PROFLIGATE "Finding the Floor" (Not Not Fun)

This tape was a great companion for me on a long pre-dawn bus ride: dark, hard electro-trance that just builds and builds and builds. In my experience the kind of electronic music that gets labeled as "industrial" is usually angsty and emotional, or else reveling in its own ugliness, but Profligate takes a much more clinical approach that's largely devoid of theatrics and feels more in line with non-industrial genres like minimal techno and drone music. There are vocals on a lot of the tracks but I can't make out any lyrics, which seems pretty intentional; the human element is minimized in favor of echoing electronic percussion and arpeggiated synth runs. It's beautifully spiky and heavily styled, and that's the point.

this is also available on vinyl from the same label. definitely gotten a few spins around these parts - ed.

http://www.notnotfun.com/shop-3/

https://profligate.bandcamp.com/album/finding-the-floor-lp

-- Will Griscom

LX SWEAT “Sweat Sweat Sweat” (Not Not Fun Records)

I first heard this tape around the same time that I was listening to Leonard Charles's Abracelebrex (reviewed back in March), and now in my mind they are permanently linked. Both artists take inspiration from hopelessly kitschy synth funk records, with Leonard Charles going the all-live/all-analog bedroom recreationist route, and LX Sweat doing more of a druggy minimalist chopped-and-screwed kind of thing. They're both archetypal one-man-bands, although LX Sweat is the kind of one-man-band that could only exist in this decade, when Ableton Live and Garageband are the go-to instruments for young punks and stoned electroboogie enthusiasts alike.

Most of the tracks on this tape consist of pitched-down and heavily altered funk and r'n'b loops that repeat for the entirety of the song, with one or two layers of added vocoder and live keyboard. The timbres are hazy, the repetition is heavy, and the mood is more oozing than ecstatic. Despite being titled "SWEAT SWEAT SWEAT," you probably won't be pumping these jams at the gym. And as with most artists doing lofi electronics, you can easily level criticism at Senor Sweat for being lazy or sloppy, but that would be totally missing the point. This isn't technical music; it's about establishing a particular mood and absorbing the listener into an unexplored world of shady alien nightclubs and late night slime. With that in mind, I give this tape my personal approval 100%.

(PS: It looks like during the time between when I got this and when I wrote this review the tape has sold out. No worries! You can grab more recent LX Sweat tracks from Not Not Fun or check out their older stuff on Soundcloud.)

http://www.notnotfun.com/shop-3/

https://soundcloud.com/lxsweat

—Will Griscom

White Poppy, "I Had a Dream" (Not Not Fun)

Vancouver, BC's Crystal Dorval (aka White Poppy) released her debut tape on Not Not Fun back in April and its a groovy way to say hello. This intimate collection of soliloquy music -  guitar loops, bliss echo vocals singing half remembered syllables of sleep, and narcotic rhythms - is a rewarding listen from beginning to end. I didn't want to wake up! "Wish and Wonder" is a song that actually causes the listener to get high. Winding tonalities, tempos, and delay pedal wet dreams keep each of the eight tracks interesting, even on back to back plays. There are influences that appear in the music, the 80s-ishness of the Cocteau Twins for instance (the floating vox of Ms. Dorval), but overall this is a "top o' the heap" type album and fans of nocturnal pop will want to own this tape before the day is over.


Sample and Buy HERE.

BRUCE HART - "Music For Drawing" C31 (NNF)

Goooood lord!NNF continues to just melt my brains away this year..(and Paypal balance).Bruce Hart is the solo project of Blanche Blanche Blanche's Zach Phillips.Music For Drawing is his first venture under this moniker, and it's pure magic from front to back.Diluted synth dynamics, with a heavy sci-fi and digital punk-noir vibe.This is a mysterious and all consuming noise indeed, and some of the tracks come off as somewhat heroic, even.Something like a funkier, more futuristic version of Axel's Them, smashed together with the more skittering moments of the War Games score.Each movement tells a similarly dark and seedy tale, with layers of gold spray painted bass lines and mirror-lensed keyboards, all trying to crawl atop one another.I'ts sometimes backed my dusty machine drums and the occasional foreboding vocal creepout, but all in all, it's a fresh and deeply compelling synthesizer pop workout.Deep drone interludes will bulge and then drop, giving a nice break from the constant high speed chase, but not for long.It's not entirely too far off base from Blanche Blanche Blanche's un-retro curiousities, with piles upon piles of freakishly perfect synth scales, but Hart lets the keys do most of the talking.This dude knows his way around electronic instruments, and if this were any better it would be terrible.Highly Recommended.Get one from Not Not Fun.

