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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Sean McCann & Dave McPeters
Rover Encyclopedia Vol. 1: Fishing [CD-R]
[Roll Over Rover; 2009]
http://rolloverrover.org
By Jspicer
The second batch of releases from ROR find DIY darling Sean McCann sharing two releases with friends: a split cassette with Black Eagle Child and this CD-R, a live collaboration with Dave McPeters. Fishing is the first in a promised series of live recording documentations, and it certainly doesn't disappoint. Just short of 50 minutes, the three long-runners from McCann and McPeters blend synth and guitar into a foggy drone, a drowsy kin to Alan Sparhawk's 2006 solo opus, Solo Guitar. With Sparhawk, it was boats creaking into harbor; with McCann and McPeters, it happens to revolve around the idea of fishing — the ripples of water caused by a perfectly thrown cast; the bubbles from mouthy trout and bass hoping to gulp a safe morsel of food; the gentle sway of an aluminum boat heavy with bait and ore. Fishing captures the leisurely pace of a hobby built on man grappling with nature's least threatening creature, and often as it is, McCann and McPeters deliver a cooler full of prized catches.
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Justin Meyers
Permanent Pressure [CS]
[Tone Filth; 2009]
http://tonefilth.org
By Mangoon
The barely audible tone tweaks present on Permanent Pressure offer an extreme sort of subliminal therapy. Falling somewhere in between the current crop of La Monte Young-inspired tonal wanderers and the altered states achieved through the application of binaural beats, Permanent Pressure acts as a visionary's guide to the world of unperceived forces, and it's more than just a placebo. Meyers' method of composition is anyone's guess, though the press release boasts both acoustic and electronic sound sources, with Meyers (Devillock) choosing the cassette format for the medium's ability to dull certain frequencies he finds undesirable. "Pressure and Compression" starts off with some sub-octave rumbling, perhaps the result of air being passed through varying levels of compression and electronic manipulation. The track then shifts from brassy warbling to high-pitched dog whistle territory, until the machinations of an undomesticated ape clearing a dinner table enter the mix before culminating in a metallic ring. The tape's B side, "Pushing," is definitely the more therapeutic of the two, with a subtle wavering of midrange tones coaxing the body into deep relaxation, allowing the chakras to open and the soul to explore the astral plane. It could've passed as a Raster-Noton release if it wasn't so creepily harsh. The packaging is awfully well-put together too, with a two-color silkscreen on a long foldout card stock and a handsome chrome cassette to boot.
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Pan To Scratch
The Stratified Course[CS]
[Cabin Floor Esoterica; 2009]
http://cabinfloor.googlepages.com
By Gabriel Keehn
Thank god for the return (of sorts) of Open Range Records. The tiny, defunct label that produced some of my absolute favorite jams of the last few years (Ajilvsga's White Sky Monster, Cursillista's Fleece Face, etc.) has been reincarnated as Cabin Floor Esoterica, and the sounds this time around are even more bizarre and challenging. The label's eighth release -- a mix up of demonic drum banging, unidentifiable clanging, and hobbled field recordings of far-off trains and rustling bushes -- is a chiller. It sounds like Pan To Scratch (who also released a super split LP with Xiphiidae earlier this year) managed to attach a small recording device to Bigfoot, who proceeded to run through the forest, caves, rivers, and down the backest back roads he could find, capturing some strange forest-clan rituals unheard by the rest of humanity. We hear tiny bells tingling, warped metal being played with a stick, a toy piano, and what appears to be an accordion, perhaps both found on the site of a long abandoned, overgrown circus. Wind rushes by the microphone and rocks click off of each other, as the furry recorder rushes through low-hanging branches and splashes through a shallow stream -- a journey into down-home creepiness.
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Super Minerals
The Gooh/The Vooh [CS]
[Housecraft/The Offices of Moore & Moore; 2009]
http://housecraftrecordings.com
http://theofficesof.blogspot.com
By Jspicer
When not portraying Magic Lantern with Sun Araw's Cameron Stallones, Phil French (who also runs Stunned) and William Giacchi work as their nighttime alter-egos, Super Minerals. The real secret? As good as Magic Lantern is, Super Minerals may be that much better. Look no further than Clusters from earlier this year — reviewed in this here column (TMT Cerberus #4). The Gooh mimics the two-long runners of Clusters, but gone are the atmospheric pianos pieces, replaced with two distinctly differing interpretations of drone. Side A dons a hat similar to Pete Nolan's Spectre Folk dalliances, combining goosebump-inducing puffs of midnight wind with foggy, distant moans and ghostly plucks of string. Side B is a bit lighter --leaning heavily on production and sound akin to Roy Montgomery's Temple IV -- before being swallowed once more by the darkness of the unknown. The Vooh filters the The Gooh's fear aesthetic through a skewered pop filter, transforming the lengthy pieces into 12 fragments. The abbreviated stabs of horror do little to comfort, but they offer insight into the creation process of the duo's longer compositions. In the end, both cassettes provide an eerie counterpoint to the bombastic hopefulness of Clusters, proving Super Minerals to be masters of the light and the macabre.
