The Out Door

A blog about experimental, avant-garde, and outsider music by Marc Masters & Grayson Currin. Formerly a Pitchfork column (archives here). Follow us on Twitter at @The_Out_Door

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200 Words: SULT + LASSE MARHAUG

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

SULT + LASSE MARHAUG - Harpoon LP (Pica Disk/Conrad Sound)

So much happens on Harpoon that calling it “busy” is like describing a three-dimensional object with two-dimensional adjectives. It also doesn’t get at exactly how the acoustic trio Sult (guitarist Håvard Skaset, percussionist Jacob Felix Heule, and contrabassist Guro Skumsnes Moe) can make such a racket while exuding so much patience and clarity. I can hear every nanosecond of activity happening on Harpoon and yet if I let my brain defocus the tiniest bit, suddenly I’m drowning in noise.

The simplest explanation for how this can be is the sculpting prowess of Lasse Marhaug, to whom Sult handed source material and freed to do whatever he felt like with it. Certainly Marhaug has done so well with this type of exchange in the past that huge credit for Harpoon’s unendingly-fascinating sound-storm has to go to him. But even that doesn’t get to the stunning alchemy of this record. It doesn’t feel like a collaboration in the back-and-forth sense, but more like a kind of musical block universe devoid of time’s beginning/middle/end arrow. Its existence seems oddly necessary - as if this sound had to exist, always existed, a part of the universe the group is discovering rather than inventing.

– Marc Masters

<a href="http://sult.bandcamp.com/album/harpoon">Harpoon by Sult + Lasse Marhaug</a>

LASSE MARHAUG on Harpoon

I’ve been a fan of Sult before they’d made a sound. I’ve known Jacob, Guro and Håvard for ten+ years, and everything they’ve done has been interesting – Basshaters, MoE, Art Directors, Bay Oslo Mirror Trio, Street Priest – they’re creative/forward thinking musicians that follow their obsessions – and that’s always worth my time. So when they told me they were starting an acoustic noise band I knew it was going to be special. And it was. I dug their first two albums and was seriously stoked when they asked me to be involved on their third record. They’d recorded hours of amazing material, and I got free rein to mold it into whatever I wanted. I went for big monolithic blocks of sound – because I happen to really (really) like big monolithic blocks of sound. Usually my music has electronic origins, but Harpoon is all acoustic, which gives the music a physical presence you don’t often get on noise records. And of course, this record owes a thing or two to the work of artists like David Jackman, Andrew Chalk, GX Jupitter-Larsen and David Tudor, but I feel Sult is worthy of that lineage. I’m just glad I got to come along.

GURO SKUMSNES MOE on Harpoon

Here are just some notes from me on tour, from playing concerts with Sult.

Crossing the border again of what it is being me. See-through as a bottle. No smile or words to hide behind. Or clothes or make up. It flows out of me. My own mass, what makes me me. I lift myself down so I cannot see. Sounds everywhere. Intuition. Spine. Trust. Surrender. It is singing inside my ear. Presence. Wanting to touch another humans mind. Roots grow. Swallowed by the presence. I am breathing loud breath. Beep sounds. Circles on the contrabass, shift to scream. Stretching, stretching moment. State of noise. Dark ocean seeking inwards. Outwards. Shadow, road, we are breathing. Continuing, falling, look up, eyes closed. Border not present. Seeking border, no border. A fierce march forward without knowing why. Endurance like a cactus.

Harpoon is out now. Buy it here or here.

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200 Words: SAMANTHA GLASS

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

SAMANTHA GLASS - Introducing the Confession tape (No Rent)

I don’t know the inspirations and influences behind Beau Deveraux’s latest work as Samantha Glass. But to my ears the music is essentially an abstracted, re-imagined take on goth-leaning, synth-driven 80′s new wave - as if that sound were refracted though memory and transported to another time and space altogether. In some cases Introducing the Confession strikes me even as straight-up, happily-devout new wave homage - closing track “Personal Witness,” for instance, with its climbing synth figure and glimmering accents, could be a lost classic rescued from a great 80′s mixtape.

But most of Introducing the Confession captures the feel of 80′s synth/goth while expanding and deepening the musical forms into which that feeling can be infused. At best, Devereaux is able to craft pieces that resemble both songs and abstraction, as if the ghosts of structured melodies are fading into the distance behind these overwhelmingly-enveloping atmospheres. Perhaps these tracks are like dreams, but not in the movie-cliche sense - more in the way that they’re so evocatively amorphous that they’re hard to make out clearly or decipher quickly. They alter my mood despite - or even because of - the fact that I can’t remember everything about what just happened when they’re over.

