The tour kickoff in Oakland last night was sooo heavy. Loved it. The Styro gyre is at top spin, about to make land. Open wide murfukrs!
And the STYROFOAM SANCHEZ “Empire Underwater” LP is a required listening milestone. The past just floated away, this is serious soundcraft, lo-fi grabs hi-fi by the skullholes and has its way. Did y’all know what lyrics have been clattering out of the ocean’s brain all this time? Like Sun Ra said “There are other worlds they have not told you of who wish to speak with you.” SS lyrics are too core to their music, grab the book and see what you’re hearing. The illustrations are too much, a labyrinth for the eyeball while lost in the record… none of this distracted half-heard imusic… FULL IMMERSION.
Don’t look past the all new “Coastal Ruin” cassette, neither. Stretched out live sound, perfectly recorded darkness, suited to tape, triggers gooseflesh at the mere memory of styrene squeaks.
Damn, and the whole “macular Edema/Occular oOil Pond” DVD! The huge glue-jewel of this whole chemical crown. No spoilers though, suffice to say… don’t let your life suck on milquetoast mediocrity, grip this intense labor, one pkg includes the LP/DVD/BOOK, then the tape is its own. Sink yourself in mile deep layers of some heavy pitch black prescient shit, the future is cresting, about to pile onto your chest. Don’t say you were busy lookin’ at your phone glow. http://www.ratskin.org/index2.html
These days, record labels seem to be popping up all over the place in the independent /underground music world, and we think that’s a good thing. Each independent music outlet that can get music to the right people without all the unnecessary industry bullshit chain of command isolationism that is perpetuated by the “record industry” the better, and Oakland’s Weird Ear Records is doing just that. Releasing top quality recordings in multiple formats to anyone who has an odd ear to the underground experimental music pulse. We sat down with Weird Ear Records dual head honcho’s Raub Roy and Dianne Lynn of oakland….
Dr.. DECAYCAST: : Hello…. I heard of this strange new record label called WEIRD EAR RECORDS Why don’t you spill the beans …. Let’s start off with Who, what, when, where…..
RAUB ROY: We started WER in 2011, after relocating from San Francisco to Oakland, Ca, and finding that the inexpensive cost of living here afforded us the opportunity to do something a little bigger than we could have managed in SF. I think the name ‘Weird Ear’ popped into my head one day and it seemed like a name one would either give a Recording label or a scroungey-but-loveable chinchilla…. Having no desire to harbour rodents, we went with putting out pieces of music that fit our aesthetic for the label.
DD : What do you all have against rodents? Why are cats so popular these days , especially in “noise”
DIANNE LYNN: We think rodents are cool too! Personally, our cats chose us and we couldn’t turn them away. In fact before the cats were around we had more rodents in the building. We don’t see much of them these days. Maybe the “noise” was too much for them?
DD: That’s cool . I happen to like rodents as well, so much so that I named my label after a popular one from the 1980s….
At what point did y’all decide to start a record label, and why? Do you think it’s important that artists start their own labels, and in the digital age what is the “point” of releasing physical objects when one can just purchase a download ?
DL : We’ll say first that if you don’t get the “point” of releasing physical objects, then we’re sorry, you just don’t get it! We love the physical package. Some of the DIY stuff will blow your mind! Not to knock a download, but some works you gotta just “have.” To another point, playing files off a computer can be annoying as hell.
The label was manifested around February 2012. We sort of went crazy setting goals for ourselves and decided to put our words in motion. I think the tipping point was when Raub came home with the name Weird Ear. Honestly, we just wanted to have a label so that we could put music that we liked into a physical format that we personally appreciated; at the time this was vinyl, but we have come to appreciate the convenience of cassettes. As far as artists starting their own labels, we say go for it. The more the merrier.
DD: That’s an interesting take! Do you think there’s a point of over saturation in the experimental music community ? Is there such thing as too many projects, too many releases , too many “side projects” ? Is there an importance to trying to define the changing trends in experimental music? Or just let it run around like a chicken with its head cut off ?
RR: Well, one trend that I think keeps over-saturation from happening is that of keeping such things limited to smaller production runs. While the audience for experimental/modern/avant-garde/out/noise/weird/gnarly music is bigger than it’s ever been, it still is a tiny splash in the pool that is the whole of recorded sound, and we believe that putting the 300 copies of “Stand Up Comedy“
Alessandro Bossetti’s “Stand Up Comedy” LP
(for example) into the right 300 peoples hands is more important than spreading it all over the place and hoping random people pick it up. The advent of streaming entire albums also backs this strategy up – we really would like people to listen and make sure it’s for them before purchasing a copy. Defining trends is a slippery slope, in part due to the relative insignificance of our scene in relation to recorded sound on a whole (again), but then there’s the the flourishing microcosm aspect that no one person could keep up with all the facets of, so the way we define those trends that we aspire to steer clear of is very subjective, though a guideline that has worked well for us is trying to find works that wouldn’t have an easy time finding a home elsewhere. We also are attempting to avoid trend within our catalog for as long as we can, which is a bit easier to quantify.
