Dozens "Born Waiting"
Explorations by Frank Ouellette and Ryan Connolly… a lexicon of pure light and shape… maps of mental geography … portals into unseen spaces.. ((Cave-20))
- C-25, edition of 50
- Pro-duplicated on high bias cobalt
- Art by Ben
DOZENS - Born Waiting from Moduli TV * on Vimeo.
Reviews:
A strange, confusing journey from Dozens, with Born Waiting. Eerie, mechanical, miniature narratives. Noisy, but not noise. Industrial, but not made of industry or the harshness one would associate. Looped, evolutionary movements that feel improvised and alive. Perhaps the remnants of artificial intelligence in the future ruins of an automaton society. The selection of timbres on display here is just absolute perfection. No where more effectively than the back half which pulls apart the curtain of noise, and opens up into a clean, delicate field of melody. Soft multifaceted whips of synth that glide back and forth, almost closing the tape before being taken up in a brief arpeggiated miniature.
-Guidemelittletape
Gjallarhornet "Raven Memories"
Collaborative tectonics by Thomas Gerendás (Skullorian Sound Sculptures) and Russ Alderson (Xanthocephalus)… columns of smoke rise from the fissured ground… desolate vistas obscured by sulfurous fumes. ((Cave-19))
- C-41, edition of 50
- Pro-duplicated on high bias cobalt
- Art by Rob
GJALLARHORNET - Corpse Swallower from Moduli TV on Vimeo.
The Ether Staircase "Winning the Olympics"
It has been four years. The ever evolving ether is an ever expanding nothing. Let the games begin… ((Cave-18))
- C-32, edition of 50
- Home duplicated on ferrite
- Art by Ben
The Ether Staircase- "A Perfect Slope" from Rob Thurtle on Vimeo.
Reviews:
((Cave))’s own Rob and Ben form The Ether Staircase, whose murky, paranoid ‘Winning the Olympics’ pushes in directions of pataphysics with the same skill as Bailey pushes in the dimension of elegance. Across four or nine tracks titled more like inside jokes than any sort of interpretive legend, the boys build on low-tempo synthesizer horror like so many Carpenter apes in the last 5 years, but do so with an artful tact much like UW Owl and the other homebrews from the hibernative Phaserprone; though largely low in fidelity, the pair play with this aesthetic essence as well, punctuating the sonic fabric with bright, rendered shapes, surgical edits, and a sourcing practice which belies the dingy sheen which sits atop the signal. The tape opens and closes with an anti-dub sound (steady beats, whistles, shifters) which should be allowed to define the project, and help it crystallize much as early Sun Araw wobbled its way into the singular figure we find today. Art by Rob on heavy J-cards. Recommended.
-Animal Psi
Invisible Path "Cloud Variations"
Michael Bailey’s latest transmission from the frontier… time arresting drone work steeped in the blue of distance. ((Cave-17))
- C-39, edition of 50
- Pro-duplicated on high bias cobalt
- Art by Michael Bailey
Reviews:
Michael Bailey’s Invisible Path provide some of the most thoughtful compositions to the young ((Cave)) catalog with the ‘Cloud Variations’ C39. Providing the service role left vacant by Roy Tatum’s Changeling, Bailey’s winding ambients reset the latest frame of noise on one hand (and it’s telling that I’m at a loss to recall the latest representatives, and not because they don’t exist), and drone on the other (countless “new agers” who came and went, leaving a lost generation to figure out what was meant to “go here”). Now only the software has changed, raising the glossy, high-def stakes for all involved. In the style of William Basinski, the two, sidelong couplets trade in divine tones while struggling with melodic consciousness. Harmonics abound, turning many utterances of a melody into one big run-on of bleary warm hum and long rhythmic cycles, equally imposed upon by the mash. Yet beyond this competent, considered core what elevates the album is the ornamentation of guitar harmonics, gongs, and string sounds which do not disturb the essence of weightlessness, but which stand this tonal miasma against the percolating relief of formal characters, as seemingly oblivious to the music being made, a psychoanalytical sketch about divergence and co-evolutions of thought which do more than just sound good, but do beg an audience and interlocutor in the most passive of ways. With art by Bailey on heavy J-cards. Recommended.
-Animal Psi
This, second release, in a two part update covering the new batch from ((cave)) Recordings is quintessential headphone meditation from Invisible Path, with Cloud Variations. Indeed, these are slow, swirling formations of atmospheric mass. Occasionally light, with delicate plucked strings looped and manipulated against the smeared echoes of a distant gong. Other times, heavy, even tumultuous mountains of reverberating bass arpeggio tempered against the muted scream of guitar feedback. In juxtaposition to the sparse, cavernous first half, for me, the centerpiece of the tape is on the flip, particularly the closer . Gently compressed shimmering melody emerges and evolves, growing in depth and density, roughly blocking out everything that came before. Sounds like a buddhist dream of the wind that gently sways the prayer flag.
-Guidemelittletape
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