MJ MJ Records has captured sounds from the Minneapolis area. Delivering these amazing shows in the gorgeous physical format of artfully done cassettes. Live music across three tapes, maintaining the high standards for the label.
Throwing the sounds backwards, American Cream Band sounds more like an African orchestra from the nineteen fifties and sixties. Psychedelic wind hits these beats and warbled notes are played through a relentless percussion exhibition. Groovy bass is the only root to this world. Heavy to say the least. While listening to Live 2015 - 2016 your attitude will be adjusted like subtle vertebrae on a giraffes neck.
Well over forty minutes across ten tracks, there is no stopping the force behind American Cream Band. Nathan Nelson plays with a multitude of musicians over a variety of venues. Improvisational blessedness for the Minneapolis Minnesota area. What surfaces is shark attacks of live music, biting listeners with well defined chomp patterns. Not sloppy gummy jams, but precise sound forays. From beats to drones, instrumental to vocals, jazz to rock, this is the cream of America.
A very thoughtful selection of live performances curated by Nathan Nelson. With so much to choose from, these tracks really represent the unique moments of guest musicians and spontaneous creation. MJ MJ Records has worked together with home town neighbor Nathan, making this music available for a much bigger audience. Get the tape at the label bandcamp page!
Journey into the ambient jungle. Paralyzing horns piercing like frog dipped blow darts. Beats in cadence with rising anxiety of loosing yourself in a world where the sun is permanently kept away. There is a tangent quality of peacefulness and beauty. Maybe rest will somehow induce the ability to hear more clearly. With out noticing the music becomes your totem. Like a snake in a wicker basket, yearning for these melodic horns is the only appeasement your existence knows.
ZOZO Tek is from Minneapolis and consist of Joseph Burns and Mariel Oliviera. This live cassette was recorded at Drone Not Drones 2016, in the wee hours of the morning. MJ MJ Records has the complete description here, so i am not going to rewrite it.