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DecaycastREVIEWS : P.C.R.V. “Note To Self” CD (LEM , 2013)

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DecaycastREVIEWS : P.C.R.V. “Note To Self” CD (LEM , 2013)

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P.C.R.V. is the longstanding project of Billings, MT based artist Matt Taggart . His PCRV Project historically has focused on harsh noise (passionately crafted with intent and direction) In a blend of a cut-up and wall styles of noise PCRV squeaks out intense soundscapes of conceptual noise music. Newer, more recent recorded works and performances have somewhat abandoned P.C.R.V.’s “signature style” so to speak, for a more fluxes / dada / playful/ conceptual approach to sound and performance; this newer style possesses no lack of excitement or interest though, almost always holding the same tension that the HARSH noise recordings do, just in a different and unique way.
“Note To Self” is no exception- a blending of all his styles – harsh noise, Minimalist breaks , tension, multi dimensional uses of sound through varied sound sources and rules of engagement with said sound sources, occasional jazz like sputterings and “field recordings” who knows? Who cares really , cause it sounds CRUNCHY. PCRV shows he as a near uncanny ability to navigate these drastically different styles of sound preparation and intent.

On the cover, “Note To Self” Boasts an intricate, yet crude collage by the artist himself – which is the perfect visual representation of the sounds existing within this album. PCRV’s sound palette has been quite diverse over the years and this disc is no exception. Jumping from harsh and blown out to subtle, conceptual and super minimal gives the listener a wide array of sonic possibilities and interactions, even the harsh sounds in this disk have a playfulness to them, the artists intention ? Really comes through in an interesting way. It’s a game – but it’s not . And also catch this dude LIVE if you get the chance, you may not know what to expect ; DADA / FLUXUS games or HARSH FUCKING NOISE, but it’s a great treat either way – TOP NOTCH.

LOVE EARTH MUSIC

P.C.R.V.

written by. Malo

“ORIGINALS” : DECAYCAST INTERVIEWS OAKLAND’S WEIRD EAR RECORDS

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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“

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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!

Raub and Dianne,
Weird Ear Records

PEER GROUP “Igbo Basic Course” Cs (Rainbow Bridge Recordings, 2012)

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PEER GROUP “Igbo Basic Course” Cs (Rainbow Bridge Recordings, 2012)

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Another project of the multi project noise bandstander JML and label Rainbow Bridge Recordings, collaborating with Carl Kruger. PEER GROUP is chock full with dense, splattering whirlwinds of sarcastic electronic noise storm washes. this cassette has a raw, low fi crude shrink wrap encasing its clawing and unrelenting swashes of electronic chaos. About five minutes in a section of fluttering wet wood pounding around an abandoned shipyard comes to mind – the ship is sinking and the machines are fighting to the death. Violent analog rhythms clash and decay into squealing circuits; chirping, purging, burping, and pulsing- in “harmony”?, and often in opposition but never in a moment of boredom. Timing is key for me on this release, just as a sound starts to become uninteresting or too dominant in the mix, it’s swallowed up by an off-white noise wall, splatter choking sounds of globs of solder and failed transmissions coming alive. Tiny scratching sounds of a broken motor hissing and scraping- trying to bring itself back to life through walls of stuttering oscillators ticking at each other through nervous collage. Heavy handed autonomous electronic noise boxes belch crude distorted tones that swallow each other alive and regurgitate high paced, anxious electronic pulses and rhythms. At times, LOUD violent scraping, and others subtly random oscillator drone poem, PEER GROUP explores a dense sonic palette of squelch.

The latter part of the first half sounds like it could be “studio” tracks, but still boasts an affinity for a harsh low fi sonic screen.The mastering is in fact pushed to “IN THE RED” levels pwhich allows the tape saturation to act like a fine hair gel compression, gluing this chaos intact.