– Marc Masters

BEAU DEVEREAUX on Introducing the Confession

    With every release I am attempting to strip away the previously found layer of skin and find new ways to push forward, as Samantha Glass. Being genderqueer, I’ve had a roller coaster ride through the years trying to figure out my sexuality. Samantha Glass has always been a great diary of that progression through word and sound. That progression yielded yet another album filled with personal stories of wild rides, late nights, depression, and the masterful as always delusion spiked by fantasy, reality, and pleasure. I keep finding myself harkening back towards ambient foundations that got me excited to finally play / record / release music back in 2008. That, alongside field recordings & SG song structures, creates such a larger story and feels more realistic to me. Utilizing processed vocals & adjusting the tape speed of my own voice, has opened up yet another door unto the blurred lines of gender, and new ways of expressing myself. I’ve always had interest in performing in drag as Samantha Glass. Just as I was finishing up this cassette, I was also practicing the songs for a live performance. I realized the ideas were intersecting naturally and that I could utilize the movement of this album, and an upcoming one, as a foundation for making that jump.     I owe a lot of thanks to everyone that has been by my side at any point during my life. Trust me I know I have not been an easy queen to get past sometimes (i.e. selfish, obsessive, etc.) but I’m trying. I’m feeling closer to freedom than ever before, thanks to my community of support, and let me tell you it feels amazing. I’ve always seen masculinity as mostly a trap, and it’s not me. I feel more genderless than ever before, and I am ready to be swept away upon the next journey, while sharing stories with the listeners of the world. I’ve always been more of my mind and heart than of my body.          Remember, take care of your community and loved ones. It’s all we really have. Xoxo,     Beau Devereaux aka Samantha Glass

Introducing the Confession is out now on No Rent. Buy it here.

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200 Words: MAZOZMA

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

MAZOZMA - Heavy Death Head LP (Feeding Tube)

Intensity and calm share top billing on Mazozma’s Heavy Death Head. The entire album feels like a dark cloud, but it hangs in the air rather than growing darker or generating thunder and lighting. There’s even surreal safety in the music’s thick shadows, a kind of walled-off space where real thoughts and emotions can be faced without danger.  It’s mind-altering, but mostly in the sense that its disruptions and mysteries provoke mental clarity instead of sowing confusion.

You can tell Michael Turner (who previously made his great, morphing music as Ma Turner and now goes by Mazozma) is working through something here, but what compels me toward Heavy Death Head is that it never feels like that something is just one thing. There’s life stuff happening for sure, but there are also musical and creative demons being confronted and dealt with. The sounds that Turner chooses and the songs they form refuse to align into slogans even as they allow multiple avenues for listener entry. The pressure to simplify complexity is as primal a battle as any, and Turner has bravely fought it for quite a while now. In that arena, Heavy Death Head is one of his clearest victories.

– Marc Masters 

<a href="http://feedingtuberecords.bandcamp.com/album/heavy-death-head">Heavy Death Head by Mazozma</a>

MICHAEL TURNER on Heavy Death Head

I find it difficult to write about Heavy Death Head. It's a heavy record about death. The title literally means: "I'm a head and I'm dealing with death". I drafted versions of this column where I attempted to skirt around these facts but it was impossible between the squelching sub-human warble, high pitched frequencies dive bombing into total mud, suicidal lyrics and a deceased parent on the cover to boot! Depending on your palate, it can be an unsettling listen. Heavy Death Head was written and recorded between September 2015 and January 2016 with myself playing and recording the material. I used minimal gear being a parlor guitar, key-monica, hand percussion, field recordings (deconstructed, tweaked) and both the human and animal voice. I recorded most of Heavy Death Head in my former studio in Lexington, Kentucky (two songs had some tracking done in Louisville by Jim Marlowe (Tropical Trash) with the addition of Jim, Phillip Farmer, and R. Colburn contributing effected voice, Rhodes, sax, drums). These batch of songs were supposed to mirror aspects of a morning ritual I was working on to cope with the loss of my mother (Stella Dianne Turner, 10/24/47-08/20/15) but the rituals never came to fruition in the sense I had imagined. I found myself lost in the music composition and recording end of things. Once the recording was done, mixed and sent to get mastered, my interest in listening to the record or conducting any sort of ritual was beyond me. Shock set in. 2016 grew stranger. I broke my former band up, I withdrew further, some deep-seeded friendships of mine violently dismantled, my then-marriage cracked on its last leg.  My mother’s passing was getting to me more and more. It caught up with me quickly. Luckily my eyes opened. The life I had in Kentucky had become a parody of itself. In October of '16, I severed ties and moved to Western Massachusetts. Slowly I was able to rebuild. I fell back in love with the little things in life. I found a new group of friends. I fell in love with someone. I can now recommend you throwing this on at parties. Shit's weird and dark but look out your window, shit IS weird and dark. Find a new dance within your perception of what it is you gain from Heavy Death Head. Maybe you can dream up a ritual, whatever you want to call it, a way in which to surf your own losses. Perhaps disregard Heavy Death Head all together and cast your own spell. Just be careful what you wish for.

Heavy Death Head is out now on Feeding Tube. Buy it here.

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An Out Door Mixtape for Sterrenplaten

Deze vrijdag geen gewone Sterrenplaten, wel een mixtape van iemand wiens muzikale mening we blindelings volgen: Marc Masters. Marc is auteur van het boek ‘No Wave’ (Black Dog, 2008) en …

We made a mix of recent music we love for Sterrenplaten’s Radio 106 Belgium show. It airs today at 9 CET then will be available on their mixcloud page. Enjoy!

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200 Words: KELLY MORAN

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

KELLY MORAN - Bloodroot LP (Telegraph Harp)

Music created with a specific, defined process has the extra advantage of immediately working on multiple levels. You might not know exactly how Kelly Moran prepared her piano when she made the entrancing pieces on Bloodroot, but you can hear the process right away. The sound is so tactile and air-moving, it’s like your ears are right next to the piano strings as they vibrate and ring out and echo. So you can instantly enjoy Bloodroot on a pure acoustic level, as a document of a fascinating way to coax sound from strings.