COUGH COOL - "Clausen" C28 (Not Not Fun, 2011)

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SAND CIRCLES - "Midnight Crimes" c18 (Not Not Fun)

Another shiny diamond from the amazing Not Not Fun label.Instant gratification from a talented young Swede by the name of Martin Herterich .Midnight Crimes is his newest venture into minimal synth strays, Casio bleeps, microscopic drum machines, and fuzzed out tape loops.Late night bedroom party jams in miniature.The songs are completely free of vocals, but chock-full of content and personality.Flirtatious psych pop masked as elevator tunes, made from fragments of dubby smoke-outs and unpopular micro-house cuts.Layers of deep synthesizer chords nuzzle up against each other, creating lots of open space the for sharp, glittery keys and bright scales to flourish.Things really open up on "Subaquatic Highway", a semi-robotic bounce that comes off like some kind of scrapped NEU!/Tangerine Dream collaboration. Slightly doused with ping-pong delay, the 808 stomp never lets up on this one, carrying some rather stiff keyboard hooks and scattered blips under it's arm.This one is just screaming for a remix or three.Moments of Midnight Crimes carry a hollow, and deeply ethereal vibe, similar to a more club friendly OPN, or a beat driven Emeralds.You might pick up on a touch of Hype Williams' more recent joints, too.All positive.A pleasant surprise at every turn, and I look forward to hearing lots more from them.Get a copy here.

CANKUN - "Jaguar Dance" c47 (Not Not Fun)

French minimalist/electronic brainchild - Vincent Caylet, gives us his debut outting under the new Cankun moniker, a fantastic new cassette entitles "Jaguar Dance".This couldn't have found a more suitable home, than the one it's found at with the amazing Not Not Fun family.This album is painfully addictive and fresh right from the get go.On "O Mountains O", a weightless soft synth drone floats along at a crawling pace, warming up and melting down into pools of thick, bubbling melodies.There's already a deeply organic vibe, one that might conjure images of a liquefied hologram, a sort of neon colored cyclone, spinning wildly through the air.Heaps of colorful guitars are spilled into the mix, with a heavily delayed, slow bounce.They quickly begin to grow and multiply, as the clusters of sharp micro-rhythms find their way into the deep and continuous keyboard swell, the two start to intertwine, creating a lush and vivid landscape.Jaguar Dance's sound is easily comparable to that of Sun Araw and High Wolf having an underwater calypso jam session, with Matrix Metals controlling the soundboard.It's bubbly tone suggest that it may have been recorded somewhere in the depths of a underwater cave, and rarely, if ever, does it come up for air.
As you begin to explore more of Jaguar Dance, you will notice that the songs begin to take shape a bit, and find a more swaying, rhythm based approach,"Congo Mobile Disco" fades in with a swirling psych guitar stride, draped over top of a minimal beat, and just when you've gotten comfy, it pulls you in a whole new direction.Caylet introduces a faster, more prominent drum pattern, along with some subtle, treated strumming in the background.This all plays on for a minute or two, slowly building upon itself, with layers of electric guitar noodling and some rather piercing riffs that climb over top of each other.Things finally come to a head, and then quickly plateau, fizzling out like the red sun, as it descends into the sea at dusk.A very, very good debut on all fronts.Another gold star for NNF.

GYPSY TREASURES - "Buried Goods" c27 (Not Not Fun)

Aria Jalali, otherwise known as Railcars, dips into some seriously heavy drone-worship with his new Gypsy Treasures project.Buried Goods is quite the suitable title, delivering it's unearthly trances in a tarnished gold chalice that's overflowing with Eastern European influence, and mystery.These four songs possess a loose, yet calculated vibe, and a fully realized stagger through sprawling psych wastelands, and murky dub territories.Watery, nomad guitars drip with heavy treatments, washing over the stumbling percussion thumps and rattles, as if they are unraveling an ancient gypsy tale of some sort.Some fairly entrancing slow-gallop percussion holds it all in place, with it's organic, hypnotizing thump.Things are so nicely layered, and the instrumentation is spot on.You can almost hear that stolen baby being traded for some gold pieces in some tattered old shack.As repetitive as things may seem at first, this cassette holds plenty of deep, dark secrets.Tiny hidden rhythms just seem to unfold in front of you with each listen, and things never seem to sound the same twice.This was MADE for NNF to release.Pure magic.

