In Rotation #2

Man, I have to tell you about this Demons cassette (pictured) that Green Tape sent over recently. I posted the picture so you can judge for yourself, does that not look like something that would contain some vile harsh noise or black metal? I mean the fuckin' thing's called Beheading and isn't Demons also the name of a Zac Davis-related (or was it Nate Young?) noise thang? Not in this case, it's the duo of Chicagoans Sam Cholke and Paul Kim. Anyhow, so I popped this thing in the first time and it turns out it's basically a DJ tape. And it's awesome! This is the funkiest thing I've heard in ages and it's only like 12 minutes so I'm infinitely flipping it over in my Walkman when I'm at work. I think probably a good portion of it is sample-based; if you're into Endtroducing...-era DJ Shadow then I'm sure you'd be vibin' to this in no time. I suggest grabbing a copy from Green Tape while they're still available. It'd make a great double date with that Tad cassingle on DNT; coincidentally they both share their names with other, less cool bands.

I saw Caldera Lakes play a couple weeks ago and it was AMAZING. They gave me a copy of what was apparently their first tape from way back in '08 on Bill Hutson's Accidie label and I also picked up their tour CD-r. Man, there's really great shit on it (I am really loving "Up with the Birds.") It's not the most abrasive or loudest of their releases but it seems the "noisiest." There's usually a good amount of static in play thanks to Eva and I continue to be impressed with Brittany's voice (it's just as fantastic live too.) The duo have such great chemistry together (they seemed almost telepathically linked during their set) and they pretty much carved out their own unique niche from day one. Not many bands you can say that about. Make sure to see 'em if they roll through your town.

Galtta Media out in Philadelphia has sent over their first 6 releases and there's quite an interesting array of material on display. The most striking thing to me about the label was that everything is jazz, and not necessarily free jazz either. The brand new tape En Nuestros Viajes by the guitar/Rhodes duo of Matt Davis and Javier Resendiz is incredibly pleasant (perhaps a little too pleasant for it's own good at times.) Rewind collects some of the work of bassist Mike Boone and it's a super solid record but pretty traditional jazz quartet stuff. Not what I initially expect to hear on a limited-run cassette but I will take it! Cassette is such a fantastic medium I'm always happy to hear it spreading back into the more "normal" music realms. That said, Galtta isn't exactly Blue Note. Symbiosis Syndicate regularly use EVI and synths alongside their trumpet/piano/percussion line-up taking jazz into a pretty interesting direction on their self-titled tape (a track is named after Silver Apples FYI.) Labelhead David Lackner (along with frequent collaborator John Swana) probably delivers the most interesting stuff to my ears. Jazz is definitely at the core of what he's doing but it's often cross-polinated with a range of other genres or may serve as the seed of what grows into a much different tree. Lackner's music is texturally complex but always finds a place for melody. His split with Swana and his new tape My Leader, the Baby is Dead (which also comes with a cool little handbound artbook by Gabrielle Muller) are both recommended.

Barcelona's Circuit Torcat label just put out a tape by Toronto/Barcelona by-mail duo Kamtchtka. The tape is super minimal, not something that you'd expect to be a product of more than one person let alone a by-mail collaboration. As is the case with pretty much all Circuit Torcat releases, I found the tape to be a rather pleasant experience but it's definitely not for diehard fans of volume, both spacial and aural.

I continue to listen Jours Avec Jennie by Zach Phillips (under the guise of GDC) as it is possibly the best tape of last year. Midwestern label Alchemist Records wisely took my advice and reissued this instant-classic so there are (thankfully) a 100 more copies of it in existence. The new pro-dubbed tapes sound good and they're yellow so A+ on that front. If you do not have a copy, I highly recommend you remedy the situation. Alchemist has also put out a couple other fine tapes this year by Local Winds and BAnanas Symphony. The Local Winds cassette is another example of Alchemist's bread and butter: easy, breezy feelin'-nice-right-now vibes and BAnanas Symphony, while the tape is perhaps a touch uneven as a whole, delivers many bangin' pop tunes vaguely 60s-inspired but realized in a variety of different ways--looking forward to listening to it some more.

Giancarlo Bracchi - Silicon Immortality [Circuit Torçat]

Silicon Immortality is a nice half-hour tape by NY synth artist Giancarlo Bracchi, released on Barcelona sound artist Juan Matos Capote's excellent Circuit Torçat label.

