GRADIENT FADE

 

The first time I put this on I listened with intent for a few minutes and then more or less went about my afternoon with the early bars of the second track "Frost Heave" lingering in the background. I don't know when I realized that Sensory Drift was affecting my thoughts and movements, but somewhere in the middle of "Mount Analog" I had to adjust the volume (up, naturally), sit down and focus. I was focusing on the sounds to be sure, but really I was thinking about how the sounds made me feel....because the sounds made me feel. In brief moments, this recording sounds like an indie rock synth freak is trying to play funeral doom and there are other moments where it feels like a lost North Bay ambient new age relic. But in all of those moments (and all of the others), GRADIENT FADE sinks into you in a way that's hard to articulate - even the most calm and casual sounds are made with care and intent...the same way we should be treating ourselves. And maybe that's the thing, it feels like it's supposed to make you feel.

SENSORY DRIFT

BODY OF LIGHT

 

For any even casual visitor, I should be able to say that Arizona's BODY OF LIGHT moved from Ascetic House to Chondritic Sound in the 2010s and that should be enough. Gloriously dark synth....there aren't even words (right now) to capture how good this is. There's more....but for now there's this. 

VOLANTA DI AMORE

SOFT CELL

 

Hot on the heels of Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, SOFT CELL were already deep in the well documented throes of consumption by the time The Art Of Falling Apart was released in 1983. An incredibly adult synth pop record - a parade of upbeat dancefloor bangers with Almond's sweet lilt delivering legitimately dark tracks like "Loving You, Hating Me," "Forever The Same" and "Numbers," an incredibly introspective assault on consumption and promiscuity. Listening to this record in real time (or in the years after its release when I was a young teen discovering and devouring UK synth and new wave) it was just another collection of songs....I am a middle aged man now and my ears, head and heart are different. The Art Of Falling Apart is a mature and real collection of songs anchored by a tortured two verse title track. Makes me want to dance like I'm too young to drive and can't identify with any of this. Don't dismiss SOFT CELL, they're (far) more than a kitschy cover tune. 

THE ART OF FALLING APART

=============================
I'm skilled at the art of falling apart

It's the holding together, together forever

Trying all of the vices is what's doing the damage 

All the good things are bad things 

And I'm paying the prices

ASPS

 

Sometimes it takes less than ten minutes to make you reconsider. ASPS is the solo embodiment of Andrea Blake (CHROME DOME, VACUUM) and their sole release is a dose of gloriously dark, minimal(ist) Australian synth that will remind the careful listener of WAX IDOLS and TJO. The causal listener will experience dark and deliberate sonic beauty...and isn't that enough?

ASPS

SANGUINE MOON

 

The polar opposite of yesterday's bludgeoning, Portland's SANGUINE MOON creep their way into your soul with one 19+ minute dungeon synth missive. Raw, distant, bleak, minimal.....haunting, introspective....complex in its deliberate simplicity. It would be a lie to say that I seek these sounds, but it would be dishonest to not acknowledge how tight their grip on me is. 

HAUNTING DREAMS OF AN ANCIENT TIME

MISTER BARCLAY 505

 

Look....if you're paying attention at all, then it's very difficult to feel normal right now. It's very difficult to imagine a return to anything even close to normal, or how challenging the path to that return might be. Feeling helpless is fine; feeling helpless is normal. So while you're feeling helpless, here are some innocent lo-fi home recordings from a relatively nice looking fellow from Albuquerque. When I got this tape, it kinda felt like everything was more or less okay (even if it wasn't). So it's kinda pleasant to take a minute and listen to the sounds of DAVID ISAAC BARCLAY now and think about that time and rage cry for a bit before returning to the bitter and very very real knowledge that even if things do return to a kind of normal....you won't be alive to see it. FUCK DHS. FUCK ICE. FUCK MAGA. 

ULTRA LO-FI DEMO

COLOSSAL YES

 

I do not know how best to describe or discuss my feelings about Surrounded By Progress. It's like listening to SURVIVE in an entirely different realm. Like listening to future music on the radio at your dentist's office. Like the comedown from a really weird weekend....but in the form of sound. "Docile Progressions" is simultaneously ominous and beautiful.......and there's your life metaphor, you know? Ethereal synth-driven other music from the Bay Area and also from another world that you would (probably....hopefully) rather live in. There's a connection to ONCE AND FUTURE BAND which will mean something to a few readers, but really....you need ton listen to COLOSSAL YES. Because these are important sounds. 

