BAERDCYN

 

This is a (sub)genre, I just know it is. I don't know what it is, but I know it is. Might be neo-folk, might be French prog, might be some elfen shit I've never heard of. Hell, I assumed MORTIIS was metal until I heard <ORTIIS....and then later I found out MORTIIS is metal. You see what I mean? It's hard for me and I'm a person who knows some things (not very many....but some), so normal people will probably just assume that BAERDCYN is some early Windham Hill worship. Maybe it is, or maybe it's some mystical metal that I don't understand. I don't know, dear readers.....I just know that I enjoy listening to it and it's very mellow and pretty. 

YONDER REALMS

EMERALD STARA

 

"These guided meditations are designed to help you explore crystals and crystal energy, and to contact and experience your ever-expanding self and the wonders of your own being. To assist you in aligning with your intrinsic knowledge, wisdom and love and to help you release your own innate powers of creativity into your physical world."
•••
She said it - why would I try to say it any better?
•••

A DROP OF LIGHT: CRYSTAL VISUALIZATIONS

WEIRD WOMAN

 

Two fifteen minute messages that may or may not have originated from the brain of a toddler. I'm going to assume they had some parental assistance while I hope that they did not. The tape is deliberate, slow, vaguely terrifying. Listen to "You Will Not Sleep Again" while you sleep tonight.

THE MORE I SEE

Worth noting that WEIRD WOMAN lands right next to WEIRD UNKNOWN GUY alphabetically and I strongly suggest you (re)visit that post from 2018. 

NATHALIA BEYLIS

 

Just put it on and go about your day. 

You won't be the same when you finish.

LIBRARY OF STICKS

NATALIA BEYLIS

MISTLETOE

 

A haunting sonic display in four movements - horror and desperation transformed into sound. That Perchta is so calculated, so utterly deliberate, makes the sound even more terrifying. This didn't just happen...this was intentional.

PERCHTA

WEAVING STONES

 

Gloriously haunting lo-fi drones captured in the PNW. Two movements of mesmerizing pulses recorded in 2023 backed by a live conjuring from 2024 that focuses on mangled low end guitar feedback. There might not be much to say, but there are layers upon layers of sound waiting for your ears. 

WEAVING STONES

ARDENT VEIN

 

Listening to ARDENT VEIN produces more questions than answers, and I suspect that's exactly how they prefer it. Two tracks here, almost forty minutes of deliberate and desperate ambient noise...it's a really beautiful release, but there's an intangible darkness that you can't put your finger on. Maybe you can't put a finger on it because you can feel it? And oh....you can feel it. Both ARDENT VEIN (the band) and Dead Accents (the label) have volumes more to offer - I'm almost scared to seek it out. Almost.

THE TRESPASSER'S GIFT // IRON DOORS ON FIRE

EATING

 

I've waxed on about Max Nordile in these pages many times, and I rambled about my low-key fascination with his creative compulsions on an episode of What Are You Listening To? a couple of weeks ago...and here I am again, doing the same. This collaboration goes by EATING, and it manifests as 94 minutes of bizarro improvisation and sonic mania. There's just something different here (and by "here" I mean "there"), something that makes me always need to stop and listen. And a thing that can make me stop and shut out the noise so I can pay attention to other and specific noise? That's a special thing.

ABSOLUTE PLEASURE

ARMAGEDDON EXPERIMENTAL BAND

 

Tempted to just leave this one here and see if y'all know to do the right thing.

So I'm going to just leave this one here.....you know what to do. 

CRIES FROM PLANET EARTH

MAX NORDILE HAIR CLINIC

 

Unbridled improvisational glory. I have talked about the compulsion more times than I care to own, and yet here I am again consumed by the compulsion. I have a lot of things I want to do, a lot of things I think might be cool, a few things that other people might even enjoy (though mostly I'm concerned with the things that I think will be cool). And it's that last parenthetical that is really the point here - Max is doing this for Max. Everything I think about....? Max does. I have ten releases and/or projects in my mind and Max has put twenty into the Realms and is already thinking about the next.....thing. And the compulsion is what really compels me to keep listening. I am drawn to the sounds as much for the sounds themselves as I am drawn to the sounds for the concept of the sounds. I hope you can understand that because it's....well, it's kindof a big deal. Now, speaking of the sounds: Melting Garden Bed State Hatchery is unbridled improvisational glory. There are damaged synths, found sounds, discordant horns, manipulated percussives, alien electronics...it's 34 minutes of mystery presented as sound. It's listening to worlds you don't belong in. Worlds you don't deserve. Worlds you are grateful for. 

MELTING GARDEN BED STATE HATCHERY

WHITE DOG

 

I have two options, and both are correct. I can either spend a lot of words trying to dissect sixteen minutes of guitar bursts and blurts and applying a deeper meaning to the sounds on 2009's Beer Guzzle. Or I can just say that WHITE DOG offer made ten minutes of droning, meandering guitar blurts and then played one of the sides backwards because I guess that's what you do when you're from Texas because drugs. You know how good it can be to put on a music and then forget that it's even there because it becomes a part of your environment? That is what Beer Guzzle does. I guess I had a third option, and I chose it. 

BEER GUZZLE

Members of: TOTAL ABUSE, THE SNOBS, MENTAL ABORTION, RAYON BEACH, MUTATING MELTDOWN, BREATHING PROBLEM, CAPTIVE, ARCHITECTS, FINALLY PUNK...but somehow it sounds like this tape was made by two-and-a-half stoners. 