The b side begins with a quiet static flickering, combining resonating pulses, what sounds like branches breaking inside a reverb tank, with subtle chirping hums slowly escalating in the background. LOUD to quiet, to loud again. Layers of yapping distortion form a convex oscillator orchestra of babbling tones, fighting a war for a place in the mix. Layers of sonic sludge phase each other out and then an alarm sounds ; the mixer is on the verge of melting – and then it does, and you can hear it. The unmistakable sounds of circuits frying on loop regurgitating their own dead cells through speakers; it sounds soooo , comforting. Next , a quiet section is bread and gives breath to mangled voice ? Samples and a distant minimal pulsing , just clipping away on a distant plane, barely audible and then BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ a chopped in bass “doom note” changes the listeners orientation, and quickly escalates the mix from a symphony of chirping oscillators to a menacing caucophanou of disorientating hymns from voice ,noise boxes and malfunction, a sharp appropriate ending for a tape that builds and then destroys , through nervous towers of harsh squeaking and squawking. Xeroxed covers portray a shaky, hand drawn figure with teeth and eyes of confusion. The track titles and lengths really seal the deal for me with titles like, “STD Booth At the Occupy Protest” and “Penis Bleaching in the Google Era” who KNOWS what the motivation behind these sounds, though I would like to hear a proper studio release from this project. Check it out.

Decaycast REVIEWS: ZONE TRIPPER / FALSE FLAG split Cs (Fiorever Escaping Boredom Records, 2012)

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Decaycast REVIEWS: ZONE TRIPPER / FALSE FLAG split Cs (Fiorever Escaping Boredom Records, 2012)

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I like this cassette before I even pop it in. The cover artwork , like a lot of stuff from this label, FOREVER ESCAPING BOREDOM Records, has a clean, intentional design to it . The artist uses provocative dark imagery, without being overly sensational, or shocking “for the sake of it”. Zone Tripper occupies the speakers right off the bat with a dense, yet well mixed dark synth backing track with rhythmic high patched pitched noise stabs over the top, creating a dark, slow hypnotic , minimal industrial landscape, the chaos keeps building and tension rises and next thing you know, your on your back with a shaking maniac screaming in your face through a seemingly endless tunnel of manic shivering reverb. The sound is as if someone is shaking your body so violently that the ears begin opening and closing ago fast that the brain becomes disoriented to the helicopter like air pressure change in the sonic stew. BUILDING, building and building, the yelling vocals begin to build atop pillars of their own decaying existence into and nauseous, menacing swell, and then its over, it feels unnerving and wrong, a stellar short offering from the ZONE TRIPPER project.

The B side is JML of Rainbow Bridge’s under the False Flag moniker, COPS are exposed for the stuck pig knife in the brain in the system that they are – and the baton comes cracking against the listeners ear fresh out of the cell- and disorientation, fear, and distrust begin multiplying by the second. Harsh, industrial pounding, and growling barely audible rhythms of everything that’s wrong with authority , and that’s everything. Super dense, dark, evil zones of sonic corruption on this tape of bloody evidence gone bad. No silly squealing or squelching, just dark punishing oscillators sonically soaked in pigs blood. Thick, evil sounding walls of motorcycle engines rearing their output to light a sonic molotov cocktail of screaming noise- DARK DARK SOUNDS, the HOPE YOU HAD IS GONE ; a sonic manifestation of the failed system . Toward the end, yelled  manic vocals pulse in, but  still give the mix  it’s space; a nice touch.  I don’t know what else to say but this tape SLAYS. Two really strong sides of murky, fuzzed out fascist killing industrial noise works. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

FOREVER ESCAPING BOREDOM RECORDS

Decaycast REVIEWS : INAPPROPRIATE KING LIVE “DATABOOMBAAT” c60 (Rainbow Bridge Recordings, 2012)