:Surrounded By Progress:

Doesn't progress make you feel good inside?
You're idea of progress wrecks too many lives. 
=================================

SURROUNDED BY PROGRESS

VISCOUNT

 

Yo - I was not expecting this shit. Not at all. This VISCOUNT tape was mixed in with some raw grind and primitive DBeat tapes because I'm disorganised and at first glance I figured it was maybe more of the same (which would have been fine) - I was wrong as fukk. VISCOUNT is the brainchild of Lucy from HYGIENE and PRIMETIME and though this is their first (and thus far only) release, it shows a vision completely realized and presented with confidence. Retro '80s dark wave energy (of course), and then throw in a bit of SHOP ASSISTANTS, TRVST, TJO....WAX IDOLS even. If goth twee is a genre then VISCOUNT bears their banner. If good music is to your liking then this tape will stop you dead in your tracks. 

10 PAST 10

LUNAR MIASMA

 

One half hour of meticulously crafted psychedelic space sounds from LUNAR MIASMA in the form of Heavy Mist. It's just before six in the morning as I write, and this is making me dream of dreaming in the bed that is still warm....these are night sounds. Ominous, foreboding, beautiful night sounds. 

HEAVY MIST

CCCRRCCSSLLRRKKRRSSS

 

Remember a few days ago when I jawed about the creative and prolific people in my orbit? File the extended MegaKut in that same category - (very) extended orbit to be clear, but some of them are right down the 101and I perk my ears up every time these cats drop new sounds...that means I'm perking my ears up often. CCCRRCCSSLLRRKKRRSSS are a different animal, self described "electechtro noise for b-girls and boys and creeps and burnouts" that defies any kind of traditional descriptor. If ever I have shared a vibe-inducing tape on these pages...this is it.Three expansive tracks spanning almost forty minutes released by Spareorgan to accompany the CD release on Megakut. 

miami - cochi - misdirect

•••••••

KMET

 

The patience required to make dungeon synth actually work is impressive, and the artists who can properly pull it off are few and far between. To create sounds that are equal parts sinister black metal, Stranger Things soundtrack and FLOCK OF SEAGULLS is one thing - to do it with a straight face is something else entirely. Croatia's KMET will have you suspend belief....anxiously waiting for a crescendo and/or a conclusion knowing that they're only inviting you along for the journey, not the destination. Smrt Feudalizmu compiles five painfully deliberate tracks all released digitally over the last few years - final cut is the magnificent "Kuga" but don't think you'll be free when it's finished. 

SMRT FEUDALIZMU

S L E E P D E A T H

 

A stunning journey through thought and sound, S L E E P D E A T H created something truly special with 2013's Reality. Sounds found and manipulated, ancient synths resurrected. Emotions manifested as sound. It would be a disservice to describe Reality as a soundtrack to an imaginary film, though it would be easy to do (and perhaps that film should exist). These sounds deserve to be experienced solitarily, in the world that they have constructed. This release will consume a solid hour, and if you're listening properly then you will be enriched by that hour even though you will never get it back. It won't be time lost, but it will be time spent. And enrichment takes time. It's worth it. 

REALITY

KIVIRANTA

 

Nothing sounds like KIVIRANTA. No one sounds like KIVIRANTA. Hell, even KIVIRANTA doesn't sound like KIVIRANTA, because they clearly do what the fuck ever they want. I shared 2018's Dolce Vita a few years ago and yammered about the modern-indie-by-way-of-primitive-post-punk vibes and now I'm trying to wrap my head around this masterpiece from 2020. Antipsykootti is a master class in confidence - the was KIVIRANTA execute dark and minimal synths and then casually morph into tracks that land somewhere between ESPLENDOR GEOMÉTRICO and Russian rap after flirting with techno for a couple of tracks. "Kipa Ja Nautinto" is the star, a hard, drum machine driven dance floor punk smasher that stares straight in the face of most of the more subdued material on Antipsykootti, but it makes the whole release feel more cohesive at the same time....until the title track closes things down and reminds you that KIVIRANTA doesn not, in fact, sound like KIVIRANTA. 

ANTIPSYKOOTTI

SATURN AND THE SUN

 

Before I listened to this tape I tripped out on the cover and the title for a while. Something about the title specifically made me think of BASTARD NOISE - an easy through line when you say "skull tones" - and CASIO TONES FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE, which honestly makes a lot less sense but you can't always control where your thoughts go, right? But the trip is....this 2015 recording kinda lands like a weird amalgamation of those two disparate entities and I am so totally here for it. Brooding and monotonous electronics, delivered with patience and purposes...as if we didn't need any more harsh realities and/or skull tones in our lives (hint: we do...we all do). 