The tape finds Bracchi creating two side-long pieces with a Roland Juno-6 synthesizer and a theremin. The first side features smooth circular tones, almost like playing wine glasses, which Bracchi jumpstarts a delayed synth melody over the top of. Bracchi layers further, adding a synthetic clicking/ringing tone as well as plenty of theremin and synth swoops. The piece gets better as the rhythmic synth figure gets pushed back a touch and the theremin's warbling coos and synth manipulations take over. It's a total jam, the initial figure is explored and improvised on through the entire piece. Around halfway though, Bracchi introduces a really nice melody. It only manages to peek through at certain points but man, I love it. The melody is able to shine through later though Bracchi navigates his Juno into rougher territory whipping up some rumbling noise. In a surprising move, everything drops out except that initial synth figure. Bracchi goes wild on either his Juno or theremin, I can't quite tell, making for a clusterfuck of delayed tones. The melody that I love so much does return to send the track off in its final seconds. Bracchi knows when he has a good thing.

The second side kicks off with an immediately more ethereal vibe. There's heavy delay creating a cascading melody that continues before being phased out for a more skeletal, echoing arpeggio. It's actually pretty groovy, Bracchi moves heavily filtered tones through a jaunty set of delay pedals making for a surprisingly buoyant riff. Bracchi gradually adds subtle layers in the final minutes, slowly expanding the simple but elegant piece. He still squeezes a minor Juno freakout in the final minutes, unwilling to go down completely like a spoonful of sugar. At the end of the piece he seems ready to go all over again, with a melody standing tall by its lonesome.

Overall, this is a cool tape, definitely worth a look from all the synth heads out there. I probably prefer the first side as it reminds me a bit of synthesizer film scores from the 70s and 80s. But I love to hear all analog set-ups and you know I'm always psyched to hear the underused theremin back in action!

Limited to 50, with great artwork and matching color case per Circuit Torçat's typically classy aesthetic. Check it out and pick up the other killer Torçat tapes while yr at it.

Comisario Hjuler & Madre Osa - Musica Experimental [Circuit Torçat]/Vlubä - Live at Erks [Circuit Torçat]

I'm catching up on the last two releases from the great Barcelona-based Circuit Torçat label.
First up is the gorgeous looking tape by Comisar Hjuler & Madre Osa a.k.a. Kommissar Hjuler and Mama Baer. Like their Feeding Tube LP from I reviewed a couple months ago, this tape pretty much defies all logic.
I tend to prefer Baer's work of the pair, maybe because I find her to be the less creepy of the two, and she delivers the stronger side with "Wegbeschreisbung zum Kühlschrank". The side starts out with distorted vowels and what sounds like Baer blowing up a balloon into a mic. There's child-like speech which I can't tell if it's coming from an actual child or a manipulation of Baer's voice. It's surprisingly listenable for unintelligible distorted speech. Apparently, throughout this track Baer is giving a detailed how-to on entering her house and finding the kitchen. This is all lost on me of course because I know about four words of German (or whatever language she happens to be speaking). There's a nice passage where Baer speaks rapidly over a mellow, stuttering loop of reversed keyboard or maybe just mic feedback or something. A second slower sing/speak vocal track accompanies the first until eventually one wins out. This section of the tape has a really nice feel. It just seems to be a touch forlorn, twisting in the wind. Baer takes a break from the vocals for a while and manipulates the various loops she's operating. For a brief couple seconds there is a fantastic melody that comes out of nowhere and recedes back into the feedback blips. I don't know if it was an accident or what but damn do I want more than five seconds of it! This instrumental passage is really nice and, from my limited experience with Baer's/Hjuler's works, very unexpected in its relative normalcy. Baer's voice returns briefly with descending coos until another shift into what sounds like a strummed guitar and keyboard played backwards. The dynamics fluctuate but the piece eventually peters out into silence.
The back story for Hjuler's side "Cy.4mm" is they are pieces for piano and voice made for his son, Cy, who was a 4 millimeter big embryo at the time. Apparently the lyrics come from Danish pornographic magazines, total lullaby material. I don't know if Mr. Hjuler actually sang these to his son after he was born, but if I was a kid and my dad was singing these songs to me I'd be creeped the fuck out. Anyhow, the side is divided into 13 songs featuring unconventional use of the piano and creepy sing-speak apparently of Danish dirty words. The first piece finds Hjuler picking inside the piano and singing while the second song, one of the stronger tracks, features a lot of percussion via knocking about inside the piano and strange atonal, fragmented melodies. All this while Hjuler drags his husky monotone over all the sonic bumps and snags. Each of the 13 tracks, ranging from 39 seconds at the shortest to 3 minutes at the longest, are all more or less cut from the same cloth. Certain tracks take on different feels such as the sixth track which flirts with late-period Birthday Party gloom. Or number ten which almost creates a walking bassline. Or the final piece which is seriously pretty in a hobbled sort of way. Definitely for fans of eerie, atonal horror movie scores, slow burning percussive piano abuse and creepy German dudes.
Circuit Torçat labelhead Juan Matos Capote also reached outside of Spain for the label's third release. Live at Erks is an hour long disc from Vlubä, who hail from Argentina if I am not mistaken. I've never really heard Vlubä before but I always wanted to because this looked so badass! Everyone's fond of talking about their transcendental/spiritual/what-have-you jams but Vlubä put their money where their mouth is:

