VLK “Nur Darme Stu Turmiento” C36 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

 

VLK’s 2018 jawn Avril and Sean in Camden was my introduction to the New Jersey DJ (or at least VLK was once based in New Jersey), the tape chronicling a young VLK’s commute to and from work with a boss who listened to a lot of Sean Hannity and dumb stuff like Avril Levigne. (I think I’m remembering that correctly.) It is a weird concept, but it absolutely worked. Nur Darme Stu Turmiento is also a weird concept that totally works, and it also happens to chronicle another of VLK’s employment adventures. This time, instead of being stuck in a car, VLK is instead stuck in an Italian restaurant, forced to listen to late-1990s radio and being accosted by “Rat Pack–adjacent” personalities and “the odd operetta aria outsider.” I can only imagine one’s boss at such a 1990s restaurant as a paisano wannabe goodfella. I can already hear him speaking in an amazing accent in my head.
 
Nur Darme Stu Turmiento is a mixtape that aims to recreate the feeling of working in such a restaurant. In fact, the entire j-card is a recreation of a menu from that type of eatery, and it looks remarkably authentic. The music is not what you would expect to pipe in from the PA – that would be more along the line of Old Country crooners and opera singers wafting in the background. But VLK takes this concept and mashes it right together with electronic proclivities, weaving together an astounding mix that’s singularly current in its stylistic presentation yet retains a distinct Hoboken-Italian-restaurant flavor. The new and the old flow seamlessly together, a winsome meditation on a singular environment by someone who’s experienced both the front and the back of the house. Plus, it’s just a banger of a tape – no need to sugarcoat there.
 
https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

DERE MOANS AND HORSELOVER FLATS “Lax Myths / Essentially Negative” (Strategic Tape Reserve)

 

What better way to get back into the game than with two of my favorite electronic weirdos, Tony Lien, aka Dere Moans and purveyor of Bad Cake Records, and Tim Thornton, aka Horselover Flats (and Tiger Village, among others) and purveyor of Suite 309? I’ll tell you what better: a split album by these two nuts on the aggressively intellectual Cologne-based cassette label Strategic Tape Reserve! It should come as no surprise that the combination of these three things – artists x 2 and label – have resulted in a wildly inventive maelstrom of cacophony. At times harshly obliterative, at others fantastically mesmerizing, Lax Myths (the Dere Moans side) and Essentially Negative (the Horselover Flats side) dream of definite futures where androids definitely dream of electric shrimp.
 
Did I type shrimp? Weird.
 
Anyhoo, Dere Moans hits hard and quickly, with Tony repurposing some material he’s had laying around throughout Covid and mashing it into a chunky paste of noisy sample jams. Don’t call it plunderphonic: or, wait, it’s pretty plunderphonic, but then again, Dere Moans is the best at that, so let’s cut him some slack. Lax Myths is bracing, that’s for sure, and the pace and volume doesn’t let up regardless of what slides through the old sound-mulcher. It’s an action-packed blast of face-melting vibes – the Total Recall of this package.
 
Tim as Horselover Flats loves him some Philip K. Dick, and as such, we’re kindred spirits (I’m obsessed). Grabbing his moniker from VALIS, Tim last played a show, again before Covid, not as Tiger Village or CDX but as this Dick-inspired incarnation of himself. Armed with sine waves, kick drums, and voice, Tim crafts a paean to the literary master, a future-noise collage whose tracks are all titled after Dick-isms. Appropriately schizophrenic and disruptive in nature, Essentially Negative is his A Scanner Darkly, mind rending but not aware. A glorious, nightmarish trick.
 
But in the end, you get these two on a tape, you can’t go wrong. Strategic Tape Reserve does not go wrong either. Frankly, they never do.
 
https://deremoans.bandcamp.com/
 
https://suite309.bandcamp.com/
 
https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

THE TUESDAY NIGHT MACHINES “Lozenge” C50 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

 

You can say a lot about the Tuesday Night Machines based on the packaging of their releases alone. Take Hawaiian Yurt Music, for example, which comes housed in a burlap O-card. Or Roof Tent Rhythms, which is enclosed in an actual piece of folded tarp under which the Tuesday Night Machines slept one night while compiling the samples that would comprise the release. And now there’s Lozenge, which comes in a regular Norelco case but has a purple felt j-card, and the cassette itself looks like a bright gold brick.
 
To be clear, these are not faults – they’re entry points for adventure.
 