MAREFUMI KOMURA

 

Leaning more into the execution than the title, Komura's 2008 release is a glorious exercise in sound "created by walking through many rooms with a hand held cassette recorder" rather than a traditional mix tape. When my first listen was complete I realized I was just sitting and reflecting - it's like he allows you to hear the past and allows you to see joy while constantly reminding you that you live in a very tumultuous present and you can't go back; a dystopian journey of dead sound and current anxiety.  Tough to describe the power that a thirty minute aural collage can have when it lands on the right ears, and I'm glad that this one found mine.

MIX TAPE 1

LUNAR MIASMA

 

One half hour of meticulously crafted psychedelic space sounds from LUNAR MIASMA in the form of Heavy Mist. It's just before six in the morning as I write, and this is making me dream of dreaming in the bed that is still warm....these are night sounds. Ominous, foreboding, beautiful night sounds. 

HEAVY MIST

JT WHITFIELD

 

The Chondritic Sound label was responsible for some of my favorite discoveries of the 2010s and while their releases have leaned more on the digital format/s for the last few years, I still keep a keen eye (and ear) on their output. If I didn't keep a keen eye (and ear), I might miss releases like like 2019's Complacent from Austin freak JT WHITFIELD. Dark and deliberate distortion tinged ambient/techno sounds for the future, sounds that sound as if they are a reminder from a distant (and tortured) past...just letting you know we'll (all) be back.

COMPLACENT

ELECTRON PANIC

 

When most people come across a tape like this, they just keep walking. I don't. When I come across a tape like this, I wonder.....because you just never know. It probably won't change my life, it might not even enrich my life, but curiosity is a powerful beast, you know? So I dust it off, squint to read the faded labels and then pop it in the deck hoping it plays - and if it does play then I listen to something that logically no one should have ever heard again. And sometimes? Sometimes it's instantly apparent that I have made the right decision. The first side is titled Electron Flagration, a collection of ambient and electronic experimental sounds that instantly validate my curiosity. Primitive electro-prog periodically invaded by soundtrack scores and the previous inhabitants of the cassette....an indescribably brilliant listen. Panic In Detroit on the flip is a Detroit-themed proto-punk mix masterfully curated and packed with hits, I almost presented it as one untitled track so you could listen the way I did (probably should have, actually). It probably didn't change my life, but do I feel enriched? Yes....yes I do. 

ELECTRON FLAGRATION // PANIC IN DETROIT

CCCRRCCSSLLRRKKRRSSS

 

Remember a few days ago when I jawed about the creative and prolific people in my orbit? File the extended MegaKut in that same category - (very) extended orbit to be clear, but some of them are right down the 101and I perk my ears up every time these cats drop new sounds...that means I'm perking my ears up often. CCCRRCCSSLLRRKKRRSSS are a different animal, self described "electechtro noise for b-girls and boys and creeps and burnouts" that defies any kind of traditional descriptor. If ever I have shared a vibe-inducing tape on these pages...this is it.Three expansive tracks spanning almost forty minutes released by Spareorgan to accompany the CD release on Megakut. 

miami - cochi - misdirect

•••••••

SINGH KAUR • KIM ROBERTSON

 

Endless energies have been wasted turning up noses at the things I classified (rightly or wrongly) as "new age," but I am doing my best to right those wrongs in old(er) age. It's a weight lifted to explore a field of sound not based on scenes and/or reputation, but simply by consuming what crosses your path when (or if) you so desire...which is how Mool Mantra landed moved from a second hand shop in the American Southwest to a shelf in my temporary apartment. And when I listened? It wasn't my nose that was upturned...it was my ears.

MOOL MANTRA

HAROLD TURGIS

 

I waxed on about HAROLD TURGIS a few months ago, and here's the second of three tapes I received in a very timely package from England. These sounds arrived when I was in need of some grounding, some unscheduled quietude, and The Sentinels and Satellite both provide exactly that while also offering (temporary) (safe) escapes through sound. Turgis creates sound in an apparent vacuum, paying attention to the sounds themselves more than the environments that conjure them...and as much as I was hesitant to listen to Satellite because my experience with The Sentinels was so perfect, this experience was (also) exactly what I needed. You're worth it. 

SATELLITE: 1997-2021

DJ UDJAT EYE

 

When the first DJ UDJAT EYE mix dropped into my box last year, I was chuffed before I popped it in the deck. You see, Dave doesn't fuck around.....and if Dave took the time to create and reproduce a mix? It's gonna be good, and it is good (of course) - but that tape still didn't prepare me for this volume. Seven minutes into the first side and we've moved from ALBERT MARCOEUR to VOLYA to MAGDA MAYAS infected with PIG DNA....and that only lays the foundation. This is an expertly crafted cassette, a collection of sounds and creations that is far greater than the sum of its parts. RINGO STARR. NO COMMENT. MARION BROWN. NEFTALI. PEGGY LEE. SUPPRESSIVE PERSON. A truly crafted and curated mix is so much more that a simple collection of songs, and this is is so much. more than even that. An altogether other worldly listen that I cannot recommend more highly. 

DJ UDJAT EYE

HEDIA

 

The answer to yesterday's post is New Mexico's HEDIA. They are so simple and honest, so sonically straightforward, so....so real. There's no description necessary, this tape is little more than a collection of sounds presented as deliberate individual thoughts. This tape is patience and understanding. This tape is telling you it's okay to do the wrong thing, even if you already did the thing. HEDIA is...patience. I don't think I have ever described a recording as patient before today....HEDIA is patient. Patience. It's okay. You'll be okay, I think.

TO QUIET, CAUSE SLEEP OR REST

•••

GOOD NIGHT