But of course there are other levels to Moran’s compositions, dimensions of aesthetic beauty and emotional resonance that may not be as immediate as the above, but eventually prove even more powerful. In places these qualities are so strong that their presence is actually felt pretty quickly, but in an oddly subliminal way, as if your brain can’t initially reconcile the idea that you can both be in awe of the pure physical sound Moran is making and enthralled by the mood it’s conjuring. Such moments are when Bloodroot goes beyond multi-leveled into something more three-dimensional: a work that melts distinct phenomenological categories into one vibrant universe.

– Marc Masters

KELLY MORAN on Bloodroot

My interest in prepared piano started in college when I became bored with studying traditional classical piano repertoire and wanted to delve into modernist piano music. I did an independent study with a professor who was an expert on extended techniques, and I spent my junior year learning music by Henry Cowell, John Cage, George Crumb, and other composers that utilized alternate means of generating sound from a piano. I was particularly enamored with Cage's works for prepared piano and learned several of his pieces. I've always been fascinated with manipulating sounds using digital processing, and I loved that preparations seemed like an organic way to change the sound of a piano. It felt like there were suddenly endless sonic possibilities one could explore with this method. Though I've composed lots of music that employs other kinds of extended techniques (plucking, strumming piano strings) it wasn't until recently that I started composing my own pieces for prepared piano. In early 2016 I found myself confined at my parents' house for a few days when a huge snowstorm hit New York, and I used it as a opportunity to explore composing for prepared piano. As soon as I started playing, I felt like I had unlocked a whole new way of composing in terms of how I thought about constructing melodies and harmonies since now I was hearing all sorts of new resonances and overtones. I ended up obsessively composing endlessly for days and writing most of Bloodroot in the span of two weeks.

Bloodroot is out now on Telegraph Harp. Buy it here.

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200 Words: MUYASSAR KURDI

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

MUYASSAR KURDI -  Intersections and Variations digital album (self-released)

There’s an uncanny combination of space and immediacy on Intersections and Variations, a sense that you’re right next to Muyassar Kurdi and her collaborator Nicholas Jozwiak as they unfurl their reverent improvisations, and yet a feeling that the sounds they’re making are slowly opening up the world around them. Often work like this can get suffocatingly close or impersonally distant, but Kurdi and Jozwiak are deft at drawing you into the specifics of their conversation without closing off possibilities of outward communication.

Though communication is the heart of Intersections and Variations, I admit to particularly being entranced by the sections in which Kurdi’s voice flies solo. Her intonations contain worlds of mood and texture on their own, and she can build tension both with restraint and boldness. But those sections are also a testament to Jozwiak’s tonal judgement - he knows when to engage, when to complement, and when to clear out space for Kurdi, fitting his cello in to slots of his own creation. The resulting music is, like the best human interaction, both tense and warm – a great example of how improvisation can be a form of communication, and can say more than a simple exchange of words.

– Marc Masters

<a href="http://muyassarkurdi.bandcamp.com/album/intersections-and-variations">Intersections and Variations by Muyassar Kurdi</a>

MUYASSAR KURDI on Intersections and Variations

I was in Europe a bit before I decided to move to Brooklyn last spring, which is where I first met Nicholas Jozwiak. I started collaborating with many new people upon my arrival, and we improvised in my bedroom in the hottest and coldest of weather or at my rehearsal space in Ridgewood right under the M train. I would just set my ZOOM recorder in the center of the room, and press ‘record’ after an inspirational conversation, some wine, a joint, coffee, or tea..just feel it out and journey through new zones together. Nicholas and I had our first session on a suffocating summer day in my bedroom in Clinton Hill...unbearable weather, but we felt moved by the spirit and recorded a few hours of cello, voice, and gong. It was the beginning of opening up, building trust, and just being able to lock into something, create form in space, surrender to playfulness, joy, and openness. We recorded another longer session over-night from 11pm to 4am at a church in Greenpoint called Park Church Coop..that was the time it was available to us after the performances that night had ended, and we weren’t completely alone, as a friend happened to be sleeping in the balcony with her dog. We were really excited to utilize the space, the acoustics, piano, and the organ. I envisioned improvising and performing around the space so that it sounded spatially cinematic and textural as a live recording; I was focusing on connecting with the environment and each other. We were on the floor with the hymn books at one point opening and closing them, sliding around on hands and knees flipping through the pages or I would run in place while Nicholas played the cello, and then I started to sing and play organ. At one point I was singing in the balcony while descending the stairs; Nicholas was on the other side of the church dragging his cello. We embodied movement, theatre, sculpture, architecture, and silence..taking in sounds from the environment...the dog barked at one point when Nicholas played the piano, and we laughed a bit because we didn’t expect the ‘interruption’ piercing the dark night’s silence. We built and expanded on these modes and sounds for several months leading up to the manifestation of ‘Intersections and Variations’ this past November. I embodied movement in this album and Nicholas embraced silence-- a sort of poetic mosaic. We both had a lot to give in the midst of feeling a sense of hopelessness; I believe that our trusting and listening to each other was very important to us. I am often thinking about what improvisation is: existing in a moment of trust with others with no judgment..just the freedom to exist and explore in time and space. For that, I am especially grateful to have gone on this boundless journey with Nicholas, and I look forward to opening up to more and more possibilities in the future. 