HIGH WOLF - "Etoile 3030" c40 (Not Not Fun)

Not Not Fun plays medium to yet another fine release from ritualistic loop-hound High Wolf.Six new tracks of treated analog smoke-outs and digital-drum circles by the name of Etoile 3030.Traveling the same winding, hidden path that the Ascension LP guided us down, High Wolf continues their journey through other-worldly drones and sticky electronic pulses.Flowers of Congo is a lengthy bender of wah-laced guitars that tunnel their way through the piles of synth and organ rubble, gently tiptoeing atop a thin layer of icy drum loops.Bass lines The layers of stumbling synth wash and woozy guitar noodling might bring the mystical space-dub of Sun Araw to mind, as well as other like-minded psych dudes, but High Wolf continues to create their own colorful realms.Their world is one of contrasting themes, a place built on blatant repetition, yet it survives solely on constantly shifting rhythmic patterns and never-ending audible boundaries.Clusters of purple clouds linger above, and a heavy downpour of glittery tones soaks the soil below.As the red sun's neon rays find their way through the clouds, unfamiliar new sounds sprout up from the ground and start to grow wildly.Etoile 3030 is HW's most accessible dream inducer to date, and will hold you over until they drop their new full length this spring.Artwork by L.A. Vamp/Pocahaunted voice Amanda Brown.Limited to 150.

PEDRO MAGINA - "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five" C35 (NNF)

This kind of sprawling, minimal electronic noodling is pretty much everywhere these days.With some amazing acts like Emeralds, Oneohtrix Point Never and Arp churning out such massive and well received records as of late, most things of this nature get tagged as "ripoffs" and such, and are quickly discounted and pushed aside.But, every so often, something comes along to remind us that big things still come in tiny packages.Such is the case with Pedro Magina's latest cassette, "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five".The faded old credit card imagery on the cover doesn't give any real insight to what you will hear, which made this listen all the more worthwhile.Magina shows his love for the 80's at every turn, with a literal slew of synthesizers, electric organs, vibes and analog sounds of future's past.It's not entirely too heavy on futuristic retro junk, or generic nostalgia whatsoever.Instead, Magina's created a focused and full-bodied collection of songs, and each one is more compelling and memorable than the last.His miniature epics are like gentle streams of subtle melodies and bright arpeggios, trickling down into a much larger riverbed of strings and deep chord structures.Nothing repeats itself all that much, but this is far from "jamming".A surprisingly fresh and fun take on a somewhat overexposed genre.Highly Recommended.

Head over to NNF and pick one up.

ANGEL EYES - "Dire Dish" c36 (Not Not Fun)

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Another mysterious and wonderful fruit drops from the colourful and winding tree that is Not Not Fun.Angel Eyes is a one man show, although going by what this tape has to offer audibly, you'd think there were at least 10 musicians playing these songs.This is ultra-layered and carefully pieced together drone magic.The synthesizers seem to go on for an eternity, swirling and swelling up like giant bubbles along the way.Dire Dish starts of slow, with a grainy, slow-as-molasses percussive swagger that could pass for a tattered Sun Araw 45 on 33rpm.Soft synthesizer tones begin to pile high, as he demonstrates some rather clever stereo panning, giving it a rich full sound.Dreamy dub-guitar wails come into play, and slowly get lost in the textured synth arrangements.A bit of calm, slightly delayed chanting rises up from the haze, like a dense smoke floats up from a campfire.The lyrics are pretty incoherent, but it seems that he is utilizing the tone of his subtle voice, and adding it to the vast, slow-burning swells around him.

