Xiphiidae - Pisces Muse [Stunned]

Now I've only heard a small chunk of Jeff Astin's considerable output as Xiphiidae but damn if I don't feel like Pisces Muse is the best thing he's ever done, as Xiphiidae or with any other project for that matter.

To try to communicate the sound of the tape to you the only "sounds-like" card I can really play is that it's somewhat similar to Spencer Clark's stuff as Monopoly Child or Black Joker. The tape however is so much more dense, dynamic and environmental. Clark has done some great work under those guises but you're also locked in a single frame of mind when you listen to those records. Astin's work here is exceedingly dimensional; it puts you in a trance, it puts you in a zone but it also puts you in a whole new mental locale. You get whisked around in an abstract, psycho-geographical travel tape. Leaves crunch, water drips, occasionally people murmur but simultaneously and continuously Astin is rocking your body with relentlessly catchy, organic micro-beats. I don't know for sure what Astin had at his disposal here, but it sounds like at least a hand drum, tapes, a thumb piano and keyboard too.

Coming to life in mucky tape warble, the jams rolls on a 1-2-3-4 drumbeat against a heavy forest of thunder and trail life. Changing up to a speedy jaunt of elliptical loops, it's a race between the trickling creek, jittery thumb piano and thump-thump-thumping hand drum. And the jam pumps along teeming with life. It's particularly interesting at the piece's end when Astin gradually peels back the layers revealing the pulsing tendons underneath.

The next one slows up the tempo a tad, giving the listener a deeper look into the sinewy tendrils of the beat. The editing and pacing here are both fantastic. There's a handful of pieces across the forty-ish minute runtime, but within a "piece" Astin will often change things up, for instance introducing outside recordings of garbled speech and whatnot then seamlessly re-mold the beat for the new environment. I actually really dig the last set of rhythms on Side A as they're much more direct, offsetting the effusive, abstract sound collage.

Most of the beats move at a swift clip, remaining chill but consciously very active. Though the tape seems to be about an effortless flow Astin, doesn't mind jarring you back into reality with a bit of tape abuse at the end of the first side.

The next side seems to raise the bar even more. A strange, repeated groan and burbling, hyperactive percussion lead off the piece making for what is possibly the most tangled area in the tape. From that extra-jittery, jangled piece, Astin moves into a beat constructed from tape mulch and bird calls, while a repeating keyboard swell lulls and locks you into a serious hypno-coma. A hand drum enters gradually at some point, but only to lend a helping hand not to take over. It drops out soon and the piece subsists on the single keyboard motif until a violent bit of tape warble puts it down. I'd say it's one of the finest compositions here, rather than just grooving on the beat (which I'm perfectly fine with) there's more of an ebb and flow here. Sounds show up and disappear and the piece evolves with each new change. Later, the drum nearly takes a backseat to the aquatic splashes and drops, as the keyboard hums a relentless two-note tune. Halfway through Astin flips the script, imploding the beat a little, leaving a frantic stammering drum and a mellow, strung-out keyboard mussed with static tape blurs. The final piece is way shorter than the others but still very good despite it's comparative brevity. Astin seems to have trouble getting his Walkman working as the piece begins with whirs attempting to get the piece rolling. After a few moments, it takes off on its own, constituting the most laidback piece of the tape culminating in keyboarded windchimes.

It seems like about every month or so Stunned has been dropping something essential this year. Here's your next installment. Grab this.

Gasoline Gathers Hands, Gathers Friends - Tail Light Fever Forever [House of Sun]/Xiphiidae - Slowing Atrium [House of Sun]

