REAK “Indonesian Trance” (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

“DIY ethnomusicologist” Palmer Keen recorded the reak ceremony in Cinunuk, West Java, in May 2017. The reak is a ceremony celebrating a young boy’s circumcision. This is the point in any review where I’d be like, “Well, this connects for ME in such-and-such a way…,” but I’m not going to regale you with the details of my penis. We’ll just stick to the music.

Keen’s field recordings shed light on the amazing musical proficiency of groups outside of the popular consciousness, and the players here have undoubtedly performed this ritual music before. Eastern instruments and scales are the obvious marks here, which mostly flit by at a quick pace. It’s hard not to get lost in it, to imagine you’re there.

https://soundcloud.com/tingotongotapes

--Ryan

TINGO TONGO TAPES ROUNDUP

I’ve watched from afar as my colleagues at Tabs Out did a little retrospective/spotlight on Tingo Tongo Tapes, the Oakland-based label blasting cassette recordings out at us unsuspectingly like human waste from the shitting cartoon ghost man NBA logo on the K^aren “NoT BaLD” tape. (And yes, I admit, that was me. I hated that tape.)

But that’s the thing about Tingo Tongo (or any label, really): you hate one thing, you get down with another. So yeah, get down with the Tingo Tongo vibe. There’s so much weird magic on their side of the bay that it seeps into the water table and the drinking water reservoirs and contaminates the holy living crap out of whatever music emanates therefrom. (There it is again – “holy living crap.” I can’t get away from the ghost man.) I’ve got some physical artifacts that are actual proof of whatever point it is I’m trying to make. 

CMMZMMMG \\ ELECTRONIC QUARTET II: WHEREAS

You never know what’s title and what’s artist with these guys, and a perusal of the Bandcamp page (Mike Meanstreetz’s Bandcamp page, one of the TT showrunners; but not Tingo Tongo’s of course) only confounds the matter. I’m going with CMMZMMMG \\ Electronic Quartet as the artist because I’ve written about them before. Nope, still confusing. Anyhoo, did you ask for this? This tape I mean. No, you didn’t but CMMZMMMG, etc., delivered big time, the quartet melding minds over two inscrutable sides of murky atmosphere. On this version of “Whereas,” or whatever, Cameron MacNair, Mike Meanstreetz, Mike Glover, and Maneesh Madahar (the titular CMMZMMMG, ish) mutilate their instruments in a sort-of séance environment, mixing in static and noise for an ungodly but tempered racket. This is Tingo Tongo at its most controlled. Probably.


WHEREAS / DEVIN NOLAN – SPLIT

Things get really confusing here, because Whereas was also a name in the release above, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Whereas’s side is “Live at Acerogami,” a free-form freakout of psychotic instrumental noise rock that would fit equally as well on AmRep as on Astral Spirits. To say this is my favorite seventeen minutes of the Tingo Tongo catalog thus far wouldn’t be the craziest thing in the world. It’s pretty great. Devin Nolan adds his own seventeen minutes on the B-side with “Hedgehog Blues,” which oscillates back and forth between what sounds like field-recorded banjo music, and then that same banjo music run through an industrial magnet, slowed down and distorted beyond recognition. The transitions are fabulous, the noise is glorious, and this whole thing might have hopped to the top of my repeat queue.


BONUS BEAST – “MORE DECAY 2”

God love em, or it, Bonus Beast forgot that we’re not ACTUALLY living inside a video game and made a tense song cycle to what it’s like to probably live inside one. Harsh beats collide with “melodies” straight from the ColecoVision soundcard collection. It’s sort of like Trent Reznor left the studio lights on back in 1989 and a pack of sentient cartoon weasels came in and cut a record. With LOTS of laser and static effects. I don’t know what to do, these tapes just keep getting better and better as I go. I’m totally atoning for the K^aren review.


TENDHER – “DREAM”

Oh fucking Christ, there’s a hair in this one. Gross. I won’t let that ruin my experience of TendHer’s “Dream,” though, I promise. In fact, by the end of it, I’ll probably forget it was even there in the first place. That’s because “Dream” is 90 minutes long, two thick sides of gently shifting soundscape that I’m pretty sure are meant to keep me company through a fever dream, but they might actually be the CAUSE of said fever dream. Either way, this ambient stuff is way more tactile than it ought to be, and I’m not sure if my hands feel grimy because TendHer’s in my head or if I’ve been smearing them in wet sand as I listen. Maybe it’s the hair. Dammit, I haven’t forgotten.

***

For all your Tingo Tongo needs head to their super sparse Bandcamp page, or check out their much more expansive Soundcloud. All you have to do to order tapes is email em.