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Gay Africa
Pizzaze! [CD-R]
[Thor's Rubber Hammer; 2009]
http://thorsrubberhammer.com
By Mangoon
Already receiving my vote for best new band name, Gay Africa's painstakingly assembled Pizzaze is a magnificent release. In the spirit of vinyl fiend/conceptual artist Christian Marclay, these CDs are made out of old record covers, scribbled on with fluorescent markers, each unique and hand-numbered in an edition of 150 and including an origami fortune teller (which the press release says is made of old maps, but mine was just regular loose leaf -- bummer) placed neatly inside its recycled sheath. As object, it's a keeper -- as a piece of music, it's a pretty solid bit of live psych improv led by Dark Meat nutter Jim McHugh, who shamanically guides three of his fellow cosmic wanderers through an enjoyable, though often predictable, slab of free psych/jazz that has as touchstones the work of Alice Coltrane, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Japan's Flower Travellin' Band. The track (dubbed "Dream Cables") is entirely improvised; starting out with flourishes of flute and trumpet that sprawl out and congregate into a full-fledged psychedelic mass, the track passes through Shankar-inspired raga action and psych-rock groove modalities on the way. The guitarist (McHugh?) is talented enough, but he's unfortunately guilty of excessive dithering and Santana-style wankery that puts a rain cloud over this otherwise sun-baked soiree.
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Silver Bullets
Free Radicals [CS]
[Stunned; 2009]
http://stunnedrecords.blogspot.com
By Jspicer
Considering the wealth of talent flooding the American underground from Italy, it comes as no surprise the jagged triangle at the end of the boot would provide its own brand of avant magic. Allow us to present Silver Bullets, a Sicilian collective once the secret of few, but now the buzz of many. Blending Mediterranean melodies with psychedelic riffs, Free Radicals is another notch in the ever-expanding belt of global music eating our over-ripe and preserved waste, then regurgitating it as organic, unprocessed splendor. Silver Bullets exist on a plane where the talents of Group Doueh, Tom Zé, Richard Bishop, and Rick Tomlinson coalesce on a never-ending trip. Free Radicals is indeed a freeing experience, with acid-washed barn-burners such as “Monday Morning in Ragusa” and the tape's title track exchanging bodily fluids with gypsy-inspired celebrationals (“Revolutions”), wasted lo-fi (“White Leaf”), and early-80s Liverpoolian rock (“Il Punto”). If Free Radicals were a ‘proper' release from a ‘proper' label, it'd be the talk of the blogosphere — so hold onto it with dear life while it's still a relative secret.
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Vestigial Limb
Sour Gas Kills [CS]
[905 Tapes; 2009]
http://www.905tapes.com
By Gabriel Keehn
Vestigial Limb (a.k.a. Ray Shinn) and 905 Tapes are a fantastic pairing. I couldn't possibly tell you why, but the two nastiest, most brazen releases produced by Shinn have come on the wicked Delaware-based 905, in the form of last year's Lung Fluid and now Sour Gas Kills. Shinn is a master of the sort of riotous delirium that first made noise fun, liberating, and terrifying for me. Bizarre robotic roars, tangled up human voices conversing and screaming, and static-filled donuts of electronic aberration are the orders of the day here. One is sometimes peripherally aware of certain types of droning tonality beneath it all -- and indeed this is how the tape starts out -- but Shinn refuses to let us just hang out for too long, slowly injecting the buzzing, screeching jitters and letting them infect the rest of the track slowly, like a really inhumane execution. Eventually, everything just shatters back inward, rewinding at hyper-speed and getting thrown into a blender that itself winds down into a decaying music box or really old arcade game on loop in an empty mall. Far-off sirens are blaring at the start of the next track and huge mutant fists pound at the sides of the hum, cracking the walls occasionally and letting bursts of steam through. It sounds really close to what sailors who die on sinking submarines must hear as their lungs fill up.
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Nowhere Man
Self Titled [CS]
[Fag Tapes; 2009]
http://myspace.com/fagtapes
By Mangoon
The latest mystery project from Heath Moreland (a.k.a. Sick Llama) sees another heaping spoonful of industrial waste and chrome-plated sewage ladled out into a boiling cauldron of sub-octave rumblings. Its preliminary side hastily casts the listener into the void, giving off a serious lost-in-the-funhouse vibe, something like the perceptual distortions of ingesting Ibogaine in a hall of mirrors. The buried emanations of a chord organ replicates the sound of a steam engine, as it bears down upon a mysterious cryptic, leaking vital fluids while feverishly trying to untie himself from the tracks. Side B's romp continues to scoop out gray matter and aurally awl the inside of your skull. It all comes together sounding something like an elephant seal dying in multiple dimensions amidst a buoy bouncing in a choppy sea while an ocean-cresting humpback intones a deep mating call. Or maybe its sound is a precognitive document of the chaos occurring directly after a mix up at the Hadron Super Collider. Mastered for maximum bass yield, the results are undoubtedly speaker-shaking, its Jurassic-era stomp ultimately capable of unhinging doors and disassembling furniture. Indeed, this is some prime delusional mind warp; nowhere sounds for nowhere men (and women).