HARSH REALITIES, BROKEN BONES AND SKULL TONES

LAVENDER

Gloriously minimal proto-space age techno from an SF artist who quietly dropped three quiet tapes in the mid-teens that left me...wanting. Early VOLTAIRE vibes mingling with modern interpretations of primitive house...LAVENDER are (were) a journey inward in the best possible way. 

HORIZONS BENEATH THE SURFACE

NEGATIVE GEMINI

 

The beauty in the first (?) NEGATIVE GEMINI release is that it's distant and....not just untouchable, but unattainable. Because it's not for you. These four songs sound wonderful this morning, there are moments that might even make you feel good (at least in a moment) and these sounds are there for you to appreciate. But you can never have them - and you can feel that distance when you listen. I could discuss the ominous dance floor sensuality of "Ghost World" and the repetitive "All I Ever Wanted Was To Feel Again..." plea that swims through the beats, but those beats have been analyzed since they appeared on Forget Your Future in 2013 (with versions of the other three songs contained here) so I'll just let you...listen. And maybe that line in “Ghost World” is actually “All I Ever Wanted Was To Feel OK” or maybe it’s both. It sounds wonderful, even if you are not. 

NEGATIVE GEMINI

MENTAL ANGUISH

 

I dug this tape out of a Portland shop last spring. It was raining that day, and the bloke working in the register didn't say a word the whole time I was in the store....just flipped over a fee jazz record and kept doing something on the computer. I bought a few other things that day, but this is the one that I feel like I walked in for - you know what that's like? As if the other thing that you wanted was actually just a thing that was leading you to this. I can't describe MENTAL ANGUISH, but this dude was on (is on) and entirely different trip. Like a no budget '80s alien movie soundtrack come to life in this realm (Residue is from 1987, so in that realm as well), these are sounds of electronic isolation and theoretical escape. With over 100 releases to his name it's clear that I will never reach the bottom of this well, but I want to meet the MENTAL ANGUISH completist. Space rock for another life - I haven't even scratched the surface, and I still don't know what I walked into that record store to dig for.

RESIDUE

DIE LETZTEN ECKEN

 

Absolute next level '80s EBM worship. Drawing from the dark clubs of East Berlin, sputtering NDW and hard hitting dance floor bangers.....DIE LETZTEN ECKEN land somewhere between CABARET VOLTAIRE and NITZER EBB without aping or suffering from anything that came before them. Shit is perfect. 

TALISMAN

ANCIENT SCROLLS

 

Sometimes the perfect things appear exactly when you need them. Not when you're looking for them or when you want them...but when you need them. This ANCIENT SCROLLS tape has been in my possession for some time (exactly when it arrived? I'll never know because we aren't just talking about physical possession here, right?), I had easy access to it and had scanned my gaze right past it dozens of times before I reached for it last week. I reached for it, I popped it in the stereo, and I continued about my day - until ANCIENT SCROLLS slowly but very steadily made its presence felt. Having a conversation? There were the sounds. Feeding the cat? Listen to this. Getting some mundane housework taken care of? ANCIENT SCROLLS are with you. Until the only conversation was about this - this present (double meaning absolutely intentional). And now, ANCIENT SCROLLS are everywhere. The sound is something like an astral collision of TANGERINE DREAM, SURVIVE and OZRIC TENTACLES....but I'm not just talking about the sound. Or the tape. The tape is a physical representation, and the tape sounds fucking cool. But I'm talking about the perfeft things that come into your life exactly when you need them, no matter how long they've been there.

ANCIENT SCROLLS

COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICT

 

Imagine you're on a walk (because you're young in this imagination, and you don't go on "hikes" yet) in the woods behind your house. Or a friend's house. Or your aunt's house. And you stumble on something that piques your interest. So you move some leaves. Or you dig a little. And maybe you're not alone and your friend (or your cousin) helps you and you're both curious. Not excited yet, but definitely curious. As you scrape and/or dig, you hear...something...and now you are excited so the scraping and/or digging becomes more fervent. Discovering things lost in the woods is a special thing when you're young. A coin, an old beer can, a rotting nudie mag, someone else's mail, a photograph - it all has a story and when you find it, you're the author. But today (or that day, in that imagination), as you scrape and/or dig, you've uncovered a moment. COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICT are (in) that moment and you've arrived...uninvited and very welcome. You (and your friend or your cousin) stumbled upon a sound and an experience. And in that moment (this: moment), you cannot imagine ever walking out of the woods to your other home. Or your friend's house. Or you aunt's house. Because you are in this now. You are here. It's okay to be scared...you can have Some Fear, but you are here now. It's okay. Just listen. 

SOME FEAR