Intersections and Variations is out now. Buy it here.

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200 Words: MISSING ORGANS

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

MISSING ORGANS - Old Speakers cassette (Umor Rex)

There’s a bold clarity that Tristan Bath applies to the music he makes as Missing Organs. Not just sonic clarity - though certainly the production is sharp and crisp - but clarity of thought and vision, such that each track has a distinct purpose and a traceable path. It would be easy to blur music like this with washes of drone or layers of noise, and that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. But Bath never lets himself hide behind obscuring textures or vague abstractions. His ideas and blueprints are all out in the open, ready for scrutiny and more than strong enough to hold up to it.

Almost everything on Old Speakers is oriented around a beat and a few intertwined melodic lines, and yet the connections between tracks is more of an aura than any kind of literal recurring motifs. It all feels like part of a sonic solar system, but each individual planet has its own orbit. Which means that some songs sound as comfortable and reliable as a conventional movie score, and other can surprise you more the more you listen. Either way, Old Speakers holds attention, slicing through your mental haze with the precision of a knife.

– Marc Masters

TRISTAN BATH on Old Speakers

Leaving my birthplace and capital city - centre of a long dead empire and plaything of the rich - was not entirely by choice. I’m an economic migrant and a spoilt millennial, unable to afford the life I think I want, unable to pay the rent in the city where I was born. My possessions were easy to pack: handfuls of music gear, laptop, clothes, an armful of tapes. As the year went on, I snatched iPhone recordings more often, only for seconds at a time. The crunch of giant rusty engines on a ferry between Canary Islands became the noisy bed of ‘Guanche’. The last moans of a violin I could never really play anyway and threw away before moving for the start of ‘Blood Factory’. The rustle of trees on a hike through Austrian mountains formed the backing of ‘Bridges’. Hours of refinement and toying with ideas began to reflect the change that was happening in my own life. My homeland had abandoned me - although to be fair I abandoned her first. This is the first time I made the music I imagined: noisy, rhythmic, colourful, there’s even a guitar solo in there somewhere. I could only change how I worked after increasingly travelling Europe. I realised that like the people in charge of my country, my old perceptions had outgrown their use and become no clear representation of the reality they presumed to represent - like some rusty old speakers.

Old Speakers is out now on Umor Rex. Buy it here.

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200 Words: ANDREW KIRSCHNER

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

ANDREW KIRSCHNER - The Arm and the Eye cassette (Soundholes)

The two sides of Andrew Kirschner’s The Arm and The Eye are objectively quite different: one is a minimal synth-loop sketch where simple repetition creates complex effects; the other is an active mesh of stabbing violin, rattling percussion, and other rhythmically-rich sonic accents. Yet the mood of The Arm and The Eye is remarkably consistent. This is calm, patient music that nonetheless exudes tension and intrigue. Nothing is rushed or exclaimed, yet I’m always drifting toward my seat’s edge to glimpse at what’s coming next.

While I’d hate to downplay Kirschner’s transfixing synth meditation on Side A, I find myself rewinding and replaying Side B so often that I can’t deny it would work as an album by itself. His violin playing alone is fascinating, but the way it weaves through the various background sounds he embeds behind it - particularly the primal, Angus Maclise-like drumming - lifts the piece to a Cagean level of controlled chance. It produces an effect I haven’t felt since the heyday of Alastair Galbraith’s work with Bruce Russell in A Handful of Dust - a kind of lucid hypnosis where everything feels ultra-real yet the sum of all the parts is gloriously surreal, like a waking dream.

– Marc Masters

ANDREW KIRSCHNER on The Arm and the Eye

If you're not truthful in your art, it's gonna suck and more importantly, you're a liar. I started working on this album about 2 years ago when I was suffering from major panic attacks. Mental health is a theme that's in every single one of my releases and is responsible for what will be on said releases. I recorded the A side while having one of my worst attacks. The stillness of the synth was representing a plea for the state of my mind to be in while the junk loops were what was actually transpiring, dreadful thoughts repeated over and over again. In my works, I try to find a constant juxtaposition of chaos and beauty because that's what's going through my head constantly. Another ongoing theme is my obsession with repetition, no doubt having to do with whatever my mental state is at the time of recording. So I guess I tried to kind of hypnotize myself with the repetition to take my mind off of what was going on and it actually worked to my surprise! Using music as a sort of medication has been very therapeutic for me and my quality of life and I hope those who suffer from any problems, be it mental or physical will find a solace in this recording. You're not alone. The B side is composed of outtakes from an album I did called so much sorrow, which was all violin improvisations. I wasn't happy with how some of it turned out while recording it, so I cut all those parts into tape loops and played them over each other. The source material is a tape I recorded of myself and the band Lambsbread in the mid 2000s doing an improvisation in the LambsDen with anything we could find. Bells, metal pipes, drums etc are in there. I toyed with the idea of releasing it stand alone but after speeding it up and down, I could never find a speed I liked because I thought it all sounded so great on these different speeds. I hope you enjoy this, thank you Marc for the opportunity and Daniel for putting this out. Love and respect always.

The Arm and the Eye is out now on Soundholes. Buy it here.

