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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Matrix Metals
Flamingo Breeze [CS]
[Not Not Fun; 2009]
http://notnotfun.com
By Jspicer
The phenomenon of insta-sampling in the experimental world exploded thanks to the FM Buddha Machine, which brought many a bedroom avants out from under the covers and into a world of taking luscious drone and filtering it through their own brand of sound creation. The Outer Limits Recordings collective, the minds behind Matrix Metals, have taken the idea of the Buddha's on-demand drones and transformed them into a cassette of complete sonic annihilation. Flamingo Breeze is three lengthy tracks that bob and weave down the California coast with the 60s palm tree pop that has made Matt Mondanile a hot commodity. But unlike the smooth subtropical breezes of the current beach pop crop, Matrix Metals is a non-stop dance party, complete with changes in tempo and mood at the flick of an unpredictable switch. Each song is an entity unto itself, with one groove abruptly being switched over to a completely different vibe. The result is a boom box of magical trips, each more potent and engaging than the last. Flamingo Breeze could be pegged as A.D.D. music with the constant shifts, but its fickle nature only plays into an entire scene's selectiveness. It's a swagger that carries Matrix Metal's tectonic movements to an entirely new plane of bossy godliness. Sit down, shut up, hit play, and just go with it.
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Imaginary Softwoods
The Invisible Cloud Container [CS]
[Pizza Night; 2009]
http://clevelandpizzanight.blogspot.com
By Jspicer
Often lost in the Emeralds equation is John Elliott, who has played third chair in the individual accolades behind Mark McGuire and Steve Hauschildt, but with Elliott's Imaginary Softwoods project, that may be a thing of the past. Sadly, this cassette from Sam Goldberg's Cleveland staple Pizza Night only gives us 10 minutes of early Elliott solo-tude, but any musician worth his shit can outfit short-running cassettes with melodies to leave listeners in awe for days. The Invisible Cloud Container has an ancient quality to its warbling synth, bringing to mind mid-80s Liverpool and 90s New Zealand-based garage experimentation. That cloak of untouchability -- the desire to be transported to the fictional sights and sounds of an era in music that doesn't exist -- is what lends Elliott's creation an air of intrigue. His five-minute bursts of babbling drone mimic the mechanisms of an industrial world halfway across the globe, and despite the nimble runtime, The Invisible Cloud Container is puffed with cinematic scope. The closing sounds of rolling waves and distant boat whistles are the final invites to climb aboard Elliott's foreign-bound vessel to truly see what lies beyond the horizon.
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13th Chime
The Singles [LP]
Cultural Decay
Eight Ways to Start a Day [LP]
[Sacred Bones; 2009]
http://www.sacredbones.com
By Mangoon
Caleb Braaten, the Sacred Bones proprietor, takes his first stabs at reissuing and sees him pulling two early-80s European bands out of the canyon of obscurity with this fetching pair of archival documents. Both records boast the inclusion of 12"x12" booklets recounting the ephemeral existence of the two groups. Belgian cold wavers Cultural Decay are possibly what Gang of Four would have sounded like had they included synths and flourishes of Essential Logic-style sax in their mix. Delivering post-punk vitriol with an air of lassitude that could best be described as a comatose torpor, Cultural Decay cut an early single comprised of the songs “End of the Corridor” and “Brave New World,” which coincidentally are the two hardest-hitting tracks on this collection. “Brave New World” especially encapsulates their political philosophy, referencing Huxley's tale of eugenics gone wild. The lyrics "You'll be afraid to hate/ You'll be afraid to dream" seems to foretell a world dominated by fear. 13th Chime (a reference to the opening pages of Orwell's 1984) shares many of Cultural Decay's sensibilities, though the Chime employed more of a punk sound coupled with an extensive goth image. Hailing from just outside of London and borne out of the death of a member of their previous band, Anticx, 13th Chime echoed the dull anger engendered by life under the velvet-covered iron fist of Thatcher-era politics. Donned in corpse paint with hair feathered to the heavens, the group was heavy on the occult death shtick and even went so far as converting coffins into speaker cabinets for their PA. If that's not dedication to an image, I'm not sure what is.
