BRAEYDEN JAE “culture complicit” (HEL Audio)

One late evening in SLC, Utah, November 2014, Braeyden Jae recorded(in Braeyden’s words) a pair of ”raw, reactionary improvisations performed on bass guitar.“

Each of the pieces, (culture, and complicit) clock in at 14:36. Minimal in nature, these are dives into the low-end of the community pool. There is dread, there is foreboding, listen close, and you will hear the ancient mariner’s tale of doing donuts in the buoyant Great Salt Lake. The salinized strings expand beyond the definition of a rhythm instrument. A lone captain gazing down at a pair of olive Wellies, grounds down on the planks of a wayward schooner, landlocked and droughty. This vessel is drawn to distant shores, and is bound to skip like a stone into the great western puddle.

CC on Hel Audio

cc braeyden jae


--Adam Padavano

MOONINITE “Soda” C30 (Hel Audio)

I was a self-absorbed man in my lair, making my x-rated movies & listening to Mooninite’s tape called “Soda.”  Lovely synthesizer jams.  I like blissin’ out, and this tape is sympathetic to that.  I’m prowling around my room at night, getting blessed by the spirit.  I’m playing tapes in my twilight freedom, dabbling in concoctions, dreaming of gelatinous waves, and this tape is my good companion.  It sounds even better on this old Walkman, these miniature speakers blasting through my steam-filled kitchen.  The nice tunes plink & chirp.

But the soda-can sound effects are like a shitty commercial to me.  The soda concept is a mistake.  It seems like a guy who had a great tape of blissed out synth jams decided it wasn’t a legit album until he had some ideas attached to it that turned it into a recognizable concept.  So he chose to make his music a metaphor of the many flavors of soda.  This is a bummer, because the treatment of the subject is not any more meaningful than the advertising industry’s already ubiquitous treatment of the subject. 

Now I’m cutting into garlic cloves and cherry peppers, the steam is swirling in my lungs, and Mooninite is vibing strong with me again.  The tape has managed to be good soundtrack music to sensuous, solitary moments in my day.  The music loves me & wants to please me.  But making music as a metaphor of soda is a shitty errand.  I’d rather keep this stuff thought-free & concept-free if that’s gonna be the concept.  It’d be easy to revamp the package, cut out the soda sounds, and keep a nice soundtrack for dreamers.  You can get sumptuous & let the music mix with your delusions of grandeur.

Helaudio.bandcamp.com

-- Kevin Oliver

METATAG "Transmission" (Hel Audio)

In Scandinavia, summer nights never become midnight black. The sky, while star filled, only gets to be a navy blue at two in the morning. It's not too long before the sun returns.

The flip side is in the winter the sun only makes appearances for short amounts of time during the day.

To some this may sound enchanting, to others it may sound downright depressing. It takes a certain type of person to embrace and thrive in the short days of winter ... most don't have the patience to shovel snow all winter long to receive the payoff of literally endless summer nights...

Metatag's "Transmission", an electronic two piece from Norway, are able to musically convey a lonely Scandinavian winter night. All the tracks are Minimal, meditative and most are minor in scale. All the tracks are slow to almost be classified as drone. The songs are ambient and repetitive in melody. Each track is gentle, although at times some tracks are also eerie to have an almost early John Carpenter horror soundtrack-synth vibe . Almost all the instruments I hear originate from electronic keyboards. Melodies loop and are occasionally reduced to mere pulsating frequencies. Percussion is almost completely absent from the release (with the exception of some looping metronome clicks here and there).

At times this cassette is SO minimal it is difficult to even categorize these little sonic vignettes as songs or even soundscapes. The sounds made can be so basic they run the risk of making an audience nod off. Fortunately, Metatag understands that these vignettes need to be brief in order to be successful, so you never sit too long with a boring melody.

Metatag's intentional restraint is compelling and unique. It's an idea that is investigated to its full extent for sixty minutes. Unfortunately, its tiring after a while. By minute fifty I'm ready for this cassette to end like a boy in Church dying for sermon to end so he can have fun outside for the rest of his Sunday. I'm glad Metatag investigated the idea of drone dread and minimal melancholy melody, but hopefully they're next release will be in a radically different direction. Or perhaps I'm just not made out for lonely Scandinavian winters ...

Buy and stream the album here ...
http://www.helaudio.org/catalog/009/

-- Jack Turnbull

Θ - "æ ω" (Hel Audio)

Utah based label, Hel Audio, gets Scandinavian spooky with this hour-long ride through existential despair. The ambient/drone/synth music of (what the ?? - is that a symbol I should know?) is meticulous and patient. It builds and folds and rides ennui static waves. Sixty-minutes is a long time for me to sit still and meditate on the nothingness of life...thanks a lot! The music isn't all atmosphere, but even when a "beat" appears, it descends into the depths just as fast. Its almost as if, something sorta fun wants to break free of the darkness, but just can't. This will be a tough listen for some, much enjoyed by others.

Buy and Listen HERE.

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RS2090/Mooninite - "split" (Hel Audio)

The split from RS2090 and Mooninite released by Utah's Hel Audio is an intriguing midnight listen. Electronic abstractions from RS2090 offer a wide-spectrum of samples, pounding beats, and nocturnal keyboard transmissions. The mix is pleasing and even surprising in parts as the club meets the cosmos. On Mooninite's side the darkness manifests itself even more. "Moonlets," for example, feels of sleep deprivation, it is woozy and forward moving at the same time. I'm very much in a new world as the tape plays. There's a lot to hear on this tape as 60-minute cassette (20 more minutes of music than the digital version) is jammed with atmospheres. If you're into 2am riffs, this is a tape worth exploring.

Buy and Listen HERE.