Live at Erks by Vlubä was recorded in the Valle del Silencio, in the nightfall of one day in January of 2009, inside a precious cavern in the mountain ranges of Cordoba (Argentina), on the high. The power for the few played instruments was supplied by a solar generator, and the event was unpolluted by artificial light using only phosphorous. At the encounter, Vlubä’s vital energy gave birth to mantras, while visions followed one another and Erks sparked in light. Trance lasted until the early morning. This album is just a recording of the beginning moments. Some chants you hear on it are comechingon's psychophonies that from Sirius were making way among the stars and into Erks.

Visions? Mantras? Psychophonies? Inside a cavern? Solar generator? Phosphorous?! Vlubä win points for complete dedication if nothing else.
There's a tracklisting for 9 pieces but for some season the disc is just a single hour-long track. Thus, I don't know how accurate my delineation of the individual tracks from the whole is. "Wokytoky on Erks" is the first piece listed and it introduces the album with cymbals and effected guitars. There's a hard-to-read insert that lists the instruments but I can only make out things I've never heard of like Egyptian daff or SMK system. However, I can say with certainty there are drums and "shamanistic flute" on here. Anyway as far as the sounds go, the first piece is kind of minimal psych. It's not exactly rockin' but its continuously circular with, what I'm assuming is guitar, and the reliable clatter of cymbals. There's a change-up, perhaps the next piece "Piedrasroxas Fluos" which continues with light cymbals and shakers and a friendly melody on synth or guitar and I think maybe some vocals. That's a rather short interlude though and the trio brings you deeper into the cavern with more muted clatter and heavily effected drones. There's a jazzy guitar figure that materializes for an instant before quickly retreating back into nothingness. "Shine Gods UFO" is the next piece on the list and I think it refers to a detuned guitar-led interlude backed up by rattling percussion. The subsequent track "Kosmic Mountain Spectralis" benefits from a steady drumbeat behind it. The drums jam by themselves for a while but a flute makes a few whispers here and there. The track while quite repetitive, is one of the most listenable portions of the album. Something about the drums pounding away in the natural reverb of the cave makes it a semi-hypnotic experience. Synth pulses color the outskirts of the track but the percussion remains the main attraction throughout. "King Star Ceremonia" works more for atmosphere with a few spacey swells of sound and distant drums and what sounds like a theremin. The track drifts along in the darkness in a hazed stupor. The disc wraps with its too longest tracks, "...y Sirio se Apagó" begins with percussion a little like "Kosmic Mountain Spectralis" though it isn't the sole focus. After around four minutes, the track begins to fill out with droning guitar, nearly trance-like drums and various incidental noises curling around the edges. It's hard to make out what the sounds are coming from, could be guitar or that "shamanistic" flute or something else entirely. Though they seem on the road to a climax, Vlubä flirts with whether they want to commit or not. Shifting back and forth from soft to loud dynamics, ultimately deciding against it. The finale "Sirius Sarumah (Interstellar Chacarera Trunca)" starts with birdcalls, eerie drones and a jaunty but somehow sinister melody. The drums join up with the melody in ramshackle unison as slices of feedback and vocals swirl around in zoned out dementia. Vlubä seems a subscriber of saving the best (or at least strangest) for last.
I think, overall, Live at Erks is a little too formless for my taste, but anyone up for some smoldering, burned-out cave-psych by moonlight should check this out.
The Vlubä disc is an edition of 100, with a pro-printed CD-r, insert, and fold-out psychedelic alien landing artwork. The Baer/Hjuler tape is battling Arnau Sala's tape for the title of best looking Circuit Torçat product. It's in an edition of 50. Both are still available from the label.

