Okay, now this seems like I’m the target of some A.I. shenanigans. A band called “Beatnik Filmstars”?! The record is called “Pink Noize”. It was released in 1995. It’s a five track 7” 45 rpm EP. I definitely feel like my brain was plugged into a state-of-the-art supercomputer and it outputted something perfectly designed for me to be into. But, no, this record is not an A.I. simulation of “stuff AuxOut digs”, this was a real band that released a real record in 1995. And somehow I never heard of them! (Turns out they have a decent-sized wikipedia page, released a truckload of singles and a bunch of albums, including some on Merge. Did I just wake up from a coma? Ed.) The record is not earth shattering but when I say there is a Fall-meets-SY jammer called “National Pool Drama”, or a hooky sugar-noise number that feels like it lasts 45 seconds (“50/50 Split”), or that there’s a Swell Maps-y sheen slathered over their alterna-pop stylings (artwork included), or that a Gnat synthesizer is a credited instrument, you will know I’ve enjoyed the hell out of listening to this. Still available from Slumberland!
While Eyes and Flys fled to the sunshine of Long Beach, Personal Style stayed true to those proverbial roots in Buffalo, NY. Thanks to the miracles of technology we take for granted, that geographical separation doesn’t mean these Buffalo boys can’t stay friends or even make records together. And you know what? This single really rips! Two head bashing pop tunes in the manner that Eyes and Flys is known for (Pat Shanahan’s bark is easily identifiable) but the addition of Personal Style (who is new to me) really opens up the E&F sound in a profound way—like going mono to stereo. Leaping out of a foggy guitar loop, the B-side “White Strawberries” is a b-side in a purely literal sense. The lead guitar totally shreds, providing killer melodies and a brilliant punk lead at the break while Shanahan snarls about not letting the cops in because they don’t like dogs. The A-side, “Labor Day”, similarly rules. Modern practitioners of the Flipper bassline renewal project like SF’s Life Stinks, they ride the riff for all its worth and drive the psych-kraut groove home not unlike that first 10” by another SF band Wooden Shjips. The track comes replete with some phenomenal spaced out breakdowns that build the tension for each successive chorus. A lot of replayability in this one. I’m a fan. I hope this isn’t a one-off!
Hurtling through space and time all the way from New Jersey comes the latest release from lo-to-no-fi troubadour Saint Black, an EP called Saint November, following up a self-titled album from four years prior. The first sound you hear after popping in the disc is the Saint’s unaccompanied voice murmuring “castrate me gently”. The man knows his audience. Saint Black stripped away much of the sonic detritus that littered the last record (which I personally quite enjoyed) making for a more focused document of his vocation. 10 minutes and six tracks of broken down tunes centered around Saint Black’s Calvin Johnson-esque-by-way-of-Charlie-McAlister voice. “Saint New” is the one rocker. Thumping drum machine and an acoustic arpeggio with a fuzzy voice leaking all over it. A catchy promise lasting just a minute. Sometimes the songs emerge quite pretty (with some creasing around the eyes of course) such as “Saint Fun” or the seasick instrumental “Saint Hound”. Other times the songs are more direct and single-minded as on “Saint Guy” or the chunky guitar clank of “Saint Action”, riding the line between sonorous and alienating. Fans of early Smog, Graham Repulski or any other dumpster poets you may fancy, you know what to do!
Two Swedish acts paying tribute to important 20th century technological advancements (the telephone and the TV dinner, naturally) made for pretty easy work at Cudighi HQ when the label searched for a thematic pairing for its next split cassette. Cudighi introduced me to TV Dinner Education a few years back and I went gaga over their frenetic sounds. Can’t say that Telephone Melts rings a bell though. (A little old timey telephone joke there for those born in the previous century.)
Kicking things off with TV Dinner Education, “Flip Heli Salto (discern visually using a backwards and forwards movement)” has a very long title for a very minimal track. Totally on brand based on the other TVDE tape I heard, the track is firmly rooted in the Liquid Liquid/ESG mutant disco realm. Drum thump. Cling clang jingle jang. Echoing staccato huffs and puffs. “Selfexplanatory” reminds me quite a bit of Angels in America. (A feat that excites me as that is still fertile soil for new bands to till. Hint, hint.) Skeletal, hypnotic, repulsive. Spiritual transmissions from a junkyard. Returning to 1981 NYC, “BOX-ing” sounds like DNA played at 33prm. Or maybe 19rpm. A deliberate tension developed more through focused restraint than a dearth of pitches traditionally welcomed by the human ear.
Telephone Melts takes the flip. Pleasingly, the act (a one-guy-does-it-all project by Martin Hagrot) doesn’t sound like TV Dinner Education at all. Hagrot is on a different tip, one steeped in David Byrne and the same sickly sweet slime as 21st century lo-fi synth pop revisionaries like Man Made Hill and Zach Phillips. Dabbling in bedroom-rendered quasi-funk tunes (“Hotfix”) as well as moody early-digital keyboard-led instrumental laments (“Nitty Gritty”), it makes this cassette’s aural trek to the Land of the Midnight Sun well worth it.
