April Tapes

Two new ones available in the store

Parashi "The Book of Nothing"


Cracked electronics arc across spools of tangled tape creating recordings that are both unsettling and arresting…an exciting new chapter in this ever expanding project.




-*C-40, edition of 50
-Pro-dubbed on Cobalt tapes
-Art by Rob
Reviews:
From these two, I have no idea who Parashi is. A band, a person? Or likewise what else there is. Four piece to go by here, each around ten minutes, I suppose. The whole thing is about forty minutes. Not much information on the cover either, about such trivia as instruments used. My best guess would be that this is an one-man project who deals with improvisations using a variety of electronic tools, be it analogue, be it digital. The whole thing seems to be put together without caring too much about such notions as compositions, but rather see what happens next, or what could happen next. It's hardly noisy, nor ambient, nor, in fact, anything that can easily be put down in one word. It's collage like with the use of voices, and lots of echo, put forward in a rather naive manner, reminding me of the early days of Throbbing Gristle, which makes this altogether quite a retro sounding release. I quite enjoyed it, even though I am not sure why. I guess it must be exactly that retro
sound that Parashi has, that early 80s, old school industrial sound, the sound of spontaneous combustion with all that lo-fi gear. Maybe some of that is highly missed in some of the current high brow computer world? - (FdW) Vital Weekly

PARASHI - Salt Diggers from Moduli TV on Vimeo.

Amalgamated "Trudge/Slap"


A cabal of midnight mystics present a swirling brew of beats, guitar, and electronics. A long journey through the forest under a waxing moon culminates in a demon dance in the silver light…



-C-44, edition of 50
-Pro-dubbed on Cobalt tapes
-Art by Ben
Reviews:
Music by Amalagamated we reviewed before (Vital Weekly 857 and 842) and as far as I know this group recorded music quite some years ago, but for whatever reason is released now. The group may or may not consist of the following people Cory Bengtsen (Rebekah's Tape on sampler, keyboards, saxophone, turntable), Bob Newell (of Headless Ballerinas Underwater on sampler, keyboards, percussion, drum machine), Mike Richards (also of Rebekah's Tape, but also the man behind Makeshift Music and Intangible Cat on guitars, effects drums, percussion, keyboards and tapes), Phil Klampe (of Homogenized Terrestrials on keyboards and sampler) and D. Petri & Gus Kumo on editing and mixing. But none are mentioned as such on the cover of this new release. I quite enjoyed their previous two 3" CDR releases, and this new one (recorded in 2004) is no different. A fine mixture of psychedelic music, tripping on sunshine, bits of musique concrete mixed with cosmic drones and here for the first time longer pieces - hey maybe even a piece per twenty minute side - it's hard to say. Here Amalgamated has the feeling of a live band rather than the clever doodling of samplers connected through midi. These are the grandchildren of Nurse With Wound in their best krautrock phase(s). -(FdW) Vital Weekly

AMALGAMATED - Trudge from Moduli TV on Vimeo.

Vids..

Thanks Frank and Ian!

PERMANENT BEDHEAD - Devolution Walkabout from Moduli TV on Vimeo.

CALYPSO BOREALIS - Sirigi-Moke from Moduli TV * on Vimeo.

December...

Tapes may be purchased in the store

Permanent Bedhead - "Devolution Walkabout"

After sides on Sacred Phrases and Hobo Cult, Permanent Bedhead returns with a full length tape of deep mind music.  Scott Johnson intuits his machines, producing immersive environments, abstract, yet terrestrial soundscapes that stretch off into a distance.

  

  

-C-54, edition of 100

-Pro-dubbed, Type II Cobalt Tapes

-Art by Rob

**Recently featured on the Tabs Out podcast.

October...

Calypso Borealis- "ikot akpa ntim"

After amazing releases on labels such as Housecraft, Existential Cloth, and Hooker Vision, Calypso Borealis returns with these sublime explorations of pure sound and emotion.  There is a wide range of instrumentation on display here, yet each piece coheres into the lyrical drift unique to this project.   Specters of melody loom on the periphery, yet are very much present, evoked at times by peals of feedback, while at others by gentle collisions of meandering tones.  

