MYKEL BOYD “New Landscapes” C34 (Park 70)

Now THIS is what I’m talking about – powerful magnets and microphones making intense drone/noise for getting completely lost in. Why more musicians don’t employ magnetism in a way that warps the crap out of their sound sources is beyond me. Is it because magnets could destroy gear? I’m too lazy to look that up, but I know you can wipe a hard drive if you’ve got a magnet powerful enough.

I’m guessing that’s why Mykel Boyd stuck to microphones and kept everything out of reach of his laptop. (I wonder if you can manipulate Garageband files through the screen?) Good thing, too, because otherwise we probably wouldn’t have tapes (especially not the accompanying MP3 downloads) if Boyd had done something ill-considered with the magnets. Instead we get “Solar Tradition” and “Clear Ghosts Forever,” the results of the experimentations. Like their titles intend, these tracks each exhibit a distinct long-form characteristic, the former fizzing like molecules in the sun’s corona, the latter reverberating just out of reach of our physical plane. Or something like that.

Moral of the story: magnets make good instruments when applied properly, and they are applied properly on “New Landscapes.”

Mykel Boyd

Park 70


--Ryan

PSYBO “Wherewithall”

Transplanted Canadian who was a former founding member of Toolshed somehow manages to connive his two ex-cohorts into helping with this solo album-which laid unreleased for some time after completion. Enter Hand Solo Records and next thing you know the nealy forgotten album drops.

Psybo is a competant if not noticably unique rapper. His material is strong nad the production complements the performance rather than overwhelm it. As it turns out, the contributions from his  two former ppartners are immense and without which I can’t imagine this tape beng as good as it is.

The strength here is the material itself. Strong rhymes and clever word tuerns make for an attentive listen.  This album, more than anything else, makes me want to hear what Psybo will come up with next.

It should be noted that the label, Hand Solo Records has a good number of rappers with releases available through their Bandcamp site.

https://handsolorecords.bandcamp.com/album/wherewithal

-- Robert Richmond

FOREVER HOUSE “Eaves” (Infrequent Seams)

Oh god, everything just SUCKS, right? I get it – I was a teenager most of the nineties, as I imagine Forever House was (they basically admit it in their liners). We have the same ennui, the same gray in our beards, the same directionless search for meaning – well, singer and cellist Meaghan Burke doesn’t have a beard. But still, we’re a bunch of walking neuroses with no way to release that pent-up frustration and little hope for stuff to get any better anytime soon. It’s almost as if we were … still teenagers.

But no, we’re not – god knows we’re not! But it’s still exhilarating when a band comes our way and traffics in those old feelings, the ones we’ve tamped down in order to live a more restrained, more adult life. Forever House lets us dig back into the old store of angst, allows us to scratch off that scab from what we thought was a permanently healed wound. Over nine rippers, the quartet blazes trails once trod by PJ Harvey and Sleepyhead, obliterating the overgrowth and torching whatever else naturally encroaches upon a metaphor about a path. Yes, everything still sucks, and yes, sometimes we’re allowed to rage about it, no matter how old we are.

Forever House couldn’t say it better themselves: their “debut album of sloppy math and wasted love themes” arrives right on schedule, just when I’m about fed up enough but can’t channel my disillusionment into anything productive. Now I guess I can, with a little help from … Forever House.

Forever House

Infrequent Seams

--Ryan

HEALERS "i" (Ingrown Records)

1st track sounds like a small plane has landed and the engine is cooling down. Second track is somewhere in between 60s British folk psych and Boston's Pendulum Floors.  Fitting as this duo hails from Boston.  Is that an optigan organ I hear?  With track 3 we go a little further out sounding like Kim Gordon singing falsetto over an indie drone ensemble.   On side A the tracks aren't too long, leaving you wanting more and do not make one question pressing the eject or ff buttons.  Nice editing job. Side B brings an interpretation of another fine Boston band, Sunburned Hand of the Man, in their signature fn-with-the-listener style.  For the second B side excursion, we board the Mars Rocket-1 and lumber through some turbulence, sometimes sounding like a bustling open air market in some foreign land.  The track title is 'Washing Machine' so maybe the trip wasn't so exotic, perhaps its the spin cycle through some electronics; but as the listener, it took me there.  Solid tape.  If you find yourself in Boston, maybe see what the Healers guys are doing, should be weird.

https://healerscompany.bandcamp.com/album/i

--T Penn

MYTHICAL MOTORS “Elevated Levels” (self-released)

Julie Christie, the rumors are true! Zeroed in on my indie rock past (I was an indie rock kid, I was always an indie rock kid), I experienced a cold jolt with “Elevated Levels,” the latest tape from Chattanooga pop darlings Mythical Motors. The rumors, indeed: guitar rock is back, if it was ever gone, and it can still be awesome.