I never got around to writing up this cassette when it came out but it’s stuck with me ever since so I’m finally getting a brief few words up now. Stone Ringing Sorrows is the magically solemn sophomore effort of Huma Aatifi who creates sinewy avant-folk songs on a 4-track. Jandek has been a common point of comparison, and fair enough, but to these ears Unda Fluxit’s music is warmer and more inviting than the stranger who hails from Texas. If you’ll permit me a bit of 90s indie rock fan fiction, Unda Fluxit evokes the image of The Dead C somehow slipping onto the MTV Unplugged stage and rattling strings and brains across the nation. Unda Fluxit’s music hovers in the liminal, perfect state between consonance and dissonance. Pitches from her voice, guitar, a drum and other instruments wander down their own paths, sometimes crossing, coalescing and saying “Hello”, other times diverging just enough to be unaware of each other’s presence. It is a riveting, soulful effect that lingers through each of the wonderful pieces on Stone Ringing Sorrows and is well worth a listen if you haven’t already found yourself unda Fluxit’s spell.
John Wiese - Magnetic Stencil 2 [Gilgongo]
John Wiese - Magnetic Stencil 3 [Gilgongo]
John Wiese is a highly respected sound artist and he does fancy sound installations in museums and galleries. He’s been in the game a long time and is certainly deserving of his rep, but sometimes I wonder if this gets a bit lost in the global brainspace (though I hope it doesn’t): Wiese makes cool music. He’s your stereo’s best friend. This record I have of Wiese live sampling saxophonist Evan Parker is so fucking cool. His record I have of cascading samples of glass breaking is cool. The Sissy Spacek/Smegma collab record he did (also on Gilgongo) is super fucking cool, and, subsequently, the aforementioned Gilgongo dropped a trio of cool Wiese records collectively called Magnetic Stencil. Three LPs is a lot to dig into but the immersive experience is certainly worth your while.
Always on the cutting edge of clatterphonics (is this a term? If not, it is now), Wiese constructed Magnetic Stencil with source audio contributions from a seemingly endless list of collaborators: (deep breath) Aaron Dilloway, James Fella, C. Lavender, Aaron Hemphill (Liars), Lasse Marhaug, C. Spencer Yeh, Katie Vonderheide, Tim Kinsella (Joan of Arc/Cap’n Jazz), Dennis Tyfus (the Ultra Eczema label), Howard Stelzer, John Collins McCormick, Robert Turman… I’m out of breath but, believe me, I could go on. The jackets don’t provide much detail other than the contributor list and the date and location where the composition took place so embrace the mystery, folks.
Wiese’s work is constantly in motion. People sometimes use the word “transporting” to describe feeling like you’re in a different realm while you experience art. Wiese’s music is “transporting” in a more functional sense. He creates the sensation that you are moving, in transit, that you will end up somewhere far from where you begin. His music is a vehicle, touring you through the territory he’s mapped. Magnetic Stencil 1 is heavily dynamic, everywhere you turn there is something to see. Of the three LPs, it is the most abrasive, the most “noise”, the most violent in its composition. Sounds never seem to accost you from the same direction twice. Shards of frequencies are cut up and reassembled incorrectly with great care. You are slapped in the face by searing feedback. Resonating vibraphone. Synth burps. Gnawing gears. Unintelligible human voice—all the sounds in between words. Split-second blasts of static socking you in the stomach. Even the brief occasional silence. My favorite section comes near the end when plenty of space is made for what sounds like a human mouth forming and popping bubbles of spittle. A looping, loping bass grind overtakes it, a rare instance of repetition across the vast spread of Magnetic Stencil. The second side somehow ratchets up the intensity several notches, beginning in even bolder fashion. Acoustic percussion screeches and clangs. Gnashing. Scraping. An ark’s worth of unidentifiable piezo-amplified sounds form the gelatinous fodder that Wiese sculpts with. Peppering in incisive piano-like plinks and insistent electronic thuds. This side comprises the most propulsive piece of the bunch, and that's even before a couple drum samples parachute in and evaporate just as quickly. Unsettling and agitated. Truly excellent.
The second side is similarly wonderful but more relaxed, more spacious, more environmental. Like sitting on your roof and having every sound in the ether magnified into painterly strokes. Abstract aural elications evoking specific sound-images. The squirrels scurrying through the trees. The car rolling by, windows down, radio on. The distant din of the train ambling by. The choral hum of air conditioners. Neighbors murmuring inaudibly about the weather. Burgers sizzling on a grill. Children chanting numbers as they venture through the wilds of chalked hopscotch courses. The movers down the block dropping a lamp. The piece gets progressively “musical” as it drifts toward its conclusion, as sustained pitches make their presence felt from time to time. Of the three fantastic LPs, this is the one that really gets me giddy. Righteously gorgeous and highly recommended.
Magnetic Stencil forms a monumental trio and you can’t go wrong with any or, especially, all of them.