This time the Tuesday Night Machines have served up a massive analog delight over two sides, each one a far-out excursion to the outer reaches of whatever TNM happens to be tripping on. (And that does not suggest actual “acid tripping,” just whatever’s floating the TNM boat.) I’m going to be honest – I’ve popped this thing in and completely zoned out to its ever-shifting sense of reality or unreality, lost in its vastness but grounded in its sonic waypoints, which lead the way toward full appreciation. I don’t know what that means, because you can hear so many frequencies, it sometimes becomes impossible to differentiate what’s there and what’s not. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a handle on it, but that surety isn’t complete. And that’s for sure.
 
https://nightmachines.bandcamp.com/
 
https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

WHETTMAN CHELMETS / QUALCHAN. “Theme∞Variations” C34 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

 

We couldn’t agree more, Strategic Tape Reserve. Two of your favorite artists on one tape? Try two of ours as well! Whettman Chelmets and qualchan. have both appeared on the STR roster in the past, Whettman with Doesn’t Remember… and qualchan. with the end of all seasons. (What is it with these guys and punctuation?) We here at Cassette Gods have written about the two of them as well – feel free to take advantage of the search functionality on this web page to dig around in the archives. Everything we’ve said about them is complimentary, I promise.  
 
So it’s a big deal that the two artists have gotten together, and the results speak for themselves. Whettman takes side A and riffs on a melody that qualchan. had sent him, employing a bag of compositional tricks to avoid making any one of the tracks sound like the others. Classical techniques? Of course! But he’s also grounded in his own skillset, the one where he makes thick drones and ambient shoegaze and what have you. But don’t take it from me! Take it from Chelmets himself. Go ahead, dig through that back catalog. Also the promo copy. (Hey, at least I cite the ideas that aren’t mine.)
 
And then qualchan. takes side B, and we’re thrust immediately into a tripped-out sample/loopfest inspired by nature (Oregon’s Cascade region), but nature shot through with neon electric currents. How qualchan. juxtaposes the two and gets away with it is beyond me (although it probably shouldn’t be if I’m writing about music, let’s be honest). It’s laid back but verging on the point of soundtracking a lysergic nature doc, which, obviously, would be a really cool experience. Plus everything fades in and out quickly, often in less than two minutes. Come to think of it, Whettman Chelmets’s side does that too, except substitute two minutes with three minutes.
 
There’s so much to explore here – you’ll be here checking this out for a while on repeat.
 
https://whettmanchelmets.bandcamp.com/
 
https://hangontoyrego.bandcamp.com/
                                                      
https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

LEAAVES “12 Worlds” (Strategic Tape Reserve)

 

Nate Wagner is no stranger to the contemplative. Over scores (scores, I say! Well, several, anyway) of releases, Wagner as Leaaves has dived headfirst into many an ambient deep end, whether using synthesizers or guitars or samples, and he has always emerged from his immersive excursions with enough material to drag us along with him, back into it all. He’s even made an off-the-wall Terry Crews–sampling left turn! That one was wild.

 

On 12 Worlds, though, Wagner is back to the ambient stuff, drawing on field recordings that came to him from some of his cohorts, and with them in hand, he spins hypnagogic dreamscapes that swirl and dissipate. There’s always a sense of place within the Leaaves oeuvre, and here it’s where you are, your present, yet overlaid with secret realities that aren’t often observed. Fortunately, via delicate playing that intertwines with the found sound, Wagner helps to remove the veil from these secret worlds and allows them to interact with the one you’re used to. It’s a neat trick.

 

So you can let it all fade into your headphones (you’ll need headphones) as the overlapped worlds of your particular place encroach and intermingle. The sounds flow like inhalations, exhalations, processes of connecting with the molecules around you. I bet you just never knew so many things were there at once, such incredible invisible oddities.

 

https://leaaves.bandcamp.com/

 

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/

 

--Ryan

CHORCHILL “Nachtfisch” (Strategic Tape Reserve)

 

Ride your motorcycle from Istanbul to West Germany. The call of the road, the charm of the scenery as it whips by. The pressure, the danger. Do you have to do it? What’s there for you? The freedom of motion, of impermanence. The unknown.

 

The sadness.