Got two more installments from the great Canadian label House of Sun. The last tapes I heard from them were total dreamers (Tuluum Shimmering and Charlatan) and so I was suprised to find these to be such a pair of murky guitar lurkers.
The first up is by a band I'd never heard of before. Gasoline Gathers Hands, Gathers Friends is a bizarrely christened wandering murk affair. I was just listening to my Maths Balance Volumes LP the other day and now that I'm listening to this, GGHGF definitely reminds me of them so it makes sense why I always dug Tail Light Fever Forever. They seem to move with dronier, more extended brushstrokes than MBV though. The first side is a totally warbling affair with some dude howling in garbled angst while blurry guitars pick and strum around him. I like how they start with a conventional base (a song) and stretch it and contort it into something strange and mysterious. There's a really pretty instrumental passage in the middle of the side. It drifts along in the same awkward fog but sticks to a melodic framework making it a nice oasis in the sea of alienated loner muzak. Once the strangled vocals show up its back to creepdom though. I think there's some tape manipulation towards the end as the jam seems to get more and more feral and loopy. The second side is immediately more placid and well adjusted. Sounds like some organ, moaning vox and guitar all in a thick, reverb-laden din. A lovely little guitar arpeggio emerges with relative, but surprising, clarity. The sound shifts to slightly Grouper-esque on this side which you know I'm behind. More or less wordless vocals accompany the guitar with faint fragments of sound floating about too. I can't quite tell how many people are behind this; it's pretty minimal so it could be one person or perhaps as many as three all sitting tranced out, cross-legged, focused intently on the single element they are contributing. The piece turns into quite a pretty song with plenty of vocals a-swirl; it's an unusually upbeat ending even if its still in shades a grey. This seems like a cool project, I'll be keeping my ears out for 'em.
From an unknown project (to me anyway) comes a well-known one from Jeff Astin. Laying down the law in 20 minutes flat, Slowing Atrium reminds me of Astin's tape last year on Cabin Floor Esoterica under the Abolicao tag. This is much less rustic sounding, which I liked about the Abolicao tape, but I'm not gonna hold that against it. On the first side, there are dual guitars spinning their cobwebs in separate channels with a thick coating of crusty field recordings. I swear there's a few keyboard stabs floating around but maybe its just guitar, as the guitar also makes a time of imitating chimes. Guitar gradually becomes less of a focus as the drones seep into the murky tapes of Astin's favorite hikes or whatever. Sticking with the whole hiking idea, this is a nice little "ramble" in the woods which is big praise coming from me, a confessed hater of "rambles." Maybe I like this ramble because I can do it from the comfort of my own home or maybe its just because it's, you know, music.
"Side B" separates itself from the first side and all the various images of forest fungi that litter the case by delivering an ultra-sparse guitar-centric piece. The two main elements here are guitar strings and silence. It sounds like there might be some tapes or something else present too but its not much more than a whisper. A guitar figure repeats in various permutations, widely spaced out. Around halfway, a tape of a creek gently trickles with faint windchimes as well. Stuttering half-melodies appear at the very end making it the loveliest part of the track. The side is definitely a meditative piece and a very good palette cleanser; I hadn't heard Xiphiidae in some time and I like the direction its headed.
The Xiphiidae tape is still in print, but it seems like Gasoline Gathers Hands, Gathers Friends is all gone from the label. Check the distros, I suppose. Both come in recycled cardboard arigato packs for cassettes, so you can save the environment while jammin' some sweet tunes.

Abolicao – Flowering Judas [Cabin Floor Esoterica]/Xiphiidae – Transresonance Formation [Stunned]

Got two Jeff Astin (Tricorn & Queue, the Housecraft label) solo projects here. One from his more famous Xiphiidae solo moniker and another is his first release under the Abolicao name.
I’m starting with the Abolicao tape cause I’m fucking excited about it. This is probably the best work I’ve heard from Astin. When the tape begins to roll its just guitar as far as I can tell. What I like so much is there are only a couple things going on but they’re all so important. That, and the tape as a whole exudes atmosphere. Not in the lush, “atmospheric” sense but Flowering Judas produces a direct, isolated sense of space. The first side has a couple of sections pasted together and the second section is quite nice with a hollow guitar melody and incidental noises providing tactile sensations. It approaches drone, but the music breathes a bit more than drone does cause it doesn’t stack tons of sounds on top of each to achieve a singular sound. The tape takes pleasure in split seconds of silence and miniscule but constant and vital dynamic shifts. Towards the end of Side A finds Astin building a beautiful breeze of melodic fragments before a shift to the eerier end of things just before the side’s close. The second side has more warbling tape/strings and some of the best music of the tape comes right at the beginning of this side. The bulk of the side is this one long piece as far as I can tell so, needless to say, the side’s really stunning. There’s a lovely looped resonating of bass frequencies against various forms of palpable, physical percussive techniques applied to the guitar. It’s just stirring and gorgeous——and, as I mentioned before, always alive and evolving. Seamlessly from that previous skin comes a more rhythmic incarnation. I can’t quite a tell if it is or not (I lean towards “no”) but this sounds like field recordings of a forest or something. There’s an organic nature to the sounds and their organization. This fades leaving a guitar imitating wind chimes continuing the “natural” aesthetic. Cabin Floor Esoterica is the perfect label for this to be on cause that descriptor fits the tape so well and the camping themed artwork and brown painted tape complement the sounds perfectly. Really fantastic piece of work, particularly the second side.
The CD-r is split pretty cleanly down the middle with two 12ish minute tracks. Transresonance Formation sounds denser than the Bronze Hut tape I have from last year. It’s mostly airy groans piled on top of one another but it’s possible to pick out bits of guitar and field recordings/samples in the mix. Either that or my mind is playing tricks on me. The piece moves at a nice pace, slowly but constantly. It’s almost a river ride at a theme park or something where you bob around leisurely in swampy waters but all the while there’s a mechanism keeping everything tightly together. That idea carries over into the texture of the track as well because it sounds wet but not in the submerged sense that a lot of things are. I think there has to just be recordings of flowing water at work here, because that is one of strongest flavors the piece has and I’m scratching my head how someone could pull that off without using recordings directly of water. A sprinkle of hollow chimes at the end is a nice touch as well. The second untitled track is quite straightforwardly melodic. It enters with creaking metal and a looped keyboard melody with effected guitar augmenting the track too. The piece continues to glimmer for a good five minutes but backs off a little to reveal active bass frequencies chugging along underneath. With about 4 minutes to go, the sounds fade completely and a new section starts. It creeps slows through a swampy sunrise, eventually laying down subtle but creepy drones making my bedroom feel not quite right. A misty morning dawn for sure, but a poisonous one.
The Abolicao tape is still available and it obviously comes highly recommended. Transresonance Formation is gone from Stunned as you'd expect but plenty of distros still have copies.