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200 Words: MICHAEL ZERANG & SPIRES THAT IN THE SUNSET RISE

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

MICHAEL ZERANG & SPIRES THAT IN THE SUNSET RISE - Illinois Glossolalia LP (Feeding Tube)

Illinois Glossolalia starts with such an air-shredding detonation - via the raucous clang and impassioned howling of quick-hit opener “Child” – that it’s hard to imagine how this collaboration between sky-seeking duo Spires That In The Sunset Rise and percussionist and multi-sound-machine Michael Zerang could possibly maintain such an intense pitch throughout the rest of the album. In fact the first time I heard the track I hit repeat immediately, both because it’s addictive and because I didn’t want to be let down afterwards.

I wasn’t let down at all, but that’s not because any of the five tracks that follow sound like “Child.” Zerang and STITSR wisely don’t try to reproduce that initial fervor, instead maintaining their intensity through subtlety, pace, and variety. The trio conjure all kinds of trembling ghosts through small rhythmic accents, gathering clouds of whistling and sawing and vibrating, and most importantly the vocal invention of Ka Baird and Taralie Peterson. Zerang’s presence is constant in Illinois Glossolalia, but it’s throats of STITSR that make this album so stirring, connecting the literal and the abstract so tightly yet so expansively, it’s like they’ve discovered an infinitely stretchable rubber band with which to bind those two poles.

– Marc Masters

KA BAIRD on Illinois Glossolalia

In February of 2011, Taralie and I joined forces with Michael Zerang for the first time in an event curated by Dan Mohr of Chicago called “Collision Theory” where musicians were paired with dancers for the first time in a live setting. We had been talking with Michael about some kind of collaboration and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try something new and improvisation-based together. We had so much FUN at this event (we were paired with Kristina Fluty and Dancers) that we decided immediately afterwards to keep experimenting with each other.  That year we went on to perform several times and completed a residency at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago where the material for Illinois Glossolalia was recorded. 

2011-2013 were big years of improv for Spires as we sought to break through certain expectations of what we thought our music should be or who we thought we were as musicians.  Ultimately, we sought to annihilate ourselves. Through “welcoming” failure and thereby liberating ourselves from form/structure or any notion of good/bad, we were able to reach a point where performances became a catharsis and absolute enjoyment. Since then Spires (and I) have gone through periods of heavier refinement but that sense of joy and liberation through performance has remained.  Illinois Glossolalia remains a testament to that pure creative spirit. Thank you Michael for the adventure! Here’s to more in the future.

Illinois Glossolalia is out now on Feeding Tube. Buy it here.

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200 Words: GRID VICTIM

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

GRID VICTIM - Grid Victim cassette (Unifactor)

The air-popping synth constructions of Grid Victim don’t necessarily sound futuristic. But they feel so simultaneously of the past and that present that it’s as if they create an alternative future where time is not really linear any more. The music itself certainly is linear though: everything on the first tape by this anonymous Ohio denizen moves forward continually, such that even when Grid Victim is simply grinding out a great loop it feels more like climbing stairs that running on a treadmill.

Or maybe it feels like climbing a treadmill of stairs? From track to track, Grid Victim traces many similar paths yet somehow conjures wildly different moods. These include ambient dreaminess, pulsing agitation, cycling hypnosis, absurdist squiggling, and a bunch more things that I can’t capture in two-word descriptions. It’s fun to pick through each tune and dissect how exactly Grid Victim crafts such grand effects from such simple tools. But what remains at the end of these circular musical rides - or is it the beginning? – is a sense that you’ve been picked up somewhere and dropped off somewhere else, even though both your starting point and your destination look and sound oddly like the same thing.

– Marc Masters

GRID VICTIM on Grid Victim

A Grid Victim may suffer from consumption of High Fructose Corn Syrup or from working at a retail outlet. One whom is machined in an invisible factory the day they are born. It’s a sad life for one unwillingly brainwashed and primed for a life of slavery, born to consume and produce items and/or services of value. Each individual is slowly and slyly coerced into dying from the moment they come into being; all surfaces toxic, all sustenance cancerous. Harm inflicted by the Grid can be remedied by triple bypass open heart surgery or by using emotional compression devices to frack the pineal gland like consuming Celexa or six Dogfish Head Ales (all which generate Revenue). If the system works, one will live a life tranquilized and useless, spirit hijacked and nirvana censored.  

By creating arbitrary systems of value, a Grid Victim is programmed to learn, live and die by the various tiers of Worth by ceding invaluable Life Energy for the fallacy of security and status. Rewards for energy sacrifice include escape options like Taco Bell and Pornhub. A reward for enduring life on the grid is God. Grid Victim is actually just a play on words

Grid Victim is out now on Unifactor. Buy it here.

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200 Words: MARK FEEHAN

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

MARK FEEHAN - M.F. II LP (Richie / TestosterTunes)

Mark Feehan’s first solo album - 2012′s M.F. – was pretty chaotic, but apparently not chaotic enough. M.F. II raises Feehan’s musical entropy by degrees of magnitude, flying fast between noise-punk rants, spoken (in German?) word collages, blurry Residents-like sound experiments, and a bunch of excellent, highly-unique guitar pieces. Every time I get settled into thinking of M.F. II as whacked out audio art somewhere between Dr. Demento and Hanatarash, Feehan unfurls a masterful string seance that sounds like no one else I can think of currently.