 

The music tells stories about stories about images. Thirdhand accounts from Chorchill’s father passed down to Chorchill. The gleam of remembrance, the twinkle of regret in the man’s eye. Apel Okuyan had to do it, made the journey in the 1960s, felt the deep longing for deliverance beyond … something. Injustice? General unfairness? Who knows – he was a “prominent figure in a powerful trade union … before his unexplained disappearance in 1995.” Maybe he was into some deep shit. Maybe he was the man behind the curtain.

 

Chorchill takes a wistful approach. Delicate synth pads, restrained melodies. He longs to understand a life he never brushed against, the Turkish-German underworld, and how his father knew such stories, such people. Nachtfisch, Okuyan’s nickname, serves as a meditation on the secret histories and fantastic adventures of people in extreme circumstances, imagining in its naïveté a cinematic romanticism of the daily interactions that can never be fully comprehended. And it’s this open-ended exploration of the mundane and innocuous that sets the idea of “underworld activity” in relief. In short, let’s get fascinated about mysteries!

 

https://chorchill.bandcamp.com/

 

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/

 

--Ryan

PETER C. BRUNO “Be Linear” C57 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

 

This is decoy from the start. A relic of the golden age of espionage. I mean, this isn’t even by “Peter C. Bruno” – if the Bandcamp page is to be believed, it’s by the Strategic Tape Reserve Staff, meaning Peter C. Bruno could be anybody. (Or he could actually be Peter C. Bruno! The mind boggles.) True to form, “False Floor” opens the tape with Cold War synthpop, suggesting layers that you shouldn’t see but could if you looked hard enough, or precisely. Spy games aren’t out of the reach of STR’s strengths, and the collective tries its hand at subtle messaging on Be Linear, which, after the “false floor” of “False Floor,” descends into deliberate code. “False Floor” is intended to shake us off the scent – well, at least to mislead anyone who has obtained the contents of this tape in a manner not befitting the intentions of the label. They even suggest you keep the tape rewound to the beginning of side A when it’s not in use to seem innocuous if the authorities ever get a hold of it.

 

But what’s actually recorded onto this tape is meant for certain ears only. Each track is a list of secret code words expressed over secret synthesizer tones, all of which form an elaborate codebook. When words and tones are transmitted to those in possession of Be Linear, they can use the tape as a cypher to interpret messages. These messages are likely of the life-and-death variety, alerting agents to enemy movements and actions. I can confirm this – since this tape has arrived in the mail, I’ve already received a voice message of synth pulses and carefully intoned nouns that, when compared to Be Linear, alerted me to the fact that I’d left the stove on after heating up some leftover pizza at lunch. This tape has already saved my life!

 

Or maybe I’ve said too much.

 

So whether you think this just a complex piece of performance art or an indispensable tool for the freedom fighters still at it behind enemy lines will likely determine whether or not you should even be in possession of this thing. If you fall into the former category, your instructions are to burn this tape as soon as you finish reading this “review” (bleep bloop).

 

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/

 

--Ryan

WETHER “Heir Bud" C23 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

Bordering on downright aggressive, Wether’s newest offering “Heir Bud” holds our ears to the staccato crackle of atonal rhythmic destruction for so long, it begins to sound like a hell-rented frog pond. Enter in some soaring/delayed ghoulish samples & soundbites and we’re back in the deepest bowels of Hades once again, the only reprieve of side A being a bizarrely tonal closing that wraps up like Bach’s iron fuckin’ fist.

Side B is a parallel hell, swapping out knob-tweaking rhythmics for more bleak musique concrète schizophrenia, finishing off with a possessed karaoke hymn of despair. 

Not for the faint of heart, this release pairs well with STR’s following/most recent offering, Q///Q, as it’s pretty much the polar opposite. 

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/heir-bud

and/or

https://wether.bandcamp.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

WETHER “Heir Bud” C23 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

For me, writing about Wether is like fishing in a public fountain: it’s frowned upon in general, and the authorities love issuing me citations about it. Plus, there’s no fish, so there’s no reason for me to even be there or doing that anyway. Yet here I am, pole and tackle box in hand in the midst of morning rush hour, surrounded by people (c’mon, everybody, COVID! Go home …), ready to try my luck yet again, even though I know the only thing I can possibly reel in is the loose change people tend to throw in these things, and not even that because my hook’s not magnetized.

