Review: Crystal Palace - Spirit Quest

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(Cassette, Rotifer Cassettes, 2012)

Crystal Palace’s “Spirit Quest” is one of the most intensely psychedelic, unrelentlingly experimental releases of 2012, and I don’t mean that only in the hazy-murky-limited-cassette-drone sense, but in the sense of all albums from the year 2012. Released by the Floridian weirdo post-musick label Rotifer (who are responsible for some re-releases of Greek-American New Age maverick Iasos), it provides 60 minutes of heavy, interlocking and multilayered tapestries of synthesized patterns, found sounds, chopped’n’screwed electronica much in the vein of ultra-psych electronix San Francisco project Hans Grüsel’s Kränkenkabinet (except not wearing any of the crazy costumes the dudes from Hans Grusel were wearing). But yeah, the general vibe is much the same.

Starting harshly with some heavily delayed and reverbed fragmented fragments of radio broadcasts or some mangled songs, the tape transforms into a rollercoaster of often abrasive, always abstract synthesizer conversations and wildest soloes interspersed with warped cut’n’paste collage psychosis. Even multiple repeated listenings can’t make me see the record as a whole, it’s so heavily multi-leveled, so fractured and weird to the highestest level that it should actually be listened to in parts, with the listener taking breaks to save himself from overloading the synapses and frying their brain. “Crystal Palace” is a relentless, unforgiving record that takes no prisoners. It’s hard to take it all sober, it’s even harder to take it all on drugs. In fact, one shouldn’t be on drugs when listening to this. Lo-fi, folky guitar improvisations jump without any warning into Stockhausen-style musique concrete and mercilessly cut-up tape sound collages, occasionally offering a glimpse of New Age/prog electronic beauty and tranquility through the heavy tapestry of noise and distortion.

“Spirit Quest” is like a few years’ worth of ideas crammed into one 60 minute cassette. What we get is a hyperactive, overbearing album so pregnant with sound it’s like a musical equivalent of a neutron star: just like a small piece of a neutron star weighs millions and millions of tons, one minute excerpt from “Spirit Quest” sounds like a 30-minute excerpt from any other album. Intense as FUCK. Only for the seasoned, experienced music consumers.

“Fight the ocean and you will drown!”

Review: Dmitri Zherbin - Dmitri Zherbin (Mineral Tapes, 2012)

Dmitri Zherbin, the co-founder of the Finnish label Jozik Records may be associated with the psychedelic folk genre, but at a stretch. His vision of folky psychedelia is less based on melody or evoking a “magical” atmosphere, but rather on creation of loose, primal soundscapes which seem to be taking more cues from the more abrasive, noisy end of experimental music and rudimentary musique concrete than from “Finnish Elves”, as Piero Scaruffi described many musicians in the Finnish folk scene.

The self-titled cassette, released on new American label Mineral Tapes and housed in handmade package, doesn’t really sound like actual musical compositions. It is muddled and hazy, with one primeval soundscape shifting into another slowly over the course of time in the vein of the most hard-to-describe releases from Stunned Records. The eerie, seemingly neverending droning loops have a sort of “pre-historic” mystery to them, like the most primitive music from the beginnings of mankind translated into the language of tape music and electronic experimentation, reminding about the ultra lo-fi noisescapes of The Skaters.

The caveman loops will then mutate into maniacally repeating, abstract sound sculptures made of disjointed drum sounds and randomly plucked sounds, like a Rude Goldberg machine playing on many musical instruments, performing a strange algorithm in a series of mathematical repetitions. Like the heavily textured artwork of the tape, the music of Dmitri Zherbin is dark, murky an abstract - definitely not easy listening, but definitely an adventurous one.