--Ryan Masteller

BE; “At the Start” (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

“We Must Be Ourselves.” Exist, amorphously. Create instructions. Follow them. Divest from them. Stand, amplified, the Boat in Oakland, in California. Unleash hellish racket. Revise hellish racket. Divest from instructions. We are water, almost 100%. 100% liquid + dust + magic. So 90% water then. Express yourself. Cover Madonna unceasingly. These are all covers of Madonna songs/none of these are Madonna songs. Stand, amplified, screech, scrawl, effervesce, perhaps nude. Word sludge. Amplified, still, and there are spectators. Wisdom, chaos. One snake eats tail, the other eats shit. Infinite garage. Typo. Infinite garbage. Typo. Finite gristle. Roll in it. Writhe, wriggle, vomit. Such babies!

https://be-am-it-is.bandcamp.com/

https://soundcloud.com/tingotongotapes

--Ched Chunder

K^REN “NoT BaLD” (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

Since when did the NBA logo become a shitting cartoon ghost man?

https://karensmells.bandcamp.com/

https://soundcloud.com/tingotongotapes

--usually a Blues Traveler/Spin Doctors fan

BE; "At the Start" C60 (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

BE; be an improv group that uses looped guitar (generally treated as percussion and occasionally drone), voice (also looped), percussion and pedals to achieve maximum chaos. At times minimal, but mostly maximal, these folx bang and clang out anti-rhythms for the…well…what’s the opposite of “masses”? It’s an acquired taste, and one that’s really needed to get into a live recording that wasn’t mixed via soundboard. The tape’s mastering is looooow, so you’ll get your dosage of tape hiss, for sure. Was that intentional? Who knows! One thing is for sure, Tingo Tongo Tapes gives zero fucks about tonality, cohesiveness, or pretty much anything to do with pop appeal. If that’s your thang, you’ll fucking love what they have to offer. Explore via the link below.

https://be-am-it-is.bandcamp.com/album/at-the-start
and/or
https://tingotongotapes.bandcamp.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

IGOR AMOKIAN/PSYCHICEYECLIX "Solar Schematics Split" C20 (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

On this short split, Igor Amokian explores a relatively beatless stringing of glitch, bleep, and dying machine drone. Hummable phrases pop up here & there, some even repeated, but this is by and large a robot’s stream-of-conscious transmission, recorded to tape.

Following in a similar vein is Psychiceyeclix, with this side utilizing more loopage, creating a syncopated bloop-beat to sway along to. Both artists could very well be starting a new sub-sub-genre called Modem-Core, as I’ve heard pretty much every electronic phrase used within these twenty minutes while waiting for AOL to connect, some twenty years ago. This could be their manifesto. If that’s your thang, strap on them headphones and give this a spin. A hard-drive spin, that is!

https://igoramokian.bandcamp.com/music
https://psychiceyeclix.wordpress.com/
and/or
https://tingotongotapes.bandcamp.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

NOTHING BAND "Nuked/Flushed" C20 (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

So, a floor tom, a clarinet, an electric guitar, and a loop pedal walk into a bar and begin to sloppily quibble with each other, in slow motion, for some twenty-and-one-half minutes. The bartender whips out his iPhone, hits record, and then drunk-dropboxes his ex back in Los Angeles, who, inclined to breakfast upon LSD flavored cheerios, falls in love and dubs it to tape. Have a listen for yourself via the link below.

https://nothing-band.bandcamp.com/album/nuked-flushed

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

JASPER LUFKIN "Snake Magic" (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

There really isn’t a whole hell of a lot out there on the interwebs to reference either Jasper Lufkin or Tingo Tongo Tapes, but I can tell you this; they’re not especially interested in tonality, metronomes, mixing, or catering to what the west generally considers “accessibility”. This aesthetic obviously holds clout, and those that are interested in such styling’s will surely read on.

The first half of this tape is dedicated to singer/songwriterly acoustic guitar strumming, minimal, playful solos (also acoustic) and singing that is either tone-deaf or perhaps “calculatedly post-key”. There are plenty of folx out here that dig such things, right?

Side 2, however, might as well be an entirely different musical project altogether. Maybe I didn’t tell you about how the first side went on and on like a citizenship ceremony or olympics opening, but…well…it did. Maybe a bit too much for my own (non)humble taste. But this second serving is a whole different beast!

Remember that scene in Rosemary’s Baby where the newlyweds hear a culty din coming through the wall? Well, imagine if that movie were adapted to today’s technology, and, instead, you have satanists playing samples and loop pedals. Side 2 is pretty much that, and the emotional time it takes to listen to it goes flying by in a haze. I couldn’t find any links to listen to the album online, so I guess you’ll have to keep an eye out for it at your local record store.

https://www.facebook.com/TINGOTONGOTAPES/
and/or
https://www.facebook.com/lufkin.jasper

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

JESSOP&CO. “Manly Man” C40 (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

JESSOP&CO.? Ffffuu.. Calcutta? Probably every cutthroat from Bombay to here is here. No jokes, now. Manly Man stretches forever. Stretches beyond the city, into rurality, on to other cities. Decay, decomposition, deconstruction. Colonization? Heck. Colonials are gone. JESSOP&CO..? I dunno. (*Thinks*) I dunno. Colonials. Colonials. Ffffuu.. Live and let live. How do I reconcile that with my love for the British? Heck.