Feels like a fruitless endeavor, right? It sort of is. Mike Haley is our Wether-man, and he’s second in command at Tabs Out (behind Dave) where I also dabble in some writing, so I’ve been banned from reviewing his stuff over there. But guess what, Mike? You have no authority here at Cassette Gods! Not that it matters anyway, I guess. As I’m sure you’ve prepared yourself for it, the typical Wether map forecasts burbles and samples, with a slight chance that one of them is going to be a reveille (I want that to be pronounced “revile” so bad) trumpet. Heir Bud doesn’t disappoint, as there’s enough burbles and lasers and other noises and samples (including the warped trumpet, and even some Sound of Music!) to make you forget that we’re living in troubled, troubled times.

Still, the typo on the cover is fairly disappointing – the name of the movie you’re trying to reference is Air Bud, not Billy Madison (which was nicknamed Heir Bud on set – fun fact).*

*[Not a real fact.]

In the end, I think the words we’re all looking for are “Great set, Mike.” Great set indeed. Although I fear that, with this whole endeavor being as fruitless and fairly illegal as it is, I’ve only managed to reel in a couple of metaphorical nickels and a penny or two – which, let’s be honest, I just scooped out of the water with my hand.

http://www.tabsout.com/

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

Q///Q “Vanguard Youth" C40 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

While there may be a slightly detectable GeAr flavor in Q///Q’s “Vanguard Youth”, you’re far more likely to taste a parallel timeline where, back in 1990, it wasn’t England but rather Portugal, and it wasn’t electric lutes, keys, & drums but rather synthesizers & drum machines plugged into those delay(s) and reverb pedals that a certain possible Spaceperson 33 decided to take up with their hypnogogic barrage of self-battling mid-tempo arpeggios and lulling mantric riffs against our earholes. If this isn’t a what-could-have-been homage, I don’t know what is. Same fugue-like fog and serene tangle of lolling grooves, but maybe slightly looser, hazier, and would-be-nappier, were the vocals* not so ceremonially executed and interest-piquing. 

The GeAr diaspora ventures further and further, far out and farther outer!

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/vanguard-youth

and/or

https://germanarmymusic.bandcamp.com/album/q-q-gear-side-project

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*Chanted half in Engrish, half in Portuguese

Q///Q “Vanguard Youth” C40 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

Webster’s defines “vanguard” as “the forefront of an action or movement.” (Next to “hackneyed writer” it dispenses with words altogether and features only a picture of me with a lampshade on my head.) I think we’ve established that German Army, of which Q///Q is an offshoot brand, is at the vanguard of social resistance and change via sound art, and it’s also pretty clear that the youth are going to have to step in and take up the mantle and continue the fight as time passes. Youth with enough energy to throw each other, Superman-like, through the air. Vanguard Youth we could call them.

Q///Q did.

Yeah, we like a little rhapsody with our waxation, and Vanguard Youth delivers it within its fragile now-wave synth tunes, numbers teetering on the edge of a knife: to one side, trouble, to the other, rapture. It’s an operation that seems untenable – too much potential for disaster. But that’s the beauty of Q///Q – it balances the hazy computer pulse of a good GeAr tune, whacking itself against a shorting node, with the blissful and melancholy ambience of a good Peter Kris track, enveloping a node with its humidity until it shorts. Either way you’re effing up a perfectly good computer.

And while it’s not a traditional call to arms in the same way as the most circuit-fried GeAr releases can be, it at least sustains the unease beneath the surface. Its consistent presence is a constant reminder to go forth and do that thing, right that wrong. It’s not on the front line, but it’s nourishment for the vanguard youth behind the scenes. Real change is gonna come, you mark my words.

https://germanarmymusic.bandcamp.com/

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

VARIOUS ARTISTS “Mighty Giant Pinky - Tribute to Satanicpornocultshop” C95 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

Is the Pinky attached to a Giant in the same way as webs of beats have been mercilessly tacked to a writhing beast in full throes? Or is it (this Pinky) simply to relative scale of said Giant, a slippery net of percussive cross-hairs, possessed, staggering, unpinnable, sovereign? 

How Mighty is the Pinky, flexed magically, wand-like in its mesmerism of loose footwork & turntablism-kisses? How does the final digit dangle, hypnotic as tribal collectives seduce our consciousness into its diffuse-state, primed to access those hidden paths paved with their own beatification.

The Japanese electro-weirdo-beatsmiths SATANICPORNOCULTSHOP inspired many an intense NTSE-NTSE-NTSE-NTSE freak to branch out into the unknown and steal a piece of sound-mind from the wandering schizophrenic canon & this behemoth compilation details but an eeNTSY slew of their legacy.