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The Savage Young Taterbug/Ryan Garbes
"Teenagers from Afar" b/w "Seven Minutes in Heaven" [CS]
[Detrivore; 2009]
http://www.tomentosarecords.com/detrivore.html
By Jspicer
Split cassettes are becoming all the rage, but I'm a bit sad because of the short length (14 minutes) of this two-sided beast. Taterbug grab the first side with "Teenager from Afar," a relatively simple jam of disjointed cymbal crashes and heavily distorted riffs. Rather than rip a page from the lo-fi static playbook made widely available at the hands of Times New Viking, Taterbug produces a disenchanting psychedelic wave not far from the chants and trips of Pocahaunted. Side B belongs to Ryan Garbes (Raccoo-oo-oon), and it couldn't be more humble. Much of the jam is swallowed by a looping effect that sounds like a busted Casio keyboard, but it's the reprise in the midst of the kinetic chaos that is the true stunner, catching anyone unsuspecting off-guard as the din fades into a new brand of lo-fidelity -- an old-tyme howl reminiscent of 1920s archival recordings. But as soon as you're reaching for the nearest rocking chair, the sonic overload of the track begins to wash over the quiet before swallowing itself whole in a grand finale.
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Goliath Bird Eater
Blood Generation [CS]
[Caligulan; 2009]
http://grace.evergreen.edu/~nybnik10/cr
By Jspicer
Bobb Bruno does what he wants, when he wants, and how he wants. No matter the moniker or the expectations, we are merely the merry-go-rounds and dirt-diggers on the vast playground of Planet Bruno. After a recent trip to warped pop and dark drone, Bruno returns to the lengthy shreds that made Goliath Bird Eater's Blood Venus such a charred masterpiece of underground rock. “Tatsumaki” engulfs Side A with a slow stoner rhythm not unlike Dylan Carlson. It's beefy despite its repetitive nature, feeding into the stoner-rock stereotypes with carefully repeated keystones to enhance the listening experience rather than to challenge the altered into any sort of unnecessary movement. The title track is relegated to Side B, but “Blood Generation” is a seed underbelly of high-end synth and low-end bass that eventually combines into an uncouth offspring of big hair and bushy beard. It's where dronesters and metalheads combine in a weird ‘If They Mated,' producing another track that is stuck between Blood Venus and Black Pentagon. “Blood Generation” is ritualistic and futuristic, as if druids have traveled through Stonehenge to discover a world obsessed with Sci-Fi and space travel. It's the sort of confusing mash-ups Bruno makes into killer motifs, and Blood Generation does it in spades.
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Pink Priest
Cold Rock [3” CDR]
[Kimberly Dawn; 2009]
http://www.kimdawn.blogspot.com
By Jspicer
The desolation that rattles through the dusty bones of Cold Rock's opener, “Please Ma'am Pull That Door To,” sets the empty tone of what's to come. Like any good Clint Mansell score, Cold Rock will leave you feeling worse for wear despite the warm glow of a good life bringing you back to your senses. Pink Priest delivers a thunderous smack of reality to your face throughout the four songs of Cold Rock. Each song is a prickly finger from the soil, reaching through the mud, dirt, and worms to grab you by your legs and drag you down to the darkness below. It's the sort of atmospheric drone that, while wearing away at a happy mood, will eventually return you to such smiling graces with its wispy depths and lifelong reassurances. Like any good motivational speaker, you must be brought down to size before you can be built back up, and it's this sort of moribund attitude that infects Cold Rock. Before popping it in, make sure to baton down the hatches, wrap yourself in the heaviest of garments — layering is deadly important — and prepare to face your own mortality and resurrection in a mere 20 minutes. If Christ only had had it this easy.
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Sundog Peacehouse
Brosound [CS]
[Digitalis; 2009]
http://digitalisindustries.com
By Jspicer
When the idea of Pittsburgh comes to mind, the visions of burly, bearded football players, hard-headed steel mill veterans, and lightning-quick hockey players waltz like sugar plum fairies in our uninitiated heads. The weather-proofed city, with its magnificent eateries and undying passion for sports and production, is the perfect place to find the new bro hybrids, the sort of roughnecks who make California's reality-based bros seem feeble and meek. It's neither of these packs of bros, however, that liquefy in the midst of Brosound, the latest from Pitt trio Sundog Peacehouse. Rather than capture the tough exterior of the Three Rivers area, Chris Mucci, Sal Farina, and Austin Redwood borrow their inspiration from the shimmering waters, blankets of snow, and warm woolen coats of Pittsburgh's winter months. Finding the beauty in the cold, Brosound is cascade after cascade of minty breath strips, Junior Mints, and Klondike bars. Sundog Peacehouse have tapped into the sort of cool thinking-is-believing that keeps a nation from struggling under a summer's piercing heat. Brosound is a slow-paced toboggan, cutting through slushy streets and the heavy frost of winter air, capturing every minute sound and collecting it in eight drone-filled pieces. Remember to bring shades because snow blindness while listening is a distinct possibility.