Manly Man stretches forever and envelops the city, and god is my witness, it captures everything. Listen to the nocturnal rhythms and splice together nocturnal rendezvous and Fully comprehend just what is happening. JESSOP&CO. ensure that no one is left behind. Manly Man is not a tape for music listeners or cultural tourists or the casual dabblers; it means too much. It’s too clearly labored over for the caste whisperers to get their hands on and interpret in dangerous and debilitating ways. Wait a second – am I part of the problem? Is my proximity to collusion a detriment?

No. No way. I’m not even remotely letting that thought enter my filament, as it would unravel my very being if I’d prove it wrong, so here’s the lesson everybody (but mostly myself) needs to learn: lighten up. Lighten up! That doesn’t mean the important stuff gets swept into a corner, it just means that JESSOP&CO. are a total force to be reckoned with, and it’s important to understand that every single fragment of their spectrum is presented on Manly Man, not in isolation, but distinct and palpable as a genetic whole, fully concocted for weird consumption. These forty minutes are forty magic flipping minutes where every stop is pulled in favor of a vast kitchen sink approach – every trick in the electro-plunder handbook works like a brilliant charm. Samples. Electronics. Samples. Electrics. Spam pulls. Eccentrics. Lay bulls. Palimpseptics. Transition gulls. Crass tactics.

JESSOP&CO., company in name only, incorporated in a dream state, fire beams of specifics, cultured in dynamics, straight into our thoughts for future decoding, also in a dream state, where everything unspools. The fragments become the reality, the waking moments bleed into the unconscious ones. This land is less my land, this land is no one’s. This land is made for blazing trails of discovery through. That’s what makes a Manly Man, whatever that even means.

JESSOP&CO.
SOUNDCLOUD.COM/TINGOTONGOTAPES

--Ryan Masteller

CMMZOZMM // ELECTRONIC QUARTET “Whereas” C40 (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

Today’s an amazing day, because it’s the first day I’m watching spring training baseball on MLB TV! I’m just beyond stoked, although my beloved Phillies are looking pretty inept against the Yankees. It’s OK, it’s just the young kids playing. They can mess up all they want. They’re not the… ahem… future or anything.

Speaking of the future, I’ve decided for some reason to pop this CMMZOZMM // Electronic Quartet tape in the player and listen on headphones while the game plays in the background. First things first – if you’re trying to pronounce that word where only one-eighth of the characters are vowels, go ahead and give that right up. It’s an abbreviation consisting of the first and last initial of each of the four players comprising the “Electronic Quartet.” Well, sort of – MZ is for “Mike Meanstreetz,” obviously. But the rest work! There’s also Cameron MacNair, Omar Zubair, and Maneesh Raj Madahar, the CM, OZ, and MM, respectively.

Now that I have, or have lost, your attention, let’s talk about that “future” that I’ve alluded to. Whereas is a gastric nightmare of electronics and percussion and guitars, all applied like Sonny Sharrock would in a timeless vortex, where you could neither move forward nor backward but would remain in stasis forever. Which notes did you play before the others? Which came after? Doesn’t matter. They all sort of exist at once, all observable, and over two 20-minute tracks, CMMZOZMM reassigns all the theories you ever had about physics and music. Your relativity to Relativity has been compromised, because if you can pass through the gauntlet of Whereas in the same molecular configuration, if your DNA remains unchanged, then you’ll understand the implications for the future of science. Sustainable energy, faster-than-light travel, you name it – it will all come to pass on the inspiration Whereas gives its listeners. Provided that they’re scientists of course.

Now listening to that proved to be way more inspiring than watching this awful game, and the fact that every commercial break featured the mic-drop Verizon commercial with the Silicon Valley guy three times per break was a soul-sucking experience every half inning. But I didn’t have to listen to it. I listened to CMMZOZMM concocting vibrant magic for forty minutes. Turns out that was all I needed to get through it. Nicely done, CMMZOZMM – nicely done.

Tingo Tongo Tapes

--Ryan Masteller

JOHNNY BAXTER "@ LA" (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

Characteristic of Tingo Tongo releases Johnny Baxter combines dirty recordings of opera with clanging dance loops made from drum machine, toy piano, recorder, and atmospheric sounds that can only be captured from inside a solar-powered dumpster.

https://m.soundcloud.com/tingotongotapes/sets/jonny-baxter-la

-- Alaina Stamatis

JOANNA SWAN "Memphis Hotel" (Tingo Tongo Tapes)

A warped Prokofiev sonata quickly morphs into damaged minimal techno and Joanna Swan has you tied to a blood-stained bed in the "Memphis Hotel" for both sides of this sick cassette. Pairs well with greasy hair, tepid coffee, wincing at the sun, a tobacco-encrusted station wagon or a basement so sweaty the painted walls are wet.

https://m.soundcloud.com/joannaswan
https://www.facebook.com/TINGOTONGOTAPES/

-- Alaina Stamatis