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/mighty-giant-pinky-tribute-to-satanicpornocultshop

—Jacob An Kittenplan

THE TUESDAY NIGHT MACHINES “Roof Tent Rhythms” C42 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

This sprightly beater is for all the old school Strategic Tape Reserve fans out there. The Tuesday Night Machines give us “Roof Tent Rhythms”, an interweaving of tones and phrases from ancient STR ghosts* of Krampusnacht past…but don’t worry. There aren’t any switches-for-stitches anywhere to be seen, just hap-hap-happy downtempo(ish), kitsch-classic beats kicked out via "an old battery-powered Akai MPC 500 sampling workstation”**. 

The overall effect is a li’l neon-crisp night out on the town just as the sun goes down, and it is strongly recommend to pair this release with qualchan.’s “The End of All Seasons”, released just a month or so ago and truly one shimmying bummer-town of a beat tape, if you haven’t already had the pleasure of mopily nodding along with it***; the juxtaposing feels**** to be had after taking in these puppies back to back is weird and satisfying.

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/roof-tent-rhythms

and/or

https://nightmachines.bandcamp.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*tunage deftly purloined from Beauty Product, Jöns, Belmont Lacroix, & Mr. & Mrs. Chip Perkins.

**so say the STR copy gods.

***do it!

****as with most STR releases, the back story on RTR will hip you as to why the fuck this tape came in a repurposed tarp, so do your googlin’, or bandcamp-bio-peepin’ as your curiosity dictates.

QUALCHAN. “The End of All Seasons” C27 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

With “The End of All Seasons”, Qualchan. pits vapor-wavy house snippets against Robitussin-based hip-hop instrumentals in a pillow fight to the death…or at least until one or the other passes out from feeling so loopy. What sets this release apart from your above-average beat tape is just how quickly each upbeat vignette comes and goes, arriving and departing A-L-L I-N, not any one track staying around long enough to get any real feel for before the next beat-battalion marches on through the door to your ears, the overall feel heavily hypnogogic, despite the pace and rhythms. This is tops for power-napping with shoes on, ready to bounce out the door once the tape closes up shop!

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/the-end-of-all-seasons

and/or

http://www.strategictapereserve.de/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

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

SEVERINO PFIFFERLING “Musik für Spülmaschine und Synthesizer” C27 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

This post-futurist opus is for all those who have ever blissfully harmonized along with their refrigerator’s hum’s rich timbres and/or offered finger-tapping accents overtop the rhythmic trance of an extensive xeroxing job. With “Musik für Spülmaschine und Synthesizer”, Severino Pfifferling offers two tales in tandem, one of the laboring automated dishwasher’s inner struggles as a literal, physical event, and the other one, an emotional/programmed quest for tabula rasa.

Hear for yourself the Promethean cycles’ weight upon the very center of our heroic machine, centrifugal forces of compulsive cleanliness and efficiency chasing their own tails into scorched-earthenware oblivion. Marvel at SP’s intuitive command of the accompanying synthesizer-as-soul-et-nervous-system. Combat the impending urge to buy your own Hobart another one just for company!

Witness these compositional psychoacoustic feats and you yourself shall testify thusly, that “FfSuS” is further proof of Strategic Tape Reserve’s “concept album” propagational-prowess. 

And, as Always, Do read STR’s own stellar copywriter’s sentiments on the subject matter for further strobing enlightenment. You’ll walk away wiser, if not all the more overwhelmed.

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

—Jacob An Kittenplan

GWASG GELERT “Y Côd Da Vinci” C47 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

We all have that friend who smokes too much weed and likes to come up with fantastical ideas; write a POV telenovella of two fax machines who fall in love from across the office, stage a protest against bibles being sold at the local dollar store, start a pop-up where only left-over burrito-butts are served, the compensation for which only half-used hot sauce bottles are accepted, ad infinitum.

Well, Strategic Tape Reserve puts their chromium where their mouth is! What other label has released concept albums dedicated to facilitating Urban Pole Walking, Mini-Market Museums, and “…standardiz[ing] low-input production methods for generating asymmetrical rhythms with military applications…”* and now this, an electronica interpretation of the Da Vinci Code, narrated in Welsh.

Relax. It isn’t just a cold read of the best-selling murder-mystery, but a SURVIVE/StrangerThings-esque soundtrack that’s every bit as mysterious and thrilling, but also a tad spookier, given it employs haunting choral accents and noisy flare-ups. 