I believe that a large amount of the proliferation of side-projects/one-off projects and such that you refer to is generally relegated to the noise end of the spectrum, and as such, we probably will leave Noise to other able and willing labels.
So you wouldn’t ever define your label as sticking to any one genre, rather anything with a weird bend that catches your ears? So far y’all have a really diverse roster, showcasing vastly different aesthetic sets, everything from the proto- industrial styles of WAXY TOMB on her “infra shape” cassette to fever dream psychedelia borderline abstract pop sounds of A MAGIC WHISTLE LP that y’all recently released, yet somehow it all works, to a rather refreshing degree curation wise, care to talk about that?
RR: we hope to avoid trend and purity in our releases not only on a world scale, but within the confines of our releases as well. So, for example, in the larger scene, modular synth stuff was nominally bigger last year than years previous, so, even if we really like a buddy’s Buchla Synthi album, it would need to be queered by some other element to feel like it fit in the catalog. On the level of our releases, I’d like to try to keep from trend there too, excepting the trend of having releases that wouldn’t appeal to purists of any particular genre – so like, Glochids “Originals” album is largely field recorded, but he is in these field recorded passages playing objects/instruments, so it’s field recordings, but impure, or queered, if you will… what was I getting at? Oh, right, so, now that there’s been an album of field recordings, I probably won’t do another one too closely related to field recordings for a while, until a good number of other styles of experimental/modern music have been touched on, see?
NEXT QUESTION PLEASE
DD: Tell me about the future vision for weird ear , upcoming releases / tours / WTF stuff ? Blow our mind
Ok so we have a couple upcoming releases that should be out before summers end; WER-006 is Angela Sawyer, of Preggy peggy and the Lazy babymakers, duck that!, and exhusema.. The album was commissioned in 2011, and she’s been working away at it for us since then, but she also runs Weirdo Records in Boston and has little free time, so it’s taken a while, but the results are completely worth it – sweet and sour songs sqeakily sung with a wealth of oddvant-garde instrumentation and arrangements, the songs themselves being largely covers from her huge collection and other local bostonians… I believe that there are a good few samples in there also gathered from her stacks, which begs the question of why more record store owners don’t make sample based musics, since they’re diggin in the dustevery day already!
We also are quite pleased to be presenting a split between, Trumpet Trumpet Synthesizer and Horaflora (thats me). TTS is a duo (Brad Henkel and Weston Minissali) on amplified trumpet and Synth/vocoder playing some really out tones in a sexy as fuck way, which i’m told is fairly uncommon in experimental music! My side is loosely based on Mauricio Kagel’s Acoustica, or maybe just indebted to it, but will mark the end of my work with acoustic phenomenon for the foreseeable future, and I felt the connection should be credited later than never, so there’s that!
Beyond specific releases, all our future cassettes will be in handcrafted cardstock jackets rather than plastic cases, as we were impressed with Geweih Ritual Documents Envo-Box: http://www.gritual.com/Info-About
As they point out, the plastic cassette case isn’t intrinsically related to the album, and once cracked, is quickly rendered useless garbage, basically analogous to the plastic bag an LP may come in, nice to keep your jacket clean, but all too replaceable, adding to the plastic problem we would ideally like to avoid being a part of.
Thanks for asking all those questions! See ya soon!
A good friend and seminal member of the bay area noise, experimental metal, and free jazz community Mr. Jay Korber was involved in an extremely life threatening bicycle accident, where he was ran over and dragged by one of the sweet sweeper trucks that paurse the SOMA district of San Francisco. (http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2012/12/cyclist_gets_trapped_under_cit.php) For many, this would have signaled the end/death/whatever. but for Mr. Korber, tough as nails, the doctors predict that a FULL RECOVERY is possible. His pelvis was completely shattered, amongst many other serious, life threatening injuries, and he endured many emergency “life saving” surgeries- just in his first few days at SF General Hospital. Throughout all of this unexpected chaos – the endless chain of apathetic doctors, buzzing machines, tubes, blood transfusions, confusiion from the drugs and painkillers, Jay has managed to keep a positive attitude and even the occasional burst of humor. His Girlfriend Angie, has been a huge support for him, easing the burden on Jay and his wonderful, but shocked/traumatized family, as well supplying the lifeline of information and updates between Jay and the concerned, bay area music/art community. Jay has been playing wonderful, aggressively exciting, tense music in the bay area for a decade, or more? now through various bands, such as current projects BURMESE, NUCLEAR DEATH WISH, ETTRICK and other projects such as KORBER/YEDA
DUO , ELF ASS, PUKE VOMIT, plus a slew of other projects. Here’s a video of him doing an extremely rare solo noise set from 2008,
Jay has been offering his music, thoughts, and art up to the bay area (any beyond) for years and now, never asking for anything but a spot to tune up or drop his drums, but now Jay’s life is changed drastically, at least for the time being, and any dealings with the city will take years. What does this mean? JAY NEEDS OUR HELP NOW!!. He needs his rent paid, medical supplies, a wheelchair, new glasses, the list goes on and on. Now Jay, being the kindred old spirit that he is , would NEVER ask for help, even when he does need it, which is exactly why we need to come forth and bond together as am artistic community to show solidarity and help him out. To HONESTLY call a group of artists, musicians, and cultural curators a “community” or “scene” comes with certain requirements, one being mutual community support for all members when something goes wrong. A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link, and right now there is a broken link, which means the chain is not at 100% , and we need to help fix that. Jay has enormous strength and what Macho Man Randy savage would call, “intestinal fortitude”, and he WILL pull through this, but he needs our moral, emotional, creative, and FINANCIAL support above all. If you’ve ever come to a Ratskin show, and been given a free beer, take that $5 that you would’ve been charged at a bar for it, and give it to someone who needs it. Donation link is right below here… Benefit shows to be held at local underground Oakland and San Francisco venues are in the works, but for NOW , please consider making a small donation here….
