In this ever-expanding musical world, there's a wealth of 7-inches, cassettes, CD-Rs, and objet d'art being released that, due to their limited quantities and adventurous sonics, go unnoticed by the public at large. TMT Cerberus seeks to document the aesthetic of these home recorders and backyard labels. Access the archive here and email us here.
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Steve Gunn
Steve Gunn [CD-R]
[Abandon Ship; 2008]
http://www.abandonshiprecords.com
By Gabriel Keehn
Since 2005, Steve Gunn has simultaneously been channeling Cecil Sharp and Vasant Rai with super-trio GHQ along with Marcia Bassett and Pete Nolan. On his first solo album, originally released by Onomato in 2007, Gunn doesn't stray very far from the work done in that group. Gunn works with highly complex, layered improv guitar lines (both acoustic and electric) occasionally allowing some hyper-spare percussion into the mix, and once (on the fourth track “Two of Ammon”) working in ethereal vocal harmonies. These songs, ranging in length from four-and-a-half minutes to over fifteen, are able to slide back and forth from traditional American folk to classical Indian-inspired jams and back without anybody, perhaps even Gunn himself, taking notice. As simple as it would be to lump this release and the rest of Gunn's work into the en vogue category of “New Weird America,” the music refuses all attempts and, in reality, is even simpler than that. What we have here is just a great guitarist and his instrument going places.
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Blues Control
"Snow Day b/w Paul's Winter Solstice" [7-inch]
[Sub Pop; 2008]
http://www.subpop.com
By Mangoon
The latest installment in the resurgent Sub Pop singles club sees Russ and Lea of Brooklyn's Blues Control sounding here a bit more like Dusseldorf's Ralf and Florian. On these two new slabs of seasonal psychedelia, the duo crank out some monumentally wistful sounds; Snow Day has Lea Cho's heavy-handed electric piano taking center stage, shifting from religious ascension to Stygian descent on a dime and invoking keyboard geniuses from Riley to Glass to Budd in addition to those aforementioned krauts. Partner Russ Waterhouse compliments Cho with a wintry mix of instrumentation, from the sleigh bells on Paul's "Winter Solstice" to the high-pitched wisps of theremin at the end of "Snow Day." This record may be the perfect soundtrack for the idyllic scene in which I sit gazing out of my back window, where the snow gently falls amidst the backdrop of the dilapidated shack that quaintly lies there.
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Topaz Rags
California Ash [CS]
[Not Not Fun; 2008]
http://www.notnotfun.com
By Jspicer
New trio Topaz Rags exist in a cave of tortured souls with California Ash, their desperate voice for help. Side A features laissez-faire snare, keys, and bass, as if mimicking a slow, agonizing decline into hell, weighed down by the chains of Lucifer's minions. The hollow wails and echoes, reminiscent of Pocahaunted, serve as constant reminders that the trip down is worse than reaching the destination. Side B — the destination — may carry a happier tune with keys twinkling, but soon the fire pits swallow Topaz Rags whole, with the cries of the damned creating a wall of faint distortion, transforming the tune into the last testament of the suffering.
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(VxPxC)
Second Street Tunnel [CD-R]
[House of Alchemy; 2008]
http://www.thehouseofalchemy.com
By Gabriel Keehn
Los Angeles trio (VxPxC) has, in the span of just a few years (starting roughly in 2005 or 06), amassed a startlingly deep and complex discography. One look through the bevy of releases listed on their website and you'll see that picking a point of departure from which to explore the shifting subterranean world of (VxPxC) is no easy task. That being said, this disc is a fantastic place to begin spelunking. The particular talents of the trio are showcased here in all their beautiful diversity. The four tracks on this disc vary greatly, from deep-dish drone fantasies topped with scuzzed-out cries, to Sunburned-esque groove exercises driven by strange synth pitches and suppressed percussion. The real treat is the final track, “Little Tokyo,” a gorgeous piece of reverb worship that wraps itself in truly soulful harmonica hums, far off whistles, and muffled groans -- a slice of Midwestern melancholia to top everything off. Second Street Tunnel comes packaged in an absolutely fabulous fabric bag with a psychedelic insert.
