twig & carly, heresee
CROWD SURF MY SOUL: tape trades and alien headwraps.
Pax Titania - Moons of Paragynia cass (Rampart)
Who is this?? With releases also on Hanson and this on Trevor Tremaine from Hair Police’s label, I ve seen this name been thrown favourably around. Side A is all chugging lurs of gluey tar synth is brooding, cool. But it really picks up on side B/logic progession where like light beams meet Dark Side of the Moon style, this chuggy ebowed murk is riding free w/ a Ecstasy Rainbow and shooting across the ocean like the spaceship in Flight of the Navigator. Deep hyperspace trip/channelled vortex high low mix into triumph bliss. A mighty ode to cough syrup time travel. (www.ramparttapes.com)
Hair Police - Fear of Sleep c10 (Hospital Productions)
NIGHT TERRORS. Dosed out waking up in a sweat covered in cockroach tract marks. Awesome colour artwork of bugs tacked to fly paper, crude sellotape and a ink sluttered Xerox psychedelic squid assembly, which pretty much sums up this release. Underwater ,clogged like the last notes of a failed deep sea dive written in morse code and found dragged up w/ distempered fish entrails, this is dark psychedelia at its best. (www.hospitalproductions.com)
Death Unit+ Prurient- Terminal Cases 2x3”CD (Archive CD)
Death Unit -Infinite Death CD (Important)
Dominick Fernow aka Hospital label head and harsh noise artist Prurient, shows some embryonic forms of what later surfaces in the excellent Pleasure Ground album initially self released as a small run cass and reissued later last year on Load. This recording , taken from the same night at a concert at Tonic NYC in 2005, is more recent Prurient style of slower, brooding purring dark waste. Blown out and a more last rites style vocal delivery, this is a great take on modern Power Electronics and whilst I love the Prurient off old 3 minute mic feedback blitzoid delivery, I feel this is closer to his self styled “negative meditation”, operating somewhere between Grunt and Keiji Haino and a deeply dark romantic outlook.
death unitDeath Unit is the project from 2005 of Carlos Giffoni on electronics, drummers Trevor Tremaine and Chris Corsano and guitar/eletronics of Brian Sullivan. Essentially a wild psychedelic noise wigout somewhere in the vain of C.C.C.C. and Jimi Hendrix with a from the start, unpaused mid solo style execution up there with Dream Aktion Unit. Infinite Death features 2 tracks, a studio and a live one. The live track is in the same vein pummelling wild energy ritual, whilst the studio is more considered and more space is given for each part to breathe. Opening with the free jazz drumming it quickly unleashes onto to Borbatomagus style pummelling of guitar and microwaved mind electronics, before kicking off into one big trip. ( www.ArchiveCD.com) (www.importantrecords.com)
Withdrawal Method- s/t c30 ( Since 1972)
Heavy scum junk verite soul. Haze like a 5am puddle reflection, except this cloud is looking into oil. Brooklyn resident Drew Demeter’s sound is more industrial city quarter than Industrial music as a genre. Less alienated than a wholly Alien sound, Withdrawal Method is like Sun Ra only allowed to perform w/ metal objects and drowning in tape trying to perform a Houdini style escape. On first listen his sound can be in the harsh noise almost power electronics as sound field but it has a whole other WEIRD psychedelic feel. Flip side has a heavy gurner feel crude engines, molten glass and total intuition. One of the best.
Tusco Terrror- Tusco Black ( Tusco Embassy tapes)
Forest of No Relief (Heresee CDR)
Hands down my favourite new band. Mysterious outfit from Ohio who started out as a video piece in four parts, TT soon went on to become a ‘band proper’ and have a whole plethora of various cass and split cass releases. Sounds like field recordings from hidden Dictaphones of utterly surreal sleepwalks, if the tape was voice activated crude snippets , real huh? Mystery. Dark, not more WEIRD than anything else.Real crude aesthetic in the vein of Filthy Turd and maybe even Macronympha in the contact mic’d junk approach, but if it were to be a chopped and screwed soundtrack to El Topo and Nick Zedd films simultaneous. Screenprinted on a black card case, sums it up well. A real great trajectory /example of modern psychedelic music.
Forest of No Relief is an earlier release from 2003 and more weirdo sound poetry in parts hell I’m tempted to say it even borders on Runzelstirn and Gurgelstock territory, which is ALWAYS a good thing. Upside down and inside out. Hungover just woken up early style broken mysticism. (I guess you could throw in Nautical Almanac as spiritual heirs) and one of the great live bands this year to boot. (www.heresee.com)
Dylan Nyoukis - Dadgum My Bubblegum c30 (Hanson)
Initially slated for release in 99, and finally released last year. Brighton resident and owner of the Chocolate Monk imprint and coordinator of this years Colour Out of Space outsider art/film/music festival This is a classic all out hyper screwed sound poetry in HYPER outsider outer space realisation. All vocal tape loops mixed so rough its like they were stepped on to be edited has all the tics of ADD child delirious with mind losing weirdo huh??? Genius title too.
(www.hansonrecords.com) (www.chocolatemonk.co.uk)
Emeralds - s/t c30 (Hanson) -Ledges (Gneiss Things) - Golden Swirl (Wagon) - Untitled (Wagon)
Having had the pleasure of spending a month and 19 shows with this band, the transfer for live to tape is equally rewarding. Heavy blankets of meditative mist. Super zoned out and mild, yet labyrinth intricacies pervade these textured pieces. So hard to believe these Cleveland,Ohio 22 year olds who have only been around for a little over a year can be so focused in their vision. Incrediblly delicate yet veering on the edge of blown out taking their cues from side 2 of a Tangerine Dream or Kitaro LP their sound is just so fucking expansive its unreal. To say im anticipating their LP for Hanson is a understatement.
(www.hansonrecords.net) (www.emeraldsohio.tk)
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