This incident has shaken the entire bay area music/art community, as Jay is such an inspirational life force and positive influence for us all, it only seems natural to give it right back to him….Have other ideas how you can help? Please email us at decaycast(at)gmail.com and we’ll be sure it gets to the right people.
Love and recovery,
DR. DECAYCAST
OK. so let me say first off before we even get to the music, this is the FIRST RELEASE EVER that I have seen that comes with a JAR OF FUCKING HOMEMADE JAM. Yes Jam, I believe it was mixed berry? strawberry-rasberry? not sure but it was just as delicious as the sounds on this little number. The 3” CDr came affixed to the top of a mason jar of jam (pic coming soon), I think the first edition was 13/ and they sold out within minutes??? at a performance in downtown Oakland, CHARM & STRANGE is a duo from Oakland, CA consisting of Angie (Sharkiface, PITG, etc) and Julia Mazawa (Nice Ass Industries) This is a live show recorded from Life Changing Ministries In Oakland, CA 2010. Opens up with creekly, noir like howlings, distant trumpets ?? and plucks of horror decay into warbling records delayed and delayed. Homemade pops and crackles, turn into the creeks and cracks of doors into a distorted landscape of uncertainties, you may be STABBED at any second, or maybe you’ll just walk out alive- stumbling, alone, delusional and schitzophrenic. A Slow pulsing drone shifts in and out of a almost chopped and screwed broken jazz like trumpet and oboe sounding stuff, churning painos being pushed and pulled over the ledge of an old attic floor, glass tings of one way mirrors reverberating to a uncomfortablw put perfect pitch, and then STOP. Silence. O sorry to inform you, you might already dead. #Justsayin. There’s subtle bass throbs that ooze in and out of the creeky landscape, and then a screeching howl, and then a bass crunch transforms into looped popcorn being sucked down the drain of ones throat in slow motion. and it ENDS, just like that.
Charm & Strange is a A MUST for fans of ambient textured Horror OST slowed down played through a wind vacuum trumpet machine. Catch this due live for a taste of the sweet jams. and really folks, the CD came with fucking delicious homemade jam IN CASE YOU FORGOT, TOP THAT.
decayREVIEWS: JULIA MAZAWA “God Bows To Math” Cs (Nice Ass Industries, 2011)
A new tape from local artist, seamstress, record cutter and musician Julia Mazawa on her own Nice Ass Industries label based out of Oakland, CA. Mazawa’s setup is shockingly simple, often using just a turntable with custom cut records.This tape starts with subtle loop slices, whirled and cracked microsounds, often referencing ancient recording technologies through their crunchy and nuanced textures. Barely pouting steam whistles, distant motor putterings, lost voice recordings, ancient telegraph messages lost at sea all wash up and down in the mix into a subtle rhythmic wash. Dense delays of one sound shift through microscopic feedback manipulations and turn into other sounds leading to a new sound, but all falling back into a “locked groove” aesthetic of experimental composition.
The B side works well as a continuation of the explorations of the A side, with the loops seeming to build up density a bit quicker, and coherse the listener into a gel of subtle looping feedback controlled with pinpoint precision. Louder rhythmic pulses build up and then slowly decay into mathematical wind textures, the presence of absence also plays well into this release. The delay plays into the looping themes of the release, and provide a nice textural jacket to the sometimes raw source material. Record loops and subtle pops and purs orchestrate the backbone of these minimalist turntable?? explorations. Cassette is the perfect format for this release as the warmth of the magnet colors these sounds in a beautiful way, look out for more from her and this label, each release is more and more crafted and heading in a steady direction.
Nerfbau brain server errors result in the data congestion shutdown 200011-2012 . Here is the visual haptic logic of Error Swarms, a new compact disk offering for ill brain treatment experiments, recently made publicly available for perscription by the esteemed Resipiscent label, based out of San Francisco, CA. Nerfbau wrestles foam choaked ideal structures of mis meanings and imprisioned plastic brains in robot titanium case cages.,,,Silver iodine sulutions…IV your Last Glass….
Click below for fullscreen. Best not watched by humans, animals and/or cyborgs prone to seizures and/or/nor nervous system shutdowns. Seriously.
The track, “Plastic Head In A Cage” from the album, “Error Swarms” by Nerfbau, released 2010 on Resipiscent Records.This is Part two of two. part one coming feburary 2011
D E C A Y C A S T Magazine 