BARDO TODOL / DISPOSICIÓN ASOLEADA “Split” C40 (The Gertrude Tapes)

Hailing from Córdoba, Bardo Todol braids together a stream-o-conscious cross-section of disparate sonic events whose only perceivably unifying compositional factor is their living, breathing (and at times outright seething) essence of mobility, each textured cord jerking and flailing about, in parallel play, synced magically with the others, in a break-neck dash towards Elsewhere. This painstakingly meticulous discipline (entropy-worshipping Musique Concrète) is always incredibly hard to pull off even half as cohesively as BT has done here, and, across 20 minutes, side A will leave you feeling like you’ve just rapid-fire blinked in and out of existence across 200 distinctly unique points in time/space throughout Argentina’s very urbanity. This all is not to say that the journey is harrowing, or without stroll and swagger, but that it is ceaseless, and the sounds will not stop, even after the magnetic strip runs out.

Brussels’ Disposoción Asoleada, on side B, may be the best artist of all time to pair with Bardo Todol, as he (DA) also paints sounds with the palette of eternal metamorphosis, though with markedly less contrast, eschewing chiaroscuro transitions for a more raga’d coalescing of self-wrung instrumental contemplations that all find themselves fusing as one, rather than snaking about so contrastingly independent, an urgent vibrancy revealing itself over stretched-out time, not discrete bombasts. 

These last three The Gertrude Tapes releases have been Exceptionally engaging and are set to age as well alongside each other as they will on their own. Hell yeah!

https://thegertrudetapes.bandcamp.com/album/bardo-todol-disposicion-asoleada-split

and/or

https://bardotodolmonofonia.bandcamp.com/

https://disposicionasoleada.bandcamp.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

JOHN ATKINSON “Quattro Terre” C30 (The Gertrude Tapes)

Smuggling in field recordings from idyllic towns along the Ligurian Coast, John Atkinson expertly waxes cinematic with a compelling, charming-go-spooky stretch of four ambient-drone tales, each centered around a charismatic soundmark from their unique locations.  The magic here is in the invitation, nay, command that you, the listener, stop dead in your tracks and wonder aloud, “Now, is the source of that scrape/chirp/crash/gust purely 'environmental' or is it actually ‘contrived' on some acoustic contraption or other?” Thus is JA’s nuance-dedicated craft, a mastery of culling and curating textured accents to break up and/or add depth to those rolling drone-swells and glowing, moody fogs he churns out for his sonic base. Both lyrical and absolutely transportive, “Quattro Terre” is one dramatic, distilled sound-tour that’s well worth having repeatedly, under differing volumes and times of day.

https://thegertrudetapes.bandcamp.com/album/quattro-terre

—Jacob An Kittenplan

NED MILLIGAN “Fricatives” C30 (The Gertrude Tapes)

The undeniable magic of a covered porch shielding one from gale and deluge is hard to describe with words, but Ned Milligan does one hell of a job here pinning it down with his newest release, “Fricatives”, a document that balances crude, fourth-wall-broken field recordings of a falling sky with the organic, minimalist drone, decay, and natural distortions of an impressive* wind chime’s ululations bouncing off of at least one outside wall, concrete floor**, and sheltering ceiling.

Tape hiss gives way to gust, pitter-patter to sheets of rain, birdsong to concentrated dribble, all of this detail competing and bolstering the claims of percussive, weatherproof metal tubes a-shivering, concertedly, out L-O-U-D.  As a person who experiences very little rainfall and is not afforded the space to clang a behemoth wind chime from my own balcony***, Ned Milligan has captured and distilled a time/place/mood I can’t just pick up at the corner store, and I’m truly grateful.

Play this tape during a drought on a sunny afternoon with the volume cranked up and get absolutely transported to a rural porch in Maine while it’s raining cats & dogs!

https://thegertrudetapes.bandcamp.com/album/fricatives

and/or

http://www.nedmilligan.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*this thing’s gotta be like three feet tall, at least!

**assuming here, as there’s a glorious natural reverb to all of this

***without cramped neighborhood repercussions

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

AARON RUSSELL “Coral Music” C37 (The Gertrude Tapes)

While I’d prefer not to Sleep With the Fishes just quite yet, I sure wouldn’t mind taking a nap with 'em on some guarded atoll whilst listening to this “Coral Music” release, Aaron Russell’s debut album as a solo, minimal electric guitarist.

&if his instrument could take a slow walk down memory’s shifting shores, this six-string soliloquy might be just what it’d mutter to itself; recurring thoughts (notes) stretching out (reverbed) over long expanses of mood to color the following frenetic fancies (next movements) that all deep reminiscing doth yield. 