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Decaycast REVIEWS : INAPPROPRIATE KING LIVE “DATABOOMBAAT” c60 (Rainbow Bridge Recordings, 2012)
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Inappropriate King Live is another project of Rainbow Bridge founder Justin Marc Lloyd. This sixty minute cassette with xeroxed art and a slab of paint on the shells subtly boasts IKL etched into the off red paint, starts out with a hybrid melodic cacophony of pleasurable tones which seems to start to decay into a blended swelling swirling rainbow of distorted fuzz transmissions , swiftly shifting from musical “tones” to collage to straight up oscillator tinkering. JML crafts a subtle yet enigmatic blend of electronic sounds though a barrage of tools and weapons of sound at his fingertips; a woman’s voice breaks through the transmission and asked a question?  Then, piercingly high-pitched delayed feedback loops obliterate her intention and the listener is dropped on their head once again ; with a large dark swell of negativity, an endless tunnel of reverberated shaking sound. Aesthetically, IKL takes the kitchen sink approach to electronics with a wide array of sound sources creating harsh, raw, and at times primitive motifs on manipulated and distorted “blown out to the max” sounds, creating a crafty and luscious array of electronic torture. For good dynamic exploration Lloyd uses the occasional throbbing bass beats as a turncoat to break through the chaos and point the listener in a new direction, but the background sounds of failed transmissions never totally vanish . The tape begins to swell up to a crescendo again and almost instantly the listener is deported into a dark techno hell with a throbbing bass be in chirping send the blue blush overtones back to be entitled listener out of noise and onto the dance floor without losing its edge. The beat slowly is muddied and this ship of sonic chaos begins to sink – the beat however is hypnotically throbbing underwater- Tangerine Dream is all of The sudden playing on a micro cassette player being flushed down a european toilet Shimmering synth chords and strikes decay out as the beat drops out for good. A stunning stylistic jump for just one side of this tape.

The second Side is more of the same nomadic structure, or lack thereof , sounds swelling of cacophony , nervousness , and ebbing back to calm “field” recordings that burp a low din , and then crescendo into towering noise blasts, throbbing broken beats, screeching synths, and mangled vocals gelling to the sound that is Justin Mark Lloyd’s Inappropriate King Live project , will be looking forward to more from this interesting glued and screwed outfit.

INAPPROPRIATE KING LIVE

RAINBOW BRIDGE RECORDINGS

DecaycastREVIEWS : Alessandro Bosetti “Stand Up Comedy ” LP (Weird Ear Records, 2012)

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DecaycastREVIEWS : Alessandro
Bosetti “Stand Up Comedy ” LP (Weird Ear Records, 2012)

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Alessandro Bosetti is a self reflexive spoken word/conceptual/voice collage artist who offers up a unique release for the newly formed Weird Ear imprint, from Oakland,CA. This LP breaks interesting new ground with it’s playful, conceptual nature using mostly recorded voice, and collage. Bosetti works with gentle subtle textures in the background which bubble to foreground paint by numbers style follow along voice collages. DROP the needle and listen as the words circulate in a nauseous pattern of field recordings, ” interviews”, subtle tape manipulation artifacts, and self-reflexing tape cut ups for “talk radio like ” framework around cut up,conceptual based voice pieces. Sometimes playing like an interview with himself , other times a playful Dadaist / surrealist / Burroughs esque game Like approach is used; where Bossetti seems to cut himself in and out of different conversations, interviews, monologues and the like. “Stand Up Comedy”
References early “cut up method pieces” while still injecting compositional choices and subtle manipulations which break itself from the chains of “randomness” , yet “confusion” and “playfulness” seem to multiply a central theme ; intention becomes muddy as parts seem like happy accidents, where others seem cut and spliced with surgical knife like precision. Stand Up
Comedy is just a spoken word “work” but it’s not – it’s self referential and obvious with it’s cuts and pastes yet background sounds and minimalist “composed sections” bleed through and are given life through the sea of broken chatter ; the sound of the human voice- sometimes interesting, often “creepy” and almost always “idiosyncratic”. in it’s editing approach, which Bosetti makes no effort to hide through amplitude, fidelity and tonal differences between separate recordings, gives it an overall ebb and flow of abstraction of place and time; there is NO STUDIO, Bosetti leaks a conceptual gem, once the listener begins to LOOK and LISTEN at the same time.

