HOOPS “Honeysuckles” (Chthonic Records)

Honeysuckles is a structure of field recordings and airy instruments with HOOPS voice dead center guiding you through this world they have created in the style of musique concrète. "Honeysuckles" opens with softly wobbling electronics and an acoustic guitar being plucked into an open abyss. Here we are introduced to our narrator and the theme for the rest of the album. The title track is the story of an old man who is trying to protect his garden from children eating his flowers. A fairly straightforward story which ends in his ascension. Throughout my entire listening I could not help feeling tangled in every soundscape. "Show Me the way to that Old Oyster Bar" is definitely the most driving of the album in regards to a 'traditional' take on music. My two favorite tracks are the closers, "No Shelter for a Kitty Cat", which follows the protagonist waking up to a beautiful day. The story quickly changes when a cat greets our narrator at their window. Our narrator never gets out of bed and transcends into the body of a cat with no where to rest and no where to hide. Again, this track features various field recordings and electronics as its lead and an electric guitar guiding the melody in the background. The closing track "On the Sleepy Side of Things" is a great conclusion to this surreal experience, calmly portraying the end to these adventures for today. The album finally closes with our narrator yawning and snoring away to a drum machine as if to say goodnight.



https://hoops23.bandcamp.com/

https://chthonicrecords.bandcamp.com/

- - Julienne Pasta

HOOPS “What Do You Get When You Fall in Love?” C36 (Chthonic Records)

I really got into “Masterpieces” following this review – it was really interesting and a surprising find. And I’m not going to speak for the vast majority of people who this is clearly aimed at – you know who you are, mom! – but I don’t get it. Why is that? Hoops recorded a bunch of live takes of Burt Bacharach and Hal David songs all on his lonesome with an acoustic guitar. These are good songs. But Hoops, dude, we can’t hear you. You’re too mumbly. The fidelity’s a mess. Is that the point? Am I missing something? Why does this exist in a format where I have to pay for the physical artifact? I was excited, now I’m just bummed. Probably a one-time fuckup. Oh well – better luck next time, Hoops, and you people reading, don’t give up on checking him out!

Please note: Tracks were recorded in 2007 and released in 2017. There’s part of the reason.

And you’re right, nagging conscience – my mom wouldn’t be able to get past the poor recording.

https://hoops23.bandcamp.com/

https://chthonicrecords.bandcamp.com/music

--Michael “Hoops 23” Jordan

HOOPS “Masterpieces” (New Visions in Electronic Music)

There’s an old wooden rocking chair on the bare wooden floor, making odd wooden noises as the wooden runners move back and forth. There’s no one in the long sitting room, and most of the other (read, comfortable) furniture has been removed, save for a side table here, a bookcase there. It’s all covered in dust, and the two portraits on each side wall that face each other across the room are covered in cobwebs. The chair moves, the dust settles, and memories fade. There’s an old phonograph in the corner, its needle wheezing across an old record, broadcasting the ghost of a piano that once inhabited this room. The markings where the instrument indented the floor are still visible, but it was removed long ago. Ghosts beyond the piano inhabit this room, remnants of lives and moments. Everything feels old, but of a specific, particular time. A nostalgia for old photographs and daily formality permeates the walls, nostalgia not of a better time but of one more uncertain, where the future seemed murky and the past too recent to endure with any sort of encouragement. It’s nostalgia for the edge of complexity, when the simplicity of survival became ambition. The faces in the portraits gaze at one another across the room, frozen in eternal gaping unease. The rocking chair continues its pendulous march, perpetually moving through time, offering no repose, just anxiety. Ages pass. The sun never sets, its beams simply dance over dust motes through the lone window at the near end of the room. The phonograph, finally emitting string drones, slows and stops, its motor gasping its last, its frayed belt finally crumbling. Masterpieces, a finely handcrafted, obscure artifact, captures in its magnetic tape the slow crumble to ruin of human passing.

Hoops

New Visions in Electronic Music

--Ryan Masteller

HOOPS “A Whiff of Spirits” C41 (Chthonic Records)

Here’s a collection of musique concrete pieces, prepared/distorted piano/guitar amblings and harsh noises out of Salt Lake City. Tracks 3 & 7 stood out as great textural explorations, and 8 was otherworldly, making me constantly question whether the tuba(?) notes were being slowed down, the field recording was in an abandoned Olympic indoor swimming pool (next to a construction site and a dog park?), or a mix of the two. Those three tracks, in my absolutely pious opinion, are worth repeated listens, but not so much the rest. The download on bandcamp is free, though, so, if you’re into this kinda thing, happy fucking birthday.

http://hoops23.bandcamp.com

and/or

www.chthonicrecords.bandcamp.com

- - Jacob An Kittenplan