With equal punch dedicated to sympathetic strings ringing and quick bursts of top-speed noodlery, AR’s first contribution to the Gertrude Tapes catalogue makes for a pleasant mid-afternoon respite amidst the backdrop of a hectic day’s wrapping itself up. I personally dug this the most as an accompaniment to the backdrop of tapering off rush hour traffic, but it’s simple enough to be incredibly versatile like that.

https://thegertrudetapes.bandcamp.com/album/coral-music

—Jacob An Kittenplan

RRILL BELL “Vagabond Laws” C33 (Gertrude Tapes)

With nary a naturally occurring sound to be heard, Rrill Bell crafts a liquid environment teeming with robotic life, schools of squirming motor-hearts all hunting/escaping each other in a dizzying array of electro-cross-currents. The setting is surrealist turbulence and a roving, unmappable balance of perpetual transitions, Rrill Bell executing all this by fucking heavily with the physics of magnetic tape, time, and stress limit. There isn’t any “mood" so much as a “state of be(wilder)ing”; &this method of cohesion being pulled off is pretty magical. Headphones a MUST.

https://thegertrudetapes.bandcamp.com/album/vagabond-laws

and/or

https://rrill-bell.bandcamp.com/

http://the-preterite.com/blog/music/

— Jacob An Kittenplan

LEUMANN “Dystopian Land(e)scape” C18 (Gertrude Tapes)

Leumann’s “Dystopian Land(e)scape” plays out like a dark-ambient-meets-new-age soundtrack to some 1950s Russian espionage black & white that’s set on the moon. Through barren malfunction and sub-zero interference, this alien soundscape keeps on the barren side of classical composition, with glitchy haze and enigmatic flourishes blooming and wilting in fast forward, thorough in its creation of another entire world, down to the last detail. Strap on your headphones and get lost in it!

https://thegertrudetapes.bandcamp.com/album/dystopian-land-e-scape

and/or

https://leumann.bandcamp.com/

— Jacob An Kittenplan

C. WORTH "A Farther Sea" C54 (Gertrude Tapes)

The sound of all lone bedrooms
lit only by streetlamp,
fading candle, & intervals
of distant lighthouse flash.

Dust, devoutly swept into
all four corners, achieves
topsoil status, hosts
modest ice plant colonies.

Foghorn husk and battered,
barnacled hiss, Sea Worthy
hazily fingerstyles his subtle siren
strings of electric guitar,
mutely of pluck, or
jazzily strum’d, leagues
of reverb and delay coloring
even post-midnight horizons
with ghostly sails of unpinnable
drone.

Tides dependable, concurrently
peaceable, despite infinite opportunities
to dreamily
drown.

… … … …


This tape may actually be a perfect decompression-hour soundtrack. With or without headphones and/or neighborhood noise, it absolutely delivers, time and time and time again. The slippery blend of bass and treble and its rhythmic interplay, the arpeggios that slide into strums, the seamless movements between keys, the waxing and waning delay levels; C. Worth embodies all that can be transcendental about virtuosic guitar playing, with positively zero traces of the onanistic qualities so common in the genre.

https://thegertrudetapes.bandcamp.com/album/a-farther-sea

--Jacob An Kittenplan

DAS TORPEDOES “The Russian Submarine” C26 (Gertrude Tapes)

Tracking a Russian submarine on its final mission before its ultimate destruction could go a bunch of ways. You’ve see The Hunt for Red October, you know how the whole thing could play out. Could being the operative word, assuming, of course, that the titular Russian submarine here was going to defect. Let’s not assume that. The first main difference is that the Russian sub’s captain is probably not Scottish. Second, there’s a distinct lack of onboard gunplay. Third, Das Torpedoes, the artist not actual torpedoes, is the one who’s gonna tell us when and how this episode ends. The music, ambient passages only, carries with it a lovely introspective quality, which, when juxtaposed with the idea of the final days of a submarine crew, infuses the listening experience with a heavy dose of melancholy. So no, this is not a Hollywood visualization of dramatic events but is instead a decidedly un-blow-uppy world built within your imagination. There are goodbyes, the sub leaving port, submergence, internalization, emergency (still, no klaxons or anything), a letter written home, and a finality of the voyage throughout these six tracks. It’s all rendered in such placid textures and tones. I can only imagine the torpedoes, Das Torpedoes brand, with sudden finality ending the lives of the crew in a swift and senseless fashion, ratcheting up the sadness that I can no longer keep at bay within my own body. Oh the humanity! I didn’t sign up for this kind of emotional depth charge today. I had such grand intentions, so much to do, now my plans are totally tanked, along with my attitude, victims of my soul-crushing empathy toward those poor Russian sailors.

Anyhoo, I’ll get over it.

Gertrude Tapes

-- Ryan Masteller