And more about the record, the object,
For me the GLUE of this release Weird Ear Records really went for gold straight out of the gate on this album- top notch production from mastering, to design, to Concept, to the final
Presentation – a RARITY These days – especially from
a brand spanking new label. WER001 “Stand Up
Comedy” presents itself in the form a stunning picture disc (WITH MEANING ) the words of the recording are printed on the record- spiraling from the beginning inward – and GET THIS – they actually nearly almost always match up to what’s being played/said on the record at any given time- the needle reads a word ; LITERALLY —- WHAT???!?!? Y E S – a “dictation record” . Once I realized the link between the sound and the image , the concept sort of blew my mind.; A record bleeding self referentiality to the sound that the ear is sucking on – oh, what a joy. Often times the text is interesting, often times it seems “random” bit it never loses it’s form, pacing and style. “Spoken word” is not really my thing, but than again this isn’t really “spoken word”
TOP NOTCH RELEASE – will be looking out for more from
BOSSETTI and WEIRD EAR RECORDS
<br /

DecayREVIEWS : Nite Shadez “BLACK HOLES FOR THE FACE / AND A GRAVEYARD” cs (OOBR, 2012)

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DecayREVIEWS : Nite Shadez “BLACK HOLES FOR THE FACE / AND A GRAVEYARD” cs (OOBR, 2012)
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Most of the stuff on Denton, TX Out of Body Records we do happen to like quite alright, and this tape is no exception. Nite Shadz crafts a low reflective rumbling of dissonant – at times rock ish . At times noise , and at times WTF industrial music. Put on your specs ON and listen to the discarding dictation of the human – cyborg interaction. N S is like a John Carpenter film on acid through a growling Pitch shifter- distorted lines of a non linear plain – all whilst being flushed down the proverbial toilet of noise- in reverse. crawling, swelling ominous yells, thizzing and pummeling broken guitars ? Synths ? And pummeling smashing sparse drums ? A kit ? A machine ? Not quite sure what they are using but it’s all used well – the instrumentation seems pretty simplistic and bare bones – which makes this unique style of rock/industrial / drone function in an interesting
Manner – ALL SOUNDS ATE IMPORTANT. one never quite gets the sense of where the sound is going next but it goes SOMEWHERE , dark , brooding and fuzzing out the whole time .

NITE SHADZ IS. A broken eighteen wheeler, grinding its motors down to the final smashing gears, before sonic shrapnel is sent thrusting into the earths ears, splitting them open and lacerating a ne cochlear for the sounds of N S. to blaze forth in a purple hell . Can’t tell if it’s two people or six which I guess is a good thing as the sounds seem gelled together quite nice.

The cover art is just straight up odd and spectacular at the Same time. Full color high quality art with a minimal transparency depicting what appears to be the ghost of the dark shade. A all around beautiful Atape of an interesting style of hybridized style of fuzz,, noise , industrial VHS drum hiss , smashed guitars, and synths stuck in hell – Nite Shadz concocts the pefect road soda of heavy and “chill hell” music — even even even and at times dare I say dare i say dare i say — slugged out rock (NOT in a bad way ) This tape was sent for review to us , but if they release anything else I’ll be sending some ducket$ their way for sure – top notch stuff by a great label.

http://outofbodyrecords.blogspot.com/

decayREVIEWS: DEIGN “PECUNIARY HUCKSTER” C20 (OOBR)