I’m sure I’d love each individual track here by itself, especially those guitar-centered essays, but something about all the hectic juxtapositions and free-associative impulse on M.F. II makes each individual part more fascinating. It’s like the signal from a radio station if it was made of neurons rather than electrons, the sound of a restless brain rattling out ideas that would lose some of their strength were they to be considered too long before the next one comes shooting by. The dizzying swerves are fun, funny, and even serious, but best of all they make M.F. II a record that couldn’t be repeated even if Feehan himself tried.

– Marc Masters

MARK FEEHAN on M.F. II

I always try to create something that doesn't bore me. I have very little patience, so every track I make is an improvised one take. As soon as I'm happy with what I've got, it goes into the memory hole. I can't remember what I did or what the tuning was. "Five Stringer Discount”, for example, was the result of me somehow managing to break my bottom E while putting on new strings  I just went with whatever the tuning was at that point. (Hence the five strings) I have no clue what the tuning was, so I'll never play that one again. I also tend to be all over the place with my choice of genre. I want every song to be completely different. A lot of the songs on this record were written while I was asleep, which adds to the weirdness. "The Sports" was one of them. I heard it, woke up and recorded it in 10 minutes. (Can't you tell?) All these songs were written and recorded over a long period of time but seem to fit together somehow. That's my musical approach, happy accidents. 

M.F. II is out now on Richie Records/TestosterTunes. Buy it here.

[the-out-door]

200 Words: MATT JENCIK

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose. And sometimes we go extra-long on a record we extra-love...)

MATT JENCIK - Weird Times LP (Hands in the Dark)

It seems odd to say that any ambient music has guts, but that’s what I think about every time I listen to Matt Jencik’s Weird Times. It’s not so much that this is visceral or brawny music; it is in places, though just as often it’s dreamy, languid, and ethereal. But more that, there’s a confident core to Jencik’s abstract essays that makes every track feel purposeful and driving and undeniably resolute. Weird Times is ambience with gravitational force, ghostly music with a hard skeleton, textural intricacy with elemental thrust.

It’s easy to isolate portions of Weird Times that demonstrate its particular power: the simple yet evergreen loops in “Glass Blow” and “The Future Door”, the cinematic sweeps buried beneath “Dead Comet Flyby”, the mirrored ripples in “Doppleganger”, the emotive waves in “Death Dream” that recall the brain-freezing tones of the great Labradford, a band I’m rarely reminded of by music that they themselves didn’t make. But citing examples seems reductionist, because even the tracks that don’t have clear signifiers of Jencik’s sure hands are filled with palpable momentum and centrifugal forward motion. If that suggests that Weird Times has a basis in science, that doesn’t mean its anywhere near clinical. Rather, Jencik has made poetic music that induces a chemical effect, moving neurons as efficiently as it stirs emotions.

Most of the albums I can count among my favorites sound simultaneously familiar and new, as if embracing the past history of a chosen style while at the same time moving that style forward into untrodden territory. I guess it has something to do with scope - with the way art can feel so expansive that it doesn’t just contain contradictions, it resolves them – and the scope of Weird Times makes it my favorite record of the year so far.

– Marc Masters

MATT JENCIK on Weird Times

The title for Weird Times came from a conversation I was having with someone about the current political climate. My response to whatever they were saying was something like “yeah, weird times man.” I certainly never expected when I decided to use the title how prophetic it would turn out to be. I was pretty deep into another phase with “cosmic horror” literature while making this record, I even named a song after the genre. I’ve always liked that H.P. Lovecraft’s usage of the word “weird” meant something more creepy, twisted or sinister, not how it’s mostly used today, something that’s just different or somewhat curious. Everything that’s going on right now seems like an alternate universe, something that cosmic horror writers often write about in their stories. I thought using the Lovecraft version of the word “weird” actually fit current events more so than the current usage.

The record is very inward. All of it was made on headphones and I didn’t hear it through speakers until it was finished. I guess you can say some of the existential dread crept in which made things get dark sometimes but I think there are hopeful tunes in there too.

Weird Times is out now on Hands in the Dark. Buy it here or here.

[the-out-door]

200 Words: QUICKSAILS

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

QUICKSAILS - Mortal LP (Hausu Mountain)

When I last heard from Ben Baker Billington’s Quicksails project it was via the excellent Fleurs De La Lune LP, a very diverse and tough to pin down work that still sticks deep in my brain. Mortal is pretty much the perfect follow-up, in that it’s just as diverse and non-pinnable, but it also feels bigger, wider, more open, and more encompassing. There’s diversity that’s about carefully-chosen control and there’s diversity that’s about unrestricted adventure...and somehow Billington has mastered both of those qualities on Mortal.

For me, that makes the most exciting parts of the album the ones that are most about pure, free bliss. My favorite tunes, like the cycling bubble bath “Ambassador” and the sun-baked cloud “Dance of Eyes,” are perfectly happy to let their bright hooks run on and on, eschewing unnatural changes or pasted-on textures. There’s also a lot of density and complexity on Mortal, and no track is anywhere near predictable. But even the most abstract material feels loose and confident and just stresslessly content with existence. Maybe that’s what the album title’s about - this is music that gleefully accepts its fate, and isn’t really worried about the fact that it’s going to end.