As Dire Dish echoes on, things actually begin to slow up a bit more with each track, providing a perfect canvas for his distant voice to spill it's lengthy, mumbled words over.It's almost as if you are listening to a single 36 minute movement, with just a few breaks every so often.Usually this means there's a lack of progression and intrigue in a recording, and generally bores me to death, but Angel Eyes knows how to hold your attention, and provides more than enough catchy analog drones and climbing string arrangements.Even his silent lulls are pleasant breaks, somewhat necessary to what he is trying to achieve.Imagine Growing or Belong's ethereal swirling, with Sun Araw's guitar and vocal echoes laid over top, and you're getting the idea.I hear a bit of dub influence at times, with a low, crawling bass lines and dense, percussive clicks and thuds that rest below them.A perfect concoction to back his vocal style, in my opinion.If you have the attention span for things of this nature, you will want to pick this up immediately over @ Not Not Fun.

The Deeep - "Life Light" c40 (Not Not Fun)

NNF is pretty consistent with their artistic output, especially in the last two years or so.Everything they release is sure to be quite inventive, unique, and visually stimulating.When I received this little gold tape a few weeks ago, I wasn't really sure what to expect.The album begins with a song called 'Meadow Dusk', a slow moving, synthesizer-powered escalator up into the black void.Isla Craig's deeply soothing, lush vocal passages soar above the twirling electro pulses, with a range that seems to be kind of never ending.She holds her notes out for a lengthy stretch at times, and uses a bit of a nice, controlled flutter when she want to.Some of these melodies are absolutely stunning.Things tend to drift into more various new and old waves from the last two decades or so, and subtly thump and beep away, just below her beautiful voice patterns.The duo also like to dip into more soft synths and acoustic bouts, if only for a few seconds.Wolfgang Nessel's seemingly unlimited source of electronic warble and keyboard interplay runs rampant throughout these songs, not necessarily keeping time, nor a steady pace, leaving the vocals to glue everything together.

I'd be lying if is said there aren't parts of this that are reminiscent of Lover's Rock era Sade swooning, a bit of Mum's trickling miniature melodies, or Broadcast's more ethereal moments on the recent Focus Group collaboration.But, The Deeep are indeed on their own wave, pulling from plenty of unique influences, but none of them are painfully clear, and it makes for an interesting and mysterious listen, to say the least.Compelling stuff.A fantastic debut.Watch for them in 2011.

MATRIX METALS - "Flamingo Breeze" C (Notnotfun)

Sam Meringue is Matrix Metals.You might know him from other projects like Explorers,Wingdings,or 90210(with James Ferraro).With MM's he makes some nice hazy,laid back electronic pop/dance jams.Remember that game Out Run?You cruised the PCH in a 1991 red Porsche convertible with the top down,and your arm around your lady-friend.Genius.This is quite comparable to the game's timeless soundtrack,but a bit more tasteful,and played with some modern instrumentation.SOME.A ton of samplers,vintage drum machines,and minimal synth-pulses ride along side some spacey guitar-jangle that reminds me of recent Ducktails records at times.It's fuzzy lo-fi production keeps the songs fun and charming.A nice little cassette for some beach cruising or a late night stroll with your Walkman clipped to your belt.Totally worth the 5 bucks it costs.Do I even need to tell you that it's super limited?Vinyl version on the Old English Spelling Bee label.This is probably already gone forever.
Try NOT NOT FUN

HOLY STRAYS - "Hyperion" C35 (NNF)

I'm always excited to dip into the most recent Not Not Fun release, as they are usually right up my alley.And such is the case with the Holy Strays "Hyperion" cassette.It comes on a dashing green tape, with some cool gold artwork on both sides.All of the sounds on the tape are they work of a talented Parisian named Sebastien Forrester.The music is for the most part pretty laid back, with some soothing electronic-based arrangements, and layers of soft synths piled high.It's obvious that this isn't just some Fruity Loops experiment, or whatever random electronic music program jamming.He's really putting some vintage analog gear to good use, and it pays off big.A bit of Hyperion goes in the direction of Klaus Schulze, and lingers in the empty spaces for a while.But things take a turn for the better, with moody, dark hooks and tempo changes galore.
Throughout this tape you might hear pieces of Stereolab, Cluster, and even Brian Eno's more psyched-out works.But it does a good job of not overexposing it's influences too much.Catchy analog jams and focused arrangements in flux, and good recording.Hope to hear more from this guy.