Arnau Sala - La Joia D'agredir [Circuit Torçat]

The second tape from brand new Barcelona label, Circuit Torçat, run by Juan Matos Capote. Arnau Sala, Barcelona’s main man in experimental music and operator of the Ozonokids label, made this tape and having been wanting to hear his stuff for a while now I was psyched to listen. I’m pleased to report that it’s good, it’s real good.
Four tracks comprise the first side. “Blasfèmia Primitive” begins with a strong electronic pulse that Sala modulates rhythmically creating an air of anticipation. The track teeters on combusting into total sonic fury but manages to hold itself together. “Triple Morro” is a quirky track of free drumming paired with a wigged out oscillator; some kind of futuristic jazz when people no longer use their lungs for music. The oscillator does a surprisingly agile job playing the role of a sax or cornet. I like the track more and more each time I listen. “Viure per Punxar (i no Punxar per Viure)” has a homemade techno vibe, little skittering circuitry beats and electronic creaks, grinds and pulsations. “Obstacles Coherents” changes things up again with a manipulated speech sample and loose improv on guitar (I think.) The focus on rhythm is deemphasized compared to the previous tracks. Instead of drums or loops at the forefront, rhythm is derived from the speech and fragments of guitar and oscillator that waft in and out of the composition. It’s a nice track to end the side on because the music just kind of floats away beyond reach and disappears.
The second side features my favorite piece on the tape, “Voluntad D'agressió Pura,” which is a collaboration with Juan Matos Capote. I hope these guys start playing with each other in a more permanent fashion cause they work really well together. The piece is heavy on the oscillations and there are some great, metallic rhythmic shards (maybe samples?) that get the piece moving in a really interesting, asymmetrical way. The sounds bounce off each other with little seeming purpose but all the movements in the piece are so self-assured that there has to be a grand scheme I’m just not tapping into. By the end of the piece Sala and Capote have probably crossed so many wires and scrambled so many circuits that things get blistering and noisy. The piece takes up a good chunk of the side but its energy never fails, it keeps clawing forth like some ravenous, wounded beast. Just an awesome track all around. The finale “La Força” is a bit more tempered. Acoustic instruments, wood flute and cymbal, are paired with a crunchy, minimal electronic beat and flakes of vocals. The piece trudges along in a relatively hypnotic manner but gets a tad unruly near the end.
I also have to say this is one the nicest looking tapes I’ve come across this year. Sala did the rad artwork and Capote decked the whole thing out in yellow; yellow tapes, yellow labels, yellow cases. It looks reeeeeally nice. Check it out.
Still available; limited to 50.

Juan Matos Capote – Jabal [Circuit Torçat]

Jabal is the debut release from Circuit Torçat, a new label out of Barcelona. This tape is quite good, if a bit too short.
The first piece “Goat Scape” begins with a strong but not harsh hi-pitched sine tone, which is modulated by other frequencies. Though there are brief flashes of melody, the track mostly focuses on textures brought about by combining various frequencies. By the end there’s a loop of a vocal-esque melody through I can’t tell if its from a human source or not. The title track also starts off with a loop of a manipulated sine tone. There’s another loop, reminiscent of turning a tape recorder on and off, that provides a percussive base as sustained, harmonized sine waves take over and the side ends.
The other side contains two pieces as well. “Tide” features sine tones also but over a shuddering bed of lower pitches. Over that base, various other fragments of other sounds are structured. They are probably all of electronic origin but some sound quite percussive causing the piece to scrape along capably. The finale, and my favorite, “Star Dust” reminds me a bit of the lo-fi new age thing going on now a la Dolphins into the Future. Despite a rough patch of distortion in between, the beginning is mellow waves of synthesizer and later brings out a pieced together, seasick melody before getting noisy again with oscillators and metal objects.
Capote’s work isn’t exactly minimal but that influence is present. He focuses on constructing pieces from small fragments of sound. Though the two work from very different source material, Capote’s work might possibly sound like an isolated strand of Tomutonttu’s sound clutter. Sound placed into odd but clearly defined structures. A real pleasant jam.
Edition of 50 and packaged very cleanly, check it out.