– Marc Masters

BEN BAKER BILLINGTON on Mortal

There's a recurring dream/story that I've re-told in my head since I was a young teenager that paints a picture of what inspired a great deal of Mortal. The dream starts in the shadows of a banana tree with an overly ambitious but mature weasel named Fee. The weasel was a buddhist that hoped his religion would set him free, which he had seen happen with his friend Floyd the chimp. At some point Fee meets a beautiful gospel singer named Milly at a bar in Peru and quickly fell in love. Unfortunately his old friend Floyd had already hoped to have Milly as his companion and became quite jealous. Later on Floyd unexpectedly ran into Milly and Fee on a boat towards Canada, which led him to attack Fee with a broken bottle. Although a tiny being, Milly fought back and hit Floyd in the face with a nectarine. Floyd was stunned and fell over the side of the boat, then hanging on by only one finger. Milly was incredibly angry, so she took a piece of paper from her pocket and sliced Floyd on the chest so he'd lose his grip. He fell into the ocean and was swiftly torn apart by sharks. Despite the brutal occurrence, Fee and Milly were able to live happily ever after in love. Thanks to TA for the story and life inspiration at age 12; I owe you more than you know. 

Mortal is out now on Hausu Mountain. Buy it here.

[the-out-door]

200 Words: ERIC ARN

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

ERIC ARN - Orphic Resonance LP (Feeding Tube)

It’s pretty criminal that this is Eric Arn’s first solo vinyl release, and only (according to Discogs) his third solo record of any kind. After so many years of great playing with Crystallized Movements and the Primordial Undermind, you’d imagine he would have solo albums falling out of his pockets. But the blessing in disguise is that the scarcity means there has been no chance of wearing out ideas – if such a thing were even possible – and Arn packs a lot of them into Orphic Resonance, an album as comfortable with precise finger-picked acoustics as it is with big, daunting drones.

Those two modes work as a continuum rather than multiple personalities because Arn infuses every track with a sneaky combination of patience and disorientation. Everything on Orphic Resonance feels calm and measured, yet there’s always something subversive going on, a weird note or an odd timbre that pushes and pulls the music’s equilibrium. Even when Arn settles into a sunny strumfest to close the album out, there’s a sense of probing asymmetry, a sense that he’s not just gonna let time fly by passively. It makes Orphic Resonance a beautifully tense experience, even when it’s just beautiful.

– Marc Masters

ERIC ARN on Orphic Resonance

I hope that everything I had to say on this album is already there in the grooves, I would only add one suggestion - try listening in the dark. But I thought I might take the opportunity to get ahead of some questions that have already begun to crop up.

1. No, I didn’t forget the ‘m’. 2. Orpheus, man, Orpheus 3. It’s mostly guitars. At least a majority.  ⅝ of the pieces (if you’re quantitative) are just guitars, even if it doesn’t seem like it. 4. No electronic effects or amplification at all in the recording - except for the piece that’s only amplified electronics 4. Because I do believe the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. 5. Whatever you’re hearing, you can assume it’s intentional. (rant/) There seems to be a trend these days in reviewing guitar music to use ‘clean’ as a complement.  It isn’t so much in my estimation.  In my struggles with the guitar, I tend to try and squeeze out every drop of sound I can wrench from the thing.  Each extra overtone, difference tone, harmonic, buzz, rattle and squeak is a reward, from where I’m sitting.(/off)  Someone once called me a ‘guitar wrestler’ in print (sorry, I can’t remember who). I try to embrace that. 6. From watching Genghis Blues and then just working out what I could on my own. 7. If you expected it to sound like John Fahey, then I’m afraid you didn’t read Byron’s blurb very carefully. 8. Yes, I would love a hug.

Orphic Resonance is out now on Feeding Tube. Buy it here.

[the-out-door]

200 Words: ASHLEY BELLOUIN

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

ASHLEY BELLOUIN - Ballads LP (Drawing Room)

The best drone music encompasses contradictions, particularly the seemingly paradoxical idea that one sound can be both soothing to the point of becoming a New Age spiritual remedy, and ominous to the point of being scarier than a horror movie. There’s a lot of room between those extremes, and when I’m really feeling (as in being struck like a tuning fork by) a drone, my mind flies and floats in and around that entire polar continuum.

The first full-length by Bay Area artist Ashley Bellouin swims in a wide ocean of calm and tension. Both side-length pieces have a tonal purity that’s hypnotically simple in the way Phill Niblock’s drones sound phenomenally focused. Yet there’s also a lot of texture and arc happening in each, as Bellouin uses her harmonium (plus a bunch of other instruments and collaborators) to make small shifts in timbre produce huge changes in direction and mood. The closest parallel I can think of in those terms is the deceptively-simple drone mastery of Duane Pitre, and even though Bellouin already has a sound that’s completely her own, I can imagine spending a very long stretch of time letting the music of both wave my inner tides.

– Marc Masters

ASHLEY BELLOUIN on Ballads

The two tracks on Ballads materialized from my fascination with harmoniums. I remember playing my harmonium one night and becoming fixated on the subtle beating patterns I could hear within each note. The imperfectly tuned reeds created shifting rhythmic patterns that seemed to dance through the air. I wanted to bring these rhythms to the forefront, isolate specific frequencies I was drawn to and mix them together to create my modified version of the harmonium. I was dissecting the sound and piecing it back together to form something new. The additional instrumentation (guitar, glass armonica, cello) all fell into place as that foundation was formed, naturally emerging from the constructed harmonium drone. When working on these pieces I moved linearly. I let each sound guide me into the next. The trajectory of each piece unfolded like a narrative, which is where the title Ballads comes from. Although they lack traditional forms of narration, I view "Hummen” and "Bourdon” as stories, told with sound rather than words, that unravel and expand as time passes.