  

  

-C-30, edition of 100

-Pro-dubbed on Type II Cobalt

-Art by Rob

Review:
 ‘ikot akpa ntim,’ the latest from Calypso Borealis.  A community regular for the last two years, the name is familiar at an intuitive level beyond the regular appearances on Hooker Vision, Cloud Valley, House of Sun, and Kimberly Dawn, among others.  Rob of ((Cave)) provides the cover art, recalling Ted Trager’s work for early Stunned releases.  Completing the package is the sound, a half hour in sensory deprivation (so to speak), made from artifacts of focal objects: the clatter of sticks (but no resonance), the high metallic buzz (without a full, middle tone), a murmur (with no voice), the harmonic remnants of a melody (yet no melody.)  To be clear, there’s not no sound – what the mind fills in is actually a wealth of sources and instruments – but the sound that is here is lesser than a sound.  It’s remarkable, really, a stunning show of restraint.  And the knife cuts both ways: stand-out track “Kponkponto” effaces a Noise rock collision by the same method, presenting the barest of feedback fringe and motoric low end, the effect being a well-paced latticework of sound which is delicate without fragility.  While “drone” may be the over-riding genre, or at least target demographic, this would be an abuse of the breadth that is minimalism.  “Sirigi-Moke,” a fluttering stereo construction, distills the entirety of Growing’s ‘Sky’s Run Into the Sea’ to a single track, recruiting velocity to underline the generative thrust of this unconventional rock music.  100 copies with thick inserts and vellum tracklists.  Recommended. 
                       -Animal Psi

Featured on the Tabs Out podcast.

June Tapes

All available tapes can be purchased here: Shop

...or hit me up at the ((Cave))

Bre’r- OLSB Music No. 1

A chance meeting with D.A. Fisher on the streets of Oakland, California led to an exchange of tapes and our first exposure to the brilliance of his Bre’r project.  The tape was the sprawling masterpiece, “Dhome Herder” (Baro Records), which immediately prompted discussions about the possibility of a future ((Cave)) release.  Needless to say when we received this tape we were beyond excited.

OLSB Music #1 represents a refinement of the Bre’r vision.  While a bit more concise, these tracks still take their time, slowly enveloping a wealth of sonic activity just beneath the surface, evoking a solitary walker of urban streets, out of step with the surrounding pace on the concrete, yet abiding with it, witnessing the frenetic activity in soft focus.

-C-30, edition of 100
-Home dubbed on Type II Cobalt 
-Art by D.A. Fisher

Reviews of OLSB Music #1: Multi dimensional space worship on ((Cave)), with OLSB Music No. 1, from Bre’r. A release so quintessentially ambient, it nearly defines the genre. Elegant melodic structures, with just a bit of something unexpected and unorthodox living in the periphery. Vast overwhelming astral tones, colored with metallic hues. Tracks like Remix Of No Vision, while feeling cold and distant, still beg an emotional response. These aren’t the slow evolving drones commonly invading the ambient realm, but rather mid tempo symphonic movements. Not so much a challenge, as an extraterrestrial voyage into the subconscious. This is without question in my musical sweet spot and required consecutive listens.  -guidemelittletape Titled like a prescription drug, ‘OLSB Music No.1’ is my first encounter with Bre’r (Darren Fisher), an Oakland musician of Anticon association who produces therapeutic, Kranky-style drones.  Affecting even the same font on offset of the most recent Tim Hecker release, and beyond the Stars of the Lid title, Fisher captures well the overcast and glassy swell of early Growing, pairing long tones and brilliant flutter.  Deep, E-bowed buzz rattles tintinabular clatter like wind chimes on the bluster, halted only briefly by the pure tonality of “Big Fashion”, itself a vortex leading out of the soundtrack work Kranky responds to, and into the modern synthesizer work liquidating such houses of drone.   With impressionistic half-thoughts for titles (“Old Marriage”, “Fitness Beacon”, “Same Choir”), and enough variation and development in each track to make this C30 an album rather than formal “pieces”, he’s really gotten a pitch-perfect account of that fading, peaceable kingdom.  Labeled tapes come in glossy j-card, 100 copies.  Recommended. -Animal Psi

Evan Lindorff-Ellery/Chapels- Split

Evan Lindorff-Ellery (Dense Reduction, Notice Recordings) and Adam Richards (Chapels, House of Alchemy) are two major figures in experimental music.  Their eclectic, yet impeccable labels display their open ears and subtle understanding of sound.  Likewise, their respective music projects have incredible depth and range.