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Out Of  Body Records  is at it  again, WE  REALLY LIKE THIS IMPRINT!! And up next is a project from PTM Jim…
DEIGN cuts, chops,  hisses, smashes and pisses  their way through intense, dynamic cut up chopped sounds and emotions, at  times screeching and at times  rumbling,  jarring, dark,  the sound of  entropy.  High pitched washes of  white noise, sucking out your  last breaths The DEIGN  soundsdrum up to menacing  shaking pulses of  doubt, alienation, nervousness, sound mixes with blood, pus, and  disease  plagued cochlear. Stainless steel easrplugs cant  save  you from this  menacing sound clawing in your ear and  carving it out from the inside. There is someone watching you, waiting, broken brain, ready to attack and  throw your motionless  corpse back into the  cog  of the machine where it was spawned from. THIS IS  DARK DARK CUT UP SOUNDS.

Rumpling pules, chaotic feedback modulation, scratchy cut up (tape?) sounds, industrialized distant  rhythms, blood hymns, and unknown objects pushed in the red seemlessly  blend together  different  levels of the  conspiracy of  self doubt-  This  tape contains sounds to break down the  psyche and  start over. MEANINGS  regurtitating themselves in the form of  the sounds of a pack of  rabid dogs being slayed in the  distance, approaching, the  blood smell is metallic, a grating, gnarley wind of  death   invades your  ears and into the skull. Personal political monsters are no match for this  alienating anomaly.

Look as the eye  in the sky proves you are alone from your  own perspective,  while a nervous, scattering, broken machine subtly yet  intrusively hovers above. DEIGN is  top notch in the  harsh/cut up/industrial, whatever  the  fuck game.  Check this out, as  it’s becoming a treat to  hear a project in this aesthetic vein that works  with such care and  intent. Dark, cynical, jarring cut up industrial / noises played with purpose and a nod to the void at the same time.  The  art  and overall production value of this release is no  surprise as  Denton, TX Out Of Body Records  delivers  top notch production value which elevates this  tape to  another  level.

writted by malo

 

DEIGN

Out Of  Body Records

decayREVIEWS: KILT “La Santa Muerte” cs (2012)

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US scattered super group KILT, (Bob Bellerue, Raven Chacon, and AndorKappen recently made a trek through the Bay Area a few weeks ago and farted out one of these little tour tapes my direction, It’s a cassette version of a forthcoming LP, (which I was lucky enough to receive one of the test presses for (mwahahaha) but the cassette will get the review as it’s exists in it’s final form.
Popped this lil sucker into the stereo. Intro’s with slow winds, creeks, gentle shudders, and whisps from a distant cracked window. This seems unusually nerving for this dynamic outfit, yet the intensity starts building, building, building, and clawing at your inner most ear hole, crawling in and leaving a vile sonic infection which begins to ooze and pus with the blackened fluids that is “La SantaMuerte”. Before your system can react, flesh is pummeled with barely discernable vocals, pummeling feedback, high pitched cuts and scrapes, buzzing distortions, oscillators- POWERFUL SOUNDS. Peaking and troughing with dynamic rhythmic slams, ascending frequency modulations, and, the tension of metal cables snapping, architectural misfortunes – KILT ebbs and flows like the shifting of California’s unstable tectonic plate museum. A dark, chaotic machine chugging through the batten landscape of a failed system.

Flip this little devil and it’s more of the same. Dense thought out composition, harsh, vibrating spaces are carved out with scientific precision, theatrical dynamics, and swelling bass and distortion. Occasionally locking into a groove and then dicinigrating said groove within seconds, gives this release dark, yet traceable pacing – a must for fans of harsh noise, and negative spaces. This power trio does not disappoint in the slightest with this release, be sure to pick up the LP as soon as it drops, if it sounds good on tape, it should warm up nice in helllllllllll……..

Written By: Malo

KILT

HALF NORMAL

DECAYreviews: JULIA MAZAWA “God Bows To Math” Cs (Nice Ass Industries, 2011)

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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.

Nice Ass Industries

Overall : 8.2/13

written by : malo