Ballads is out now on Drawing Room. Buy it here.

[the-out-door]

200 Words: ROB NOYES

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

ROB NOYES - The Feudal Spirit LP (Poon Village)

Usually solo acoustic guitarists like to do a little real-time warm up at the beginning of albums, easing into the first song with long strums and pronounced pauses. But on The Feudal Spirit Rob Noyes eschews all that and hits the ground running, filling opening track “Paydirt” with ringing chords and plucks that instantly spill over each other in a reverberant rush. He never lets up throughout the tune’s four minutes, generating sound as if the electricity in his house is powered solely by his hand movements.

The rest of The Feudal Spirit is more tonally and temporally varied than that description might suggest; Noyes is deft at slow crawls, picked loops, and gently swinging tunes. On “Golden Week” he even seems to approach waltz speed at times, while on “Cloistral Hush” he actually pauses as much as he plays. Yet still all 10 tracks retain the spirit of “Paydirt,” always feeling mentally and emotionally busy if not necessarily sonically packed. Noyes seems unwilling to let a moment go by without filling it with ideas and activity, and his dedication to such intense, unrelenting engagement makes The Feudal Spirit a constant thrill, like a roller coaster without an off switch.

– Marc Masters

ROB NOYES on The Feudal Spirit

The title from this record comes from a phrase that crops up in some of the Jeeves and Wooster stories by P.G. Wodehouse. I don't mean to brag but I read a bunch of those books once. To me, one of the more unique qualities of his writing is that it's satire but with almost no discernible point of view, at least politcally. His subject-matter is always centered around upper-class British society and every character outside of the servant class is depicted as being irredeemably silly but nothing genuinely terrible ever happens to anyone. Wooster relies on his near-superhumanly intelligent valet Jeeves to get him out of low stakes snafus with his intricate schemes. In one of the books (can't remember) Wooster cheerfully admonishes Jeeves for not being willing to provide him with an intricate scheme by asking "Where's that feudal spirit?" It strikes me as being a deeply miserable concept given that it exists in a fictitious universe that generally doesn't recognize much worse than some sap getting embarrassed or tricked by a valet or whatever.

The Feudal Spirit is out now on Poon Village. Buy it here.

[the-out-door]

200 Words: DAVID FIRST

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

DAVID FIRST - Same Animal, Different Cages Vol. 2 LP (Fabrica)

David First has always been restless, willing to follow his muse to any corner of his brain. So of course Volume 2 of his Same Animal, Different Cages series is a radical sonic leap from the first. That one featured utterly original takes on solo acoustic guitar, while this finds First mauling a Korg MS-20 synth until it generates repetitive figures that drive right into your cranium (the first track, in fact, consistently makes my tinnitus ring in a tone I’ve never heard before).

Yet Vol. 2 matches its predecessor in how First structures sounds and plays with the concept of time. Both records revel in repetition, but are far from automatized - more like the mantra-beats of an audible human heart. Maybe you can’t hear First’s hands on the instrument the way you could on Vol. 1, but his firing Korg manipulations have a lot of breath and sweat in them, especially considering how bracing they are. It’s easy - and fun! - to let Vol. 2 drill into one side of your skull and out the other without resistance in between. But let it sit in your neurons too and you’ll find a lot of surprises inside these unsurprisingly great concoctions.

– Marc Masters

DAVID FIRST on Same Animal, Different Cages Vol. 2

Tears

Not mine, but others’. Went to a wake a couple days ago. Saw a bunch of people I don’t see often enough. That happens, I guess. Too many of us to stay constantly connected. But it’s a lovely energy when those kinds of connections return. There’s things to talk about and share about how you’ve been and really mean it. Not like when you see someone at a party or show. Those kinds of encounters can usually be satisfied with a head nod or a “what’s up”. This was different. At these kinds of things you can even renew a connection that you never really had previously. A kind of bonding takes place when you’re in a room with a body, I reckon. No time for pettiness or reservation. Or looking at your phone. Although, I confess I snuck away and did so a couple of times. Had to—other things going on, though not for a lot of the people there. Family, sig others, etc. There was a sweet feeling in the air even though this was a tragic shock. I talked to his mother. She seemed nice—talked more than I would’ve been able to I think. Standing there asking me questions, maybe mistaking me for someone else—another friend of his but I didn’t care it didn’t matter. We were connecting. It was probably the worst day of her life and she was talking to me. She was exalted through her grief. A queen. And I was just a passerby who gave her my ear and tried to say something that would comfort but what the hell could that ever be? Then she was gone. Something that would’ve been rude under any other circumstances but all is forgiven in this one. I was impressed that she talked to me at all. We all went out after to a restaurant he was always trying to get some one of us to go to. It was fun and we had fun and we ate and laughed and talked. Not too much about him, but it was all about him of course. We did toast him and took a photo so we could have a concrete memory to share. Hugged a lot of people I’d never met before. That’s an interesting dynamic. Four of us got in our car (it was out of town by a couple of hours) rode home talking about him and what to do to honor him and we talked about psychedelics. Had some more laughs, got out in front of my apt and into the coldest night of the year so far. Things are dark and getting darker. And we need more light but a bright one just burned out.

Same Animal, Different Cages Vol. 2 is out now on Fabrica. Buy it here.