Evan’s piece, while a departure from the field recordings presented on past recordings, is no less intriguing as it takes on the domestic landscape of an apartment and the activity within.  Evan is a master at collecting and assembling novel textures and timbres: objects can be heard quivering to life as a hive of activity builds and thickens to an almost overwhelming climax.

Chapel's side blends together home and live recordings into a dark, reverberating collage.   Wolves howl as mysterious movements echo in a space that is at once a  forest teeming with nocturnal rustling, and an abandoned building occupied by participants of some strange rite.


  
-C-64, edition of 100
-Pro-dubbed on Type II Cobalt 
-Art by Rob


Reviews:
Rob of ((Cave)) recordings brings together two fellow home label endeavorers by inviting a split between House of Alchemy’s Adam Richards (aka Chapels) and Notice Recordings’ Evan Lindorff-Ellery.  It’s been some time since we last saw Chapels despite Richards’ consistent output through the last year, and even accounting for this oversight, “We Are the Sum Total of our Data” feels like an all-new incarnation of the Chapels project: a multi-part program of mostly unaffected field-recordings, Richards swings an organic dark ambience through authentic setting and lo-fi capture which induces the natural drone in the energy fields he presents; the gothic abstractions of his earlier work have aged into a less figurative, more cynical, more brutal realism full with everyday, gut feelings of worry and dread – wandering, threatening, alienating.  Lindorff-Ellery, in his time away from Dense Reduction, comes with the solo mix “The Apartment Piece”: unlike Richards’ singular scenes, this side offers immediate layers of accumulation – clattering adjustments, unwanted details, fade-ups; droning hum, ticking contrast, whips of ostinato feedback – in other words, causes and effects.  The sounds suggest so much activity, but exclude any clear image of that activity.  Less contrast than comparison, the two sides of the split tie-together the bitter vacancy of a world carrying on with you.  Cassettes come in heavy inserts, art by Lindorff-Ellery.
-Animal Psi

The Ether Staircase- III

The saga continues on our third full-length tape which pulls together recordings made last winter and presents some odd gems.  Side A is a dust devil, swirling together thrift store tapes while several keyboards of unknown origin struggle to navigate the murk.  Side B is a slow burning epic that Ben thinks sounds like a primeval forest, while I would put the whole thing at the bottom of the ocean.
 
-C-32, edition of 50
-Home dubbed on ferrite cassettes 
-Art by Ben and Rob

Sleep Fern's Couch Lock

Nettie dropped some of these by...

I have ten copies to sell for $6 North America / $9 World Postage Paid if you are interested, and you should be.... Email me at rbthurtle@gmail.com

Andy and Nettie are also selling these at Sleep Fern Headquarters: http://www.sleepfern.blogspot.com

Winter Tapes

After enduring a long traffic jam at the plant, these tapes are finally ready for your aural enjoyment. A diverse batch this time around--something for the entire family!

Sleep Fern / The Ether Staircase- Split (C-40)

Never mind leaky microwaves and humming power lines, Sleep Fern gathers the waves and radiation of the everyday and blurs it all into agitated, yet beautiful, clouds of voices and static. The flip presents an unhinged summer with The Ether Staircase, collaged fidelities of glass shards and magnetic tape. ((CAVE-07))

-Edition of 50

- C-40, pro-dubbed Type II Cobalt

-Full color, handmade j-cards. Art by Sleep Fern 

Sold Out- Check Distros

Rainbow Valley- Tipoftheredgiantbranch (C-44)

After great sides on Jozik and Sangoplasmo, Rainbow Valley’s latest is an expansive work of depth and power. Walls of textured sound build slowly, creating wide canyons of reverberating space. The patient and deliberate motion of these pieces has a way of stopping time and bringing the gaze inward, drowning thoughts in the blue haze of distance. ((CAVE-08))

-Edition of 50

-C-44, pro-dubbed Type II Cobalt

-Full-color, handmade j-cards, Art by Rob

Sold Out- Check Distros

RAGS- s/t (C-34)

RAGS continues to ride the line between structured songwriting and sonic exploration on this second release. These pieces travel through a wide range of moods and modes, utilizing complex layering of playback, guitar and keyboards, recorded with no overdubs. The result is infectious. ((CAVE-09))

-Edition of 65

-Pro-dubbed C-34 Type II Cobalt

-Full-color, handmade j-cards. Art by James Seevers (www.jamessevers.blogspot.com)

-This release includes a free download coupon.

Sold Out-Check Distros