Get yourself a copy from NOT NOT FUN

ROBEDOOR / HUSERE GRAV split c45 (Not Not Fun)

This split is a great pairing of sides from the workhorse Robedoor and Husere Grav who i am hearing here for the first time. The cover depicts some sort of southeast asian ceremony happening that looks like a totally fugged up game of reverse-duck duck goose with a crowd of people reaching out to a circling figure who is all dressed up. You know, you can tell a lot by first impressions, love at first sight or don't judge a book by the cover, whatever, either way i was checking it out as i popped it in thinking "either an incense party" or "an appropriating tribal jam?"

Answer is neither, on both accounts/ sides, ESPECIALLY the husere grav side which about the only southeast asian resemblance it has is that, uh it makes you feel like "you ain't at home" (unless you're reading this from malaysia). The side is a pretty tension oriented (pun!) affair with suggestions of rhythm only ever barely creeping into the audible. It has a super bunker vibe to it, like you've been tunneling and have a scalp covered in dust and musk, possibly post-air raid. lots of smokey murk mixing with yr essential air causing you to get red-eyed and half delirious.

The Robedoor side (actually Side A)has a different 'tude invoked, while mainting an earthy feel, the tape starts a lot lighter creating a balcony of guitar and vocals, maybe there's some light coming through, but i wouldn't call it a hopeful scene if yr the lost traveler, because this stuff is definitely loaded with a sense of foreboding. Then the trees quake, the earth shakes and the dirt separates and yr stuck staring at a rumbling, thudding minimal drum scape and some super muddied up guitar. Definitely a bad sign for yr khakis. the sounds only get thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker till yr eventually totally covered in vines, lips swollen, mucus filling yr mouth and the guitar and drums just build and build becoming heavier and more violent. tape ends with some delayed out / processed vocals (i think) and yr total decomposition. maybe if yr lucky there'll be a reverse-duck duck goose ceremony where you just got ate the eff up by the jungle jams.

recommended for nights alone, camping trips or for ruining the good vibes at the holidays. great stuff.

full color cover, tape labels in an edition of 150.

out of stock at the label: http://www.notnotfun.com
some available at DNT distro: htt://www.dntrecords.com

various artists "NEON COMMUNE" (Not Not Fun)

Available only at Not Not Fun's Neon Commune Fest at the Echo Curio in LA, this set of four c-20s and three 3" cdrs (gasp, mentioned in Cassette Gods!) are the essence of the rare gem release. So, while ebay and human greed will eventual turn these into something else, for this very moment (because as I write, the fest still continues) they are a true treasure from the vaults of passion. Each of the items shows Not Not Fun at their most daring in the sculptural packaging realm that has been such a pivotal characteristic for them. The most successful of these risky bets is the Uneven Universe cassette that presents the tape in a mock impulse-buying bag, the same style that peanuts near the cash register of a gas station are packaged in. Two little plastic doggies, both on a lease tied to the cassette, and more than just "thrown in," but presented with a perfect balance that flatters the feng shui gods. On the other hand, when one takes a lot of risks, one must also expect to fall short. Hence the Metal Rougue 3" that is sort of just slapped onto a piece of wood. An artisticly loved piece of wood, but still raising that WTF factor with its loose ends. As a set though, everything is elevated and having a range of successes and failures just adds to both the immediate charm and to the fact that these are basically party favors for a fest not just of NNF bands, but commemorating a landmark in the NNF time line. Since these party favors can only be purchased while standing in room full of every release that the crafty duo has put out, the love that Britt and Manda put into everything they do is personally injected into these items in a way that transcends the normal music collecting experience. Enabling Britt and Manda to create this experience is the cassettes (and yes, cdrs) themselves. While the immediacy and tenderness of home-dubbing is always a part of any cassette release, in the Neon Commune setting it is put on a pedestal. Or is it NNF on a pedestal made of home-dubbing tenderness? In any case, it wouldn't have worked with a pro-pressed format. Also, don't worry yourself so much about if you can get these tapes for yourself, because honestly, they are worthless if you buy them on ebay. The lesson to learn is that there is a power and love to be harnessed in cassettes that Not Not Fun has shown only gets stronger, more meaningful, and groundbreaking the longer you nurture it.