As with ANY STR release, you really gotta read the bio on this one. The press-kit writer over there is a goddamn genius and I truly drool whenever I read their copy. Click on the Bandcamp link below and get blown away!

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/y-c-d-da-vinci

and/or

http://www.strategictapereserve.de/

— Jacob An Kittenplan

*as lifted off the STR Bancamp bio for their “Efficient Processes for Synthetic Funk” release

VARIOUS ARTISTS “ShopLand World: Music for a Discovery Park of Miniature Supermarkets” C81 (Strategic Tape Reserve)

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot. Those are "the 4Rs”. 

That first one, “Reduce" is what we’re focusing on here. Right here, right now! We must become smaller, consume less. Not just food. Not just carbon-based things, but oxygen!

You ask any decent Rick Moranis impersonator and they'll attest that you can save a metric FUCK TON on your grocery bill -hell, your carbon FOOT PRINT, en totale!- if you get shrunk…

I must confess. This ecological conscientiousness was not my idea. T’was the STR. They’re always at it, trying to make the world better* for you, me, and us.

Case In Point: “SLW: MDPMS” now hi-lights a sinisterly under-looked option for curtailing the world’s Climate Change problem: If we all could just imagine ourselves fulfilling our shop-til-ya-drawp tendencies in a fancifully tiny (read: “kee-yoot!”) way**, we ought save a few banknotes, easily, right?

&we'd need a seriously devoted team of psychoacoustic/pop technicians to provide this ambiance. Brian Eno solved the Airport problem; STR has the Tiny Mall one figured out before it’ll even be a thang!

&so, take notice: Y’all’re now hereby invited, nay, Dared(!) to listen to this All-Star line-up of selfless socioeconomic composers’ posits on what might be best fitting to pipe through the tiny PA speakers of the mini-mini malls of your mind. Imagine, with your ears big and small, what it’ll feel like to visit dozens, perhaps hundreds, of tiny shopping centers in a single afternoon. STR knows how to facilitate the headspace for that. All you gotta do is muster a li’l focus & listen in.

For the love of Odin, please click on the bandcamp link below and read STRs own ingenious thesis (and ogle the KILLER lineup of ambient/experimental artists who got in) on this comp. This tape ought to make history!

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/shopland-world-music-for-a-discovery-park-of-miniature-supermarkets

and/or

http://www.strategictapereserve.de/

— Jacob An Kittenplan

*but, in all seriousness, they really do ALWAYS lend a perspective that makes this hellish life more bearable, no?

**for even, say, 81 minutes, straight?

PS- some of these tracks are fucking terrifying

MODUS PONY & VLK“Split EP” C30(Strategic Tape Reserve)

Sound-Collage, but the source material is weedy/proggy jam bands? Or are they actually psychy mathrock outfits, doing their damnedest to emulate the left-hook counterpoint-gone-riffy-texture of Musique Concrète? What the hell are harmonies, anyway?

CA’s moduS ponY and Cologne’s VLK reinvent the buzzsaw here in a seriously groovy drone of a dance-floor banger. It’s both spellbinding and innocuous in a relaxedly poised way, if not a bit disorienting…

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/split-2

and/or

https://moduspony.bandcamp.com/

http://vlksound.blogspot.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

EMERGING INDUSTRIES OF WUPPERTAL"Traditions of a Vestigial Intranet" C47(Strategic Tape Reserve)

If I were an asshole, which I am, I’d compare Cologne, Germany’s STRATEGIC TAPE RESERVE to Dayton, Ohio’s ORANGE MILK RECORDS. They’re both all over the avant-garde electronica game, siding with the weirdest of the weird, yet still promoting SERIOUS banger-makers. I cannot fawn over either of them enough. Hence the linkage.

From my own biased ear, Emerging Industries of Wuppertal is pretty much an alternate-history caché of unrealized early Skinny Puppy instrumental outtakes (perhaps a Brap 0.5?), but with a (relatively) more manic, slo-mo vibe. All that dark-ambient/industrial goodness, sans horror soundbites? Swoon!!!

Whilst not necessarily a “good time”, “Traditions of a Vestigial Intranet” is certainly one HELL of a time, and worth repeated, repeated, repeated listens, to be sure!

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/traditions-from-a-vestigial-intranet

-- Jacob An Kittenplan