Tricorn and Queue – Tapestry Head Ban [Housecraft]/Xiphiidae – Bronze Hut [Housecraft]

It’s taken me way too long to say a few words about Housecraft. They flew under my radar for a while but once they came to my attention I was very impressed. The visual aesthetic is consistently top-notch and head Housecrafter Jeffry Astin has a keen ear for great drone acts, most of them lesser-known (at least to me). I also have much love for any label that peddles cheap tapes, these two are my picks from the sampling Jeffry sent me a while back. So let’s get this review poppin’.
I’m pretty sure that Tricorn and Queue is just the name of the crew and not a collaboration, but don’t quote me. The first of the four stops on the tape is “Gilded Feathers/First Flight Over Ashen Trees” and I’m tempted to call it my favorite but we’ll see where I end up by the end of the review. The first portion of the track is full of skittering muck. Pieces of vocals, sustained tones and clipped, cut, echoing percussive sounds. Despite the complete lack of congruence the group seems oddly focused. Like they know where their impulses will take them before they even have them. There’s a point where, it seems, the players make a conscious effort to get pretty and it sucks me in every time. I'm guessing this is the “Ashen Trees” portion. Lovely tones slip slowly underneath the mild cacophony, surrounding and filling every crack with flowing, floating beauty. It has an amazing effect on my mind, calming but forgoing any sort of blandness. It’s a really wondrous flight that I could fly with forever. Nothing is out of place, every new tone, every peak, every valley; it’s all effortless and all about the oneness with sound. Sorry to get new age-y on yr ass but this is fucking great. There’s a little synth part that eeks out at the very end that’s exceptional too as the piece slowly gives in to silence. “Live @ the 612, Gainesville 7/20/07” fills out the rest of the side, and it continues the somber lilting idea but it's kept in check by an occasional, delayed metallic tapping. Things then turn a bit weirder with a reversed violin-type sound and various washes of noise. This gives way to another set of glacial sounds. A glacier seems like an apt comparison because it’s cool, smooth and pervasive but it’s also subtly destructive at the same time. Tricorn and Queue always have a counterpoint, something that chisels away at the smoothness a bit. Though it may not have the power to flood the world with ecstasy like the first piece, it’s a fine effort.
On the flip, “Stone Fleets Home” leads off. This sounds more aquatic to my ear. I may be psyching myself out a bit but I think there may even be a recording of water in there somewhere as well. This one seems a bit more synth-led but it could easily be blissed-out guitar that I’m hearing. Actually that’s probably it the more I think about it. That piece is over relatively quickly before moving into the finale “Triangled Goldflower/Apache Radiation”. Dude, I don’t know what “Apache radiation” is but I wanna find out. This piece returns to the style of the beginning of the tape. A strange collection of all sorts of sounds, not really smashed together but “lumped” I guess would a better word. There’s a pseudo-choir sound that I’m loving, as well as a lo-fi blues guitar that pops out for a few notes and lots of other cool sounds I’ll leave to your imagination. All the elements cycling in and out make for a dizzying swirl of sound. Always mellow, never boring. Which works pretty well as a descriptor for the tape in general.
I’ve been seeing this Xiphiidae name around town a lot after I got this tape but I had never heard of the project before hearing this little baby. I wouldn’t be surprised if Xiphiidae got a bunch of record deals based on this tape alone. This tape is less airy and about a third of the length of the Tricorn & Q, instead creating a tad bit fuller sound. Lots of glistening sound waves from all kinds of sources. This project seems to be heavier on the synths, though there are some other sounds pushed down a lot I can’t quite pick out. Throughout the side a new set of tones will swoop down to displace another only to be displaced minutes later. I know this is all a bit vague but it’s tricky to pin down all the sounds/phases the track holds in its 7 minutes. The other side is cut from the same piece of cloth though the instrumentation varies a little and the track as whole seems slightly less cloudy. There’s a real nice period on the side where an elegant lo-pitched tone glides along while a crackly hi-pitched din floats on top giving way to chimes and other murkiness.
Two phenomenal releases for fans of tapes, drone and natural highs. Housecraft does an amazing job with packaging and these two are cases in point. Tapestry Head Ban has two-layer j-card with printed vellum and a piece of material soaked with color. Really nice looking. It also comes with an insert and tape labels. Bronze Hut comes with a hand-made collaged j-card and tape labels as well. Both tapes are out of print but I’ve seen copies around at a few distros, if you're interested. I’d also recommend just buying some of the new Housecraft stuff cause it looks rad and is sure to be nice on your wallet and your ears.