J.G.D. AZZOPARDI “Phone Sex for Ducks” C43 (Moon Myst Music)

 

It’s creepy, I get it. And I live on a retention pond, so I get to see actual duck sex more often than I’d like. But thinking about a duck on the phone quacking away all sexy like while another duck on the other end of the line rubs one out with a wing or whatever gets the ick up in me. It’s just not something I want to think about. The obvious pre-doing-it ducks on the cartoon-strip cover don’t help.

 

J.G.D. Azzopardi doesn’t give a shit what I think. The Shack in the Barley honcho has decided that no matter what the taboo is, he’s going to break it, and damn my aversion to anatine coitus! On Phone Sex for Ducks, Azzopardi ratchets up the atmosphere, shoving dense noise collage after dense noise collage (four of them!) through my tape deck until I’m squirming on the floor in anguish. On the title track itself, telephone rings smoosh up against audible tension in a Twin Peaks–esque nightmare of wondering if and when the duck will actually answer. The phone continues to ring!

 

And Phone Sex for Ducks plows down its tense path until resolving itself somewhat with “Cemetery Improv – Sarah’s Grave,” which features some of what I can only refer to as “playful noise” – whatever that even means. It’s an odd, fitting end to this tape, leaving you skipping off into whatever it is you skip off into after whatever it is Phone Sex for Ducks is ends. That is until the skies darken and the aliens come and steal you away. Honestly, talk about a buzz-harsher.

 

Despite my feelings on the whole subject, this is riveting stuff.

 

https://shackinthebarleyproductions.bandcamp.com/

 

https://moonmystmusic.bandcamp.com/

 

--Ryan

CARNIVOROUS PLANTS / JESSIE AND THE EELS “Split” C30 (Moon Myst Music)

Kindred spirits here, Carnivorous Plants (aka Owen Chambers) and Jessie and the Eels (Jessica Dlugosielski and Dan Dlugosielski). What once was empty and silent space is slowly filled with the unmitigated whims of dreamers and deconstructionists. This split tape on Moon Myst Music lets each artist do their thing for a good long while, till the results wrap themselves around your brain and seep into your skin and infiltrate your lungs and probably do something to your vital organs, whatever the equivalent of enveloping them would be. But safely and comfortably, not unpleasant in the least!

Carnivorous Plants starts with some guitar and some distortion, and gradually builds upon that until it’s a massive beast as big as the sky. Well, at least it seems that way, what with its blotting out of the sun and all. Jessie and the Eels work with guitar and … sax, is it? Regardless, they treat their side like a playground, sproinging notes against each other like they’re playing on a seesaw or spinning on a merry-go-round or trying to swing high enough to flip themselves around the bar. Play these two sides back to back and you’ll have no idea what is up and what is down. Or what is A or what is B, except that you’ll see it on the tape and know that each artists does something quite different. So basically you’ll almost always have your bearings, actually.

https://carnivorousplants.bandcamp.com/

https://www.discogs.com/artist/3935298-Jessie-And-The-Eels

https://moonmystmusic.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

SHIT CREEK “Don’t Cry Sci-Fi Tiger” (Moon Myst Music)

Paddle or no paddle? The question hovers, unanswered, unanswerable, irrelevant as “Don’t Cry Sci-Fi Tiger” unfurls itself from glowing speakers, claws unsheathing and retracting, tail swishing, mouth yawning. It’s a languid, sleepy kind of afternoon, and Sci-Fi Tiger is not ready to pounce. It lays in the shade on its own, contemplating something that may make it sad. This is why we ask it not to cry.

Shit Creek is from Bristol, which is in the UK for those of you without a globe handy, and “Don’t Cry Sci-Fi Tiger” plays like a storybook for children in a terrible alternate universe where children are in charge somehow, demanding the adults to cater to their every whim while the plot destructive plots but get too tired to really pull anything off. Somehow that’s a place, because I conjured it, and there’s one of infinite alternate realities that went this way. Anyhoo, Shit Creek plasters noisy elements to the walls like they’re prize artworks on a refrigerator. Glommy guitar, syrupy synths, plocky percussive elements, an annoying patience with getting to where he’s going on a convoluted path that he’s plotted through detours and thickets and diversions, and in the end it doesn’t go where it was planned to go anyway, and there wasn’t even a plan to begin with.

There’s a grisly digital nightmare called “Creepy Robot Bird Monster” and an oddly restrained dribble of composition called “I’m Bursting Yr Tires You Prick! Here Comes Mr. Keys!”

That may be all you need now for your attention, and the Sci-Fi Tiger raises its head, twitches a whisker, and pixilates till it’s sated.

Ah, it was no paddle.

https://moonmystmusic.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

THE BORDERLANDS “Melkur” C64 (Moon Myst Music)

“Millipede.”

“Billipede.”

“Trillipede.”

“Infinipede.”

So goes the track listing of Melkur by the Borderlands, an experimental soundscape of terrestrial awe and cosmic tension. The titles made me chuckle at first, but they make sense. UK sound artist Ross Baker keeps his ear to the ground, becoming inspired by the intricacies and the details of miniscule life. Extrapolated outward, the miniscule takes on characteristics of the infinite – it’s all in how you relate to it.

Baker’s work is constantly in motion, constantly shifting focus from one piece of ephemera to the next. It’s inspired by everything and nothing, by life and by ether. As your mind is slowly engulfed by Melkur, it is simultaneously enlightened and cut off forever from other stimuli. Is that a sacrifice you’re willing to make? If so, head on over to Moon Myst Music and buy a tape. I’m sure they’ll be totally fine with a captive audience for the rest of eternity.

https://rossbaker.bandcamp.com/

https://moonmystmusic.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

TREMOLO GHOSTS / WORKER VS PARASITE "Gibraltar / акордеон" C50 (Moon Myst Music)

Though Moon Myst Music hails from Detroit, the rest of this release is pretty much English (Bristol, specifically), where Tremolo Ghosts is based and where this live performance of Worker Vs Parasite was recorded. Aside from that UK link, however, I’m not sure why these two acts could possibly have been thought to be paired together on one single tape, let alone a label.

Cases in point;
TG is pretty much a more melancholy mashing-up of John Darnielle and Ben Gibbard, concerning singer-songwriter folksiness, whereas WvP play longform drones on top of drones on top of drones. TG keeps it barebones simple, strumming stock 4/4 acoustic guitar chords or plinking out simple piano melodies, whereas WvP treats (ha!) their electric guitar* and accordion with a mélange of sustaining effects pedals that all but obscure the original sounds. TG sings with a solo, hymnal simplicity, whereas WvP sing not a single vocal sigh, but rather belt out a thick chorus of instrumental Oms akin to a sea of Tibetan Buddhist Monks in both gritty intensity and duration.

Both artists Do keep on the calmer side, I suppose, but one politely asks for attention and consideration whilst the other intentionally erases concerted focus and drive, fostering an egolessness unsubscribed to. Perhaps that was the point?

*liner notes say that one of the two members of WvP plays “guitar and paintbrushes”. Is THAT how they got that e-bow’d sound?!

https://moonmystmusic.bandcamp.com/album/gibraltar
and/or
http://www.moonmystmusic.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan