the situation.  Our UK sound purveyor has had an accident, the result some bunk bed mishap, apparently, but I cannot decipher a modicum of physical or mental anguish on either side of the album.  There is a generally relaxed type of decently cushioned chair-tremor here, nothing more at all relating to sadness or some form of distress (not that that is a necessity, but it helps). Brutal B side-listening this morning as I eat a breakfast sandwich.  The sausage is delightfully greasy atop a disc of egg that is slightly dry.  A stiff yet fresh English muffin completes a very average taste experience. The tape unwinds into a cleanly yet disturbing contribution to the one-note synthesizer revolution of never, in other words.  Sinew snap of radiantly recorded bass-fathoms embroider the sound of gimped artistry.  The highlight here, in my pointless opinion, is the awkward guitar needlepoint culturing the record's conclusive track.  I could wrench perhaps 2-3 more ejaculatory episodes to this one but without the enthusiasm of my initial hoist.  This audio cassette is about a broken shoulder.  30 copies. acquire here (http://sittingnow.co.uk/2012/03/12/broken-shoulder-the-tape-of-disquiet-tape-your-mouth/) AMERICAN DUST "protector" (self-release?) C10 That was just a dream.  Undamaged electro-acoustic menage from the Midwest on a sturdy white tape with crisp gold lettering; an intelligent-looking, extra paneled j-card of interesting eerie artwork.  The title track is unmemorably astounding, a tremelo-adorned song of good tempo and placid fuzz vox.  The second number on this super single elapses like a disciplined tall firs treatment, unfortunately, drained of sincerity (somehow) in disavowing strum lag and misstep -- a lack of deprivation, simply.  I sensed a murmur of occult evil emanating from our lead vocalist, as well, the kind of psychic transmission one would detect in the company of a Hollywood magician.  Good female vocal harmonies herein, Johnnie and Bambi could share a larynx, so to speak, perhaps even a microphone.  The second side of this audio cassette unveils two tawdry dimensional innovations atop dusky tracks similar in cadence to the initial side. There is an encapsulation of the small town house band throughout this extended play, only singular here in the band's glaring ambitiousness. I could not help but picture, sides A through B, this band preparing their reverb quotient before four hunched elderly rummies in some wood-draped watering hole at approximately 6:30pm, maybe three teenagers in the darkest corner of the establishment dumping fair amounts of phencyclidine into half-empty beer mugs...curlicued runners and flaps of ripped moss like carpeting.  The final track is a shade of dark blue with despondent violin of a kind of bruised f-hole tweak and loafing gristly apex not really expected from your average house band.  The sound quality of this cassette is excellent through headphones, but I believe it is more so a non-headphone album for your favorite uncle.  To my understanding 2 musicians in the history of musicianship are permitted to use the 'water effect' vocally without loss of rectitude.  Neil Young is one of them.  100 copies. purchase here (http://americandust.bandcamp.com/) BRIZBOMB (fabrica)  (C45) A live alien mythography registered at Westside Welding and Machine NY in November 2011.  The languid, droning transpiration of a colossal cosmic vessel as you hear fuzzed helium screams of extra-terrestrial ghost-formations communicating paranormally, perhaps plotting a massacre.  Scenic second track suggests a populous disembarkment of said vessel and the dubious meeting of infrangible alien minds.  A wide synthesizer-sounding loop battle ensues round 3, diaphanous skin is peeled free as by violent telekinesis in sizzling amorphic ebbs and the weaker unearthly race is processed into glowing cubes of pallid blue and pink. The bountiful satellite now conquered, all resources are rapidly usurped by unimaginable flesh-machinery.  Side B: the powering of our colossal ship for departure, pallid pink and blue cubes are transported to its mechanical helm and ingested by a turbine of tumultuously flashing white light that strobes to a crackling visceral throb. Radio frequencies peer in and out of this voluminous miscreation.  The moon is abandoned, stripped barren only milliseconds before.  Considering the magnitude of the vessel it is rather quiet on desertion...something stirs secretly within its vastly ramifying fuel chambers.  It was a ruse, the supposedly weaker alien race suddenly reconstitute as one into a radiating collagenous mass and surreptitiously overwhelm the ship, ingesting its spectral enemies via a kind of osmotic processing.  You can rent this feature film here (http://brizbomb.com/) for five dollhairs; maybe build a paramount film synopsis of your own on listening to the puzzling magnitude of this odd cassette.  It is most certainly deserving in this regard.  Immaculately recorded on an exquisite clear to metallic blue-foiled tape with austere white lettering.  An admirable heavy j-card of enduring varicolored ink finalizes this space transaction.  Brizbomb is one human and one 1.8 meter tall, 147 kilo (5'10", 325+ pound) rack.  100 copies.   BUY HERE: fabricarecords.com

A FULL COSMIC SOUND c30EARTHMASTERS "Dwellings" c20(Fabrica Records)

Still catching up on back-submissions. I apologize if I'm writing too much, thus sending some tapes that deserve a much longer time in the spotlight hurtling towards the nether regions of Cassette Gods. That reminds me: did you pick up that Selbyville tape yet? Be sure to look forward to a very special post of my favorite tape of the year on Boxing Day (the day after X-mas) and a best of 2011 list that will be posted the minute before the ball drops and we enter the final year of our lives... JK...In the words of my main man Danny Cruz, "DONT BELIEVE THE LIE. 2012 IS NOT THE END"!

Today I'll let you in on a little secret known as Fabrica Records, purveyors of fine tapes aimed at sending your innersoul into the stratosphere and also distributors of LPs with similar goals. Check out their site here.

A Full Cosmic Sound brings what might be one of the best mind expanding recordings I've heard in awhile. The group is a loosely coagulated assemblage of weirdos from Santiago, Chile and they've scrabbled together whatever stringed instruments, keyboards and drum machines they can find to make this excellent recording. The whole tape is made up of one driving kosmische bass riff with various sounds coming in and out of the mix. The drum machines are straight out of Suicide and the bass from Pärson Sound. It makes for a heady mixture. I can't recommend this highly enough if you're a fan of this sort of thing. AFCS comes at it from such a pure place that I can't help but be swept away. Highly recommended. Check out some AFCS sounds.

Earthmasters deliver a nice set of woozy drone. It's much more organic than many similar projects and has a lot of heart. Were it not for the aforementioned tape, I would probably recommend this just as highly. You might as well pick this up too when you buy the A Full Cosmic Sound tape, which you're going to do. Right? Check them out here.

This is a great label and surely one to watch. They'll have their first LP released by February. It'll be by Maryland droner Insect Factory.