It was never gone, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. (Some of it sucked hard though.)

I mean, yeah – it’s a total blast, a jangle pop delight, dripping with reverb, even mastered by Todd Tobias himself. Who’s Todd Tobias?! I just about spat out a mouthful of coffee there, son. Todd Tobias ONLY plays in the greatest lo-fi faux-arena band ever, Guided By Voices. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to mention them. Mythical Motors’ Matt Addison is definitely a Pollard disciple, and that’s a good thing these days. There aren’t enough of them around.

The Motors are as influenced by XTC as they are GBV, marrying the late-80s/early 90s indie vibe with the C86 set. Cramming insane hooks into criminally short songs (most less than two minutes), Addison and crew ebb and flow along with their whims, following their muses, pouncing on their inspiration. And let’s face it – short songs are perfect within this idiom. “Elevated Levels” – of volume, of adrenaline, of sugar – hits all the right spots, probably all of the time. I don’t know that for sure though, since I don’t play this tape 24/7 (duh).

Mythical Motors

--Ryan

REVERENT “Long Wave Sermon” (American Damage)

Yeah, it’s a religious thing, Rev. “Long Wave Sermon” emanated over airwaves on September 26, 2018, via Que4 Radio on ChiCityLives with Mike Rice. Jordan Reyes was handed the steering wheel, and he drove the church bus into the side of a mountain. Metaphorically, of course. Everybody just THOUGHT they were going to church when they hopped in, but sinners gotta sin, yeah? Crash boom, soul doom. We all shrug. We’ve been warned before.

Reyes has too, I imagine, which is why he prefers the profane to the sacred, even when he dresses it up at times like holy protestations. Building his songs from looped vocals, there’s always somewhat of a chanted quality at play, but the lyrics roll around in the dirt and grime, reverberating with us heathens and acting as a call to misbehave. But it’s not all pagan ritual, as Reyes honestly and intelligently tackles subjects like obsession, addiction, religion, and mental illness, all while pushing forward his idea of experimental music. And, believe it or not, just like Bobby McFerrin, Reyes can craft an honest-to-God earworm out of his vocal tracking, albeit with a hint of industrial sneer.

All tunes are created and performed live, one take. It’s an amazing performance, and Reyes gives it his all. There’s also a fascinating 17-minute interview with the host following the performance. Really great stuff.

American Damage

--Ryan

MORE EAZE “Yum” (Plastic Response Records)

Yum.

More More Eaze, please.

“Yum”!

It doesn’t matter if it’s year-plus-old More Eaze – More Eaze doesn’t get stale. More Eaze is always delectable ear candy, never you mind the release date. In 2017, Austinite Marcus Maurice celebrated the changing of the calendar (in November, but still) with a beast of a release on Plastic Response Records, the 16-track “Yum,” a cacophonous electronic pinball confection that touched on more emotional triggers than a gallon-sized jar of jellybeans.

Yum, right?

So yum.

These mostly short barrages of digital stimuli flit, stretch, and pulse through your system like EQ spikes, raising your heart rate and smoothing it out alternatively. Adrenaline ebbs and flows. Your resting state is a healthy one. And more than maybe anywhere else in More Eaze’s vast discography we’re treated to utterly delightful pop moments, where the Eaze himself croons us to euphoria over dramatic sonic shifts and blissful melodic constructions.

So … freaking … yum.

You know he’s released a tape on Orange Milk, right? That just makes so much sense. I probably could’ve just said that and been done with it.

But there was so much tape left to listen to.

Buy buy buy! Still available, you “Yum”-less fools.

More Eaze

Plastic Response Records

--Ryan 

ROBERT HAYES KEE “Someone Is Very Interested in Your Life” C47 (NULL|Z0NE)

Some is INDEED very interested in your life. That someone is Robert Hayes Kee, who has recorded you over a period of five years, 2007–12, without your knowledge. Let’s leave aside the ethical ramifications of this activity and focus instead on what you actually have SOUNDED like during that period. If you’re lucky, you will have become part of an artistic endeavor that you likely never dreamed of participating in. In some sense, you are the hero of this story.

“I Loathe Work, and I Love Interruptions” is basically the antithesis of my philosophy, so we’ll leave it at that. I feel you, though. I certainly won’t fault you for falling into this camp. Here, 23 minutes, zero interruptions. “Warbird Skyventures” is all process, all process. In the sky. All process, transmission. We hear you flying; be careful up there. Again, 23 minutes, zero interruptions.

Unadulterated field recordings.

Robert Hayes Kee

NULL|Z0NE


--Ryan