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Wooden Shjips
"Vampire Blues" b/w "I Can Hear the Vibrations" [7-inch]
[Sick Thirst; 2008]
http://www.sickthirst.com
By Mangoon
The latest seafaring adventure from the Shjips has the San Fran psychonauts applying their pineal guitar fuzz, punchy bass, and organ telepathy to Neil Young's classic cut "Vampire Blues" on the A-side, while the flip has the slower burning toe-tapper "I Can Hear the Vibrations" whose soul-flanging wah and Stooges stomp conjures up the spirit of the '60s. Destined to be another coveted piece of wax in the Shjip's catalog, this tour issue 7-inch, of which a meager 500 were pressed, should remind you of why you got into psychedelic music in the first place.
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Swamp Horse
Gravity [CS]
[Husk; 2008]
http://www.geocities.com/huskrecords/huskrecords
By Gabriel Keehn
Generally, one of the most common tropes in noise music is attempting to create the most sonically terrifying experience possible. Often taking their cues from legendary horror directors and writers (Argento, Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Herschell Gordon Lewis etc.), artists such as The Cherry Point and Werewolf Jerusalem have striven to achieve that same type of classical, distilled, pure form of fear. On this cassette, Kentucky duo Swamp Horse (comprised of Husk Records head honcho Josh Lay and Morgan Rankin) have truly raised the bar in sheer lunatic paranoid terror. Unearthly wind instruments wail over a distorted guitar strum, bleeding into heavy breathing and echoing clatter. An utterly maniacal half-cackling, half-yelping voice takes over halfway through the A-side, orating over an ominous drone and clanging. The B-side is a bit more traditionally affecting, with grittier, more grating noise that sounds like the Devil himself is drilling through your headphones and is after something inside your brain. Seriously malicious touches -- like suddenly unexpectedly ramping up the volume -- make this a real peek-over-your-shoulder affair. I'm never moving to Kentucky.
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Russian Tsarlag
Community Death Tube [LP]
[Night People; 2009]
http://www.raccoo-oo-oon.org/np
By Jspicer
Carlos Gonzalez exists in a plane only visited by the mad and the genius. Community Death Tube, Gonzalez's first full-length LP, channels the mantras of Jandek and R. Stevie Moore. Combining discordant tunes with conversational lyrics, Gonzalez picks us up and gently places us into the world he is slowly combining. Community Death Tube's only kin may be Mark Tucker's Batstew, but Gonzalez prophesizes behind a jangled mess of strings and makeshift percussion rather than having a rhetorical discussion with his car. While not as unnerving as his predecessors, Gonzalez taps into our carnal instinct to question everything around us -- the spacey semantics of “Lelarlip,” the bored beach punk of “Roungina,” and the dedicated chants of “Ring a Bell” — like those who came before. The reality of Russian Tsarlag is not our reality nor should it be, but the frosted window we're allowed to view Gonzalez through reminds us that our existence may be a falsity.
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FM3
Buddah Machine 2.0 [objet d'art]
http://www.fm3buddhamachine.com
By Mangoon
2005's original Buddah Machine was a seminal objet d'art. Part listening device, part musical instrument, and part meditation machine, it was possibly the first commercially successful piece of mass-marketed sound art. Of course, by now we all know the story of Eno snatching them up in droves, and you may have heard music made on that original green incarnation of the machine from the likes of Sunn O))), Sick Llama, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Sun City Girls just to name a few. Now the 2.0 version is retrofit with 9 new ambient loops and a variable pitch controller. Coming in three new bold, but classy colors -- burgundy, grey, and brown -- this device yields a world full of potential applications; sit in the lotus and listen to it on its internal speaker, or plug some headphones in and doze off in the hammock. Plug it into your mixer or run it through a delay pedal and feel your kundalini rise. In fact, it's encouraged by its creators (Beijing's Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian) to be used in making music, so why not buy a few and really achieve enlightenment?
