JOEL SHANAHAN “Frozen Clock Hovering” C84 (across 2xC60) (Ratskin Records)

Joel Shanahan has made quite the name for himself (Golden Donna, Auscultation, et al) peddling highly abstract and energetic electronica for a while now, but this project under his own Jah-given name is something else entirely and, if I may so myself, his best work to date!

Across 84 minutes, JS covers a TON of ground skirting the ambient electronica subgenres, with nervous drone-swells, competing/asynchronous synth hooks that fall in upon themselves into anti-pulse reverse-cascades, and a remarkably tasteful employment of Basinski/Cortini-an decay peppered throughout. 

While a few beats are scattered here & there, the overall feel of this beastly 2xCS is of a consensual haunting, a purposeful study of sci-fi horror in slow-motion, emotionally removed but for the viscous syrup between speakers and recipient earholes. Not party music. Not study music. Definitely melancholy art-makin’ jamz for days, though, & the whole thing sounds great both via headphones and mid-range stereo speakers, making it dynamic to the third power!

The art is also pretty fucking stellar here, with two purty yeller tapes snuggling up in the sleeping bag of a heat-resistant sparkly envelope that’s superglued to two esoteric b/w prints, each kissed with oil-spill-ish accent. Ratskin wasn’t fuckin’ around here ONE BIT!

https://ratskinrecords.bandcamp.com/album/frozen-clock-hovering

and/or

https://goldendonna.bandcamp.com/music

—Jacob An Kittenplan

TYLER HOLMES “Devil” (Ratskin Records)

Every single one of us, the devil inside. Tyler Holmes has to check his shoulder regularly, because there are “Two Tylers,” himself and that evil version that pops up to give him bad advice before disappearing with a “poof!” while normal Tyler Holmes stands with his jaw dropped in disbelief that he’s about to follow the wrong inclination but is unable to stop himself. It’s like an out of body experience: he witnesses his human shell barrel through events in every wrong way possible yet is powerless in the face of sheer momentum and unbridled nature. “Two Tylers.”

These starkly honest and honestly stark MIDI jams are intensely personal and labored over, baroque but sparse, miniature but spacious and lived in. They sound like a dream collaboration between Tunde Adebimpe and Tricky if the two of them sifted through old keyboard sketches by the Police and left them as total sketches. The nakedness of Tyler’s delivery is perfectly accompanied by soft rhythmic patterns and textures. The fragility of each sonic construction is evident in the way it always feels like something’s going to topple over, one last bad decision causing the whole thing to come crashing down. It never does – not until side B’s “The Promise” anyway, a seventeen-minute sound collage as alien as it is intriguing.

Come to think of it, it’s all just intensely human, reflecting failure, holding out hope for that win in the face of adversity. It’s a last-ditch effort at righting the ship and gaining positive yardage. The secret’s in here somewhere, we just have to figure out what it is. It’s the Devil in the details.

https://tylerholmes.bandcamp.com/

https://ratskinrecords.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

DAX PIERSON “Live in Oakland” C44 (Ratskin Records)

Dax Pierson’s “Live in Oakland” CS out on Ratskin is not one but two distinct journeys trekked along the mesmerizing outcrop of EDM that rises and falls in a meadow of patiently recycled soundbites, dissociated textural cracks, industrial pulse, minor-key drones and faded pastel synth posits. And, as per RR’s MO, there’s plenty of harsh noise accents to go around the block & back.

The movement is constant, Reichian at times in its paced revelation, yet still managing a chaotic feel amongst the synced up, disparate layers. Peaks & valleys between formations are at constant transition in a race to become the other. It is a journey, yet comes full circle back to the love of movement*, and repeated listens will continue to inspire visual fireworks to the backs of anyone’s eyelids who take the time to listen.

https://ratskinrecords.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-oakland

and/or

https://soundcloud.com/dax-pierson

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*read up on DP’s current relationship with gross motor movement and how his medical devices inspired a great bit of how he now makes music/sculpts sound.

TYLER HOLMES “Devil” C32 (Ratskin Records)

Welcome to the funhouse, don’t touch the soot-coated mirrors. Neveryoumind, they're on your insides, anyway. Listen to the muse, also within, whilst chasing your own counterpoint tail in circular figure-eights. Cello in, synthesized breath, heavy, on out. Obey the siren call, their voice a loosely layering croon* growing more and more distant the deeper through catacombs we venture. Neon and glitter, grime and distortion, twinkle and trickle, metallic gleams and gelatinous sheens, all vaguely visible in just-short-of-pitch-black.

Tyler Holmes’ “Devil" is a welcome poison, disorientingly complex in its hook-game. While rarely repeating an entire phrase, the first pass will keep the listener on the edge of their seat, while, by the second time around, they’ll know AND FEEL the heaviness of TH’s consciousness and intentions. Through prosey lyrics rife with subtext and sky-wide open for interpretation, the first three songs are nearly exhausting in their playfulness and versatility. Side B, a 17 minute re-self-excavation of their prior releases’ more grimly grimey themes**, on the other hand, will scrape that intoxicated look right the fuck off one’s face, for sure. Listen to each of these sides thrice in a row, with great headphones, and you'll be hooked!

https://ratskinrecords.bandcamp.com/album/devil

and/or

https://tylerholmes.bandcamp.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*not exactly like Antony, TVotR, or Dave Doughman, but a gorgeously haunting mix of all three’s best qualities…

**I mean, this IS a RATSKIN release, right?

WIZARD APPRENTICE “Dig A Pit” C22 (Ratskin Records)

Along minimalist backdrops of shadowy avant-ambiance & littered with industrial throb and scuffle flickers the stoic projection of Wizard Apprentice's voice, a dusty stream of spoke-sung psycho-drama detailing a period in her life that, a fading hell, will shine lights (and lend shadows) across your own post-poisoned trials with sociopaths, abusers, and the frail thornology of growing through traumatic reconciliation. 

“The journey into the poem makes of the poet a burning sun that gives birth to a million shadows.”

~Jimmy Santiago Baca

The above quote may as well be about WP. It’s hard to recommend stuff like this, because it’s beyond a serious downer, the opposite of escape. This is a sonorous but no less bitter pill for those that seek an outside lens and/or parallel into their own pain. This will be bewildering to those who have yet to experience anything like it, and it’ll be a grimy indictment unto those who find themselves more important than others. 

For those only along for the sonic journey, WA’s voice is, even were it stripped of meaning, an expertly crafted balance between serenity and surrender, beauty and abandonment. Her cadences ring clear while her attack is cell-padded numb. Once you hear the intention behind some consonants’ crispness over others, it’s almost impossible to dissociate the sounds from words, the words from hurt, and the hurt from its slow recovery.

https://ratskinrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dig-a-pit

and/or

http://wizard-apprentice.com/bio

—Jacob An Kittenplan