HASSNI MALIK & NICHOLAS LANGLEY “Music by Hassni Malik & Nicholas Langley” C60 (Third Kind)

 

Fifty is a lot of releases, but that’s where we find our pals Third Kind in July 2020, sitting on their fiftieth release as a label. Fifty! It’s hard to make the case that there’s not a single misstep for a label ushering so much music into the world, but you’ll have to take from me, a noted expert, that there’s not a single misstep in Third Kind’s catalog. Can you believe it? I barely can, and I’m the one writing/stating it.
 
This isn’t the fiftieth release. That honor went to Bary Center’s Guide Me Through the Hills of Your Home, which you can read about right here. This, on the other hand, is the first release, THIRD01, reissued and repackaged in celebration of the milestone. Good luck getting your hands on a copy of the old one, because you probably won’t be able to unless you scour Discogs or know Hassni Malik or Nicholas Langley personally, and even then they’ll probably point you to the reissue. But that’s OK – because this new thing is quite nice in its folded cardstock packaging, and it also features brand spanking new artwork from Tiny Little Hammers. Yes, that Tiny Little Hammers, the good one!
 
Malik and Langley, the latter of whom runs Third Kind (like you didn’t know), also have performed in beloved UK combo the Vitamin B12, so this is sort of like a side project for them. The two of them twiddle knobs and beam in transmissions from distant galaxies through the satellites they’ve clandestinely sent into orbit, recording the mesmerizing output to tape. Each of these three pieces were improvised (the titles include the word “Improv” as well as a date), but it doesn’t matter. It all sounds like communication, from outer to inner, then inner to inner, maybe back to outer, but that’s not so important. What is important is that TLH made this tape look like a sci-fi novel, and that’s super awesome. It sounds like the soundtrack to a sci-fi novel. Also, looking at the tape itself will probably get you high.
 
So celebrate along with Third Kind and the rest of us, and take a trip down memory lane with Music by Hassni Malik & Nicholas Langley. Sounds as fresh now as it did then.
 
https://thirdkindrecords.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

NICHOLAS LANGLEY “Plays the Vitamin B12” C42 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

Abstract reads: “Former cult krauter reimagines remixed electrified notes of long-time co-contributor/conspirator; striking manifesto ensues.” 

The facts check themselves. Nicholas Langley is guilty. Of bringing a nuanced scoche of avant-electronic/funk to the otherwise unwieldy vibes of UK underground stalwarts, The Vitamin B12. This (already sold out) release showcases (yet) another alternate universe where Nicholas Langley travels back in time to New Years Day, 1990, armed with nothing but all of his life lessons learned as of 2019 about just how godfuckingdamnweird he could rearrange some already godfuckingdamnweird tunes, seeking out Alasdair Willis’s (future) take on what should become some seriously heady jamz. 

NL’s own take on the matter is a magical mix of brisk & disorienting with an underlying groove that’ll sneak up on ya while you’re trying to make heads or tails of just which layers are leading which other ones along. Pretty stellar stuff. Get lost in the Bandcamp link below!

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/plays-the-vitamin-b12

—Jacob An Kittenplan

NICHOLAS LANGLEY “Thinky Space” (Entertainment Systems)

Did you just down an entire smoothie composed of Cluster, Vangelis, and Brian Eno for breakfast? Because I just did, and I think Nicholas Langley did too, or maybe that’s what his breakfast smoothies consist of everyday, that and some bananas and soy milk and other healthy oddities. John Carpenter? Sure. Kale? Why not. Make the thing green. This cassette tape sure is.

Just because you can say those names out loud doesn’t mean you can craft the same type of music within that sci-fi ambient synth idiom. It takes a special kind of celestial soul to get on that interstellar tip. Fortunately for us, they must distill astrophysics in Brighton and distribute it en masse, or at least in heavy doses in the Langley household, because our boy Nick, perhaps perched on the edge Brighton Pier, staring out into the expanse (or toward France), has it coursing through his system. Or maybe he’s just internalized it over time – he has been making this kind of music for many years, and indeed runs a label called Entropy Music that is home to many of his releases (several of which are collaborative efforts with label cofounder David Dilliway), including Phragaonesia, Gestalt Projectection, and The Reasonable Men. I guess, in the end, this is just what he does.

Which makes Thinky Space, his first cassette release for Entertainment Systems, a completely logical outcome. The tunes burrow under your skin and head straight for your cerebral cortex, regardless of whether they’re atmospheric ambient passages (“Svalbard Gothic”) or pulsing waves of joyous melody (“Yellow, Green, Silver”). Heck, Langley’s good at both. And the variety does us good, kind of like a breakfast balanced with all sorts of nutritional goodies, perhaps whipped together in a blender of some sort. But that’s the smoothie talking again. Once those galactic swirls start swimming around your field of vision and your relation to your surroundings becomes less and less observable, it won’t matter anymore. Breakfast will cease to be important. Brighton will cease to be important. Somehow, the only important thing will be to exist in the moment and observe. That’s the feeling I get from Thinky Space, anyway.

Nicholas Langley

Entertainment Systems

--Ryan Masteller