MONTE BURROWS “Skua” C20 (Falt)

Shit. ”Winter Winds,” side A of SKUA by Monte Burrows, aka Joe McKay, on France’s Falt, portends the advance of the White Walkers beyond the Wall, an event that the Night’s Watch is not equipped to stop in the throes of winter. The track is ten minutes of their advance. It’s terrifying, and we all know how that’s going to end. I’d offer spoilers, but I’m shaking with the dread fostered by these field recordings and processed through whatever computer programs Monte Burrows was able to get his hands on in Westeros.

OK, look, I’m not going to do that the whole time. So I watch GAME OF THRONES. So does everybody else. (And I read the books too!) And “Winter Winds” >/</= “Winds of Winter”? C’mon now.

I’m not going to do that the whole time because “False Beach” is also here, and it deserves some non-GOT attention, especially considering that (1) it takes place on a beach and (2) there aren’t too many beaches in GOT. Still, it’s a gray-sounding venture, a scratchy recording, more of a memory than an actual jaunt to the seaside. The sun doesn’t shine, the clouds menace, the wind is cold. It’s actually kind of like winter at the beach, and the wind … it’s the “Winds of Winter” again!

So I am actually going to do that the whole time, apparently. Sue me.

If we want to get technical, “False Beach” is probably what the Ironborn of Pike would listen to if they were into really tactile field-recorded tapes. They might not be as equally formidable a foe as the White Walkers, but you still probably don’t want to cross them.

I’ll show myself out.

(Joe McKay is probably like, “WTF dude.” I can only hope he’s a closet GOT fan.)

Monte Burrows
Falt

--Ryan Masteller

MONTE BURROWS “The Concentration of Brown Owls” C20 (Dinzu Artefacts)

Monte Burrows lives alone in a tiny studio apartment at the top of a run-down building for a reason. No other landlord would take such a reclusive weirdo who just happens to have an unhealthy owl fetish. You’re thinking, Ryan, why is it so weird that Monte Burrows would want to fill his life with figurines and carvings of owls? That’s not too weird. My mother-in-law likes owls. Yeah, but you see, it’s not the figurines and the carvings that gets ol’ Monte up in the morning (if he ever even goes to sleep, and there’s no evidence that I know of that he does). Monte Burrows actually fills his apartment with actual owls, hundreds of them, so that there’s no space uncovered that does not have a living, breathing, eating, shitting owl on it. The entirety of side A is the shut-in’s answer to nature doc, field recordings of ambient noise sounding like the claustrophobia of being alone in a room surrounded by the friction of wings and beaks. Probably smells terrible too. You can hear other birds outside the window with its drawn blinds, but they have no interest in anything going on inside.

We’re inside Monte’s head on side B, keys/strings/stringkeys darken any corners that still have light in them. Even with this mood pastiche and potential glimpse into the madness, it remains opaque, Monte’s thoughts closed off to us as weird bubbly blurps punctuate the strange atmosphere. It’s a nightmare, really. It’s like Eraserhead with owls and no lady in the radiator. The Eraserhead baby has been replaced by a thousand owls. Think of it as a thousand Eraserhead babies. Monte Burrows doesn’t see the owls, he sees the horror of others. He likes it – I think. He’s been locked in that apartment for a long time now. I think he’s taken on some owlish characteristics, like not blinking and swiveling his head all the way around. Eating mice. Other gross stuff. Good tape though.

Monte Burrows

Dinzu Artefacts

--Ryan Masteller

MONTE BURROWS “Ikki Ni” C20 (Wounded Knife)

Field recordings drone and decay, seemingly piped in from another planet while this one crumbles around us. There’s a narrative in the press release about human ruins, time-crumbled monuments to an era of growth and prosperity, now left to erode with the weather and even more time. Stumbling upon such ruins generations later, is it even worth remembering who initially built them? Does history matter, or is the past a curiosity experienced merely through happenstance?

Monte Burrows, aka Joe McKay, explores these ideas on his new tape for Wounded Knife, Ikki Ni. On it, he presents the past as a relic, but one experienced as a monolith throughout the ages, quiet, still, eternal. Anybody remember the old console game Shadows of the Colossus? Great game. Ikki Ni taps into that vein of distant, nagging emotion, as well as a determination to survive, even though it’s pointless to try. No matter what kind of order we attempt to impose on life, our lives, other lives, it always falls victim to entropy.

Side A, “Silhouettes 1–5,” is the perfect encapsulation of vague reminiscence presented as music, as recordings fade in and out, leaving only representations of their existence. They tug at memories, evoke nostalgia, and dissipate as ghosts do when they’re finished. “Shadows of Manitou,” side B, does a similar thing, except it repeats until time defeats it, and it decays into static that is broken by otherworldly tones, music from another universe that has seeped through where the division between worlds has grown thin. It’s like a transmission from different ruins, similarly aged, but just slightly different. Physics and history collide and become sound, and all of us who can hear it become aware.

Monte Burrows

Wounded Knife

--Ryan Masteller

MONTE BURROWS “Fantasy Living” (Spring Break Tapes!)

Los Angeles’ Spring Break Tapes! are harvested from deep listening seas. These gems require wireless ear snorkels for proper aural appreciation. Monte Burrows delivers his transmissions from otherworldly travels, and rewards his listeners with aged layers and pickled dimensions upon multiple playbacks.

This and Braeden Jae’s “Gutted”, both released December 2014 are the only ones left at the trading post. SBT!’s range from ambient drone artifacts to experimental hip hop preserves. There may be a time for the cosmic beats and another for the contemplative atmospheres. They also publish beautiful full color zines.

http://springbreaktapes.bandcamp.com/album/fantasy-living
http://www.springbreaktapes.com/#/monte-burrows-fantasy-living/

--Adam Padavano