Buy the cassette from Mineral Tapes

Head Boggle - Dual Phaser

Originally released on cassette on Dan Smith’s Chicago label Hyperdelic Records (which, sadly, didn’t seem to get past it’s first batch - but hey! Mr. Smith is responsible for the Neon Marshmallow Fest, so he should be excused), this cassette by Derek Gedalecia (the human being behind the brain-bending sounds of Head Boggle - also written as Headboggle) can turn a few heads by featuring Bob Moog on the cover. A bold move, and it can be justified just by one thing - pushing the abilities of analog synthesizers to the limits. And this is precisely what Gedalecia does here. Never a dull moment, always sparkling with fluorescent synth patters, noises, bloops and bleeps. A bit harsh and really, REALLY abstract at times. If you enjoyed Greg Davis’ “States” series, you’re gonna LOVE Head Boggle. Make sure to check out Head Boggle’s other free album, “Dojo and the Funhouse Echo”!

Wilson Alonso Sanchez - Misaligned Everything

Rarely you come across an album whose name describes the sounds inside so well. Misaligned Everything is a dadaistic, cut-up and mixed-up hell of a sound collage, where absolutely stone age rudimentary synth bloops mix with snippets of pure, outsider weirdness, becoming an absolutely deranged and noise infused piece of musique concrete. Thankfully, Wilson Alonso Sanchez throws a bit of calm guitar ambience here and there, providing a safe haven from the excruciating storm of sounds outside.

Review: Skullorian - Kozmosz Punci (Kimberly Dawn, 2011)

German sound skullptor (see what I did there?) Thomas Gerendás gracefully smears the borders between the original samples and recontextualizes them for the new, mapless territories of sound. Hailing from Cologne, the breeding ground of forward thinkers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen or Can, Gerendás uses the rich tradition of electronic experimentation for his own means, to mold some sort of musique concrete for the 21st century.

Kicking off from the foggy start, Skullorian gives us a fertile package - out of five compositions four range from 14 to 20 minutes, and the shortest one is nearly 9 minutes long. Which means we’re in for a deep trip. Because for those who aren’t already familiar with the German shaman, the mass of seemingly sourceless and shapeless sounds might appear a bit pretty overwhelming - but after a few repeated listens a sense of order and actual compositions is starting to emerge, accenting changes in rhythm, or the change of hazily convoluted “movement” - or anything that comes at least slightly close to be called an actual movement. For example, the opening self-titled track gradually uncovers a funky, bouncing beat, slightly Lynchian, like Amon Tobin quoting Angelo Badalamenti on Tobin’s trademark album Permutation, emerging from the sea of heavy, sinister cosmic drones.

The jazzy and funky elements hidden under ominous, thick cloud work as strangely relaxing elements that seems to exist for the sole fact of reminding the listener that they’re still listening to something made by an actual human. Or maybe rather, elements of old human transmission accidentally caught up in a non-human chaos of accidental, hostile sounds. The vintage samples sounds like the mere tools in the hands of a far more powerful, unknown power which crushes those human sounds and proves how the “normal” music is fragile and vulnerable to the crushing power of this otherworldly mess. Without any drugs, Gerendás replicates the hazy, murky effects of powerful psychedelics, creating an atmosphere of dense immersion filled with sourceless sounds that might be coming from anywhere at once. But with Skullorian’s music, the druggy effects are directed more towards the “bad trip” areas.

Buy the CD-R at Kimberly Dawn or at Skullorian’s blog.

Mythomaniacs Are Right - There Is No Such Thing As Death, Life Is Only A Dream And We Are The Imagination Of Ourselves

The ridiculously long album title and the cover might suggest some inspiration by the LA post-rock dudes from Red Sparowes, but in fact there is no connection at all - because there is no rock at all. There Is No Such Thing… is a sparse, absolutely minimal album inspired (among others) by German electronic music, both old new and new: on one side, there are obsessive tape loops and musique concrete which channel the spirit of late master Karlheinz Stockhausen; on the other side there is an obvious glitch worship element, which make the tracks sound like a more ambient-treated, detailed Alva Noto at times. There’s also an obvious influence of minimalism, somtimes whimsical, sometimes ominous. Disorienting and challenging, just how I like my experimental electronics.

Mythomaniacs Are Right - There Is No Such Thing As Death, Life Is Only A Dream And We Are The Imagination Of Ourselves

Mediafire link

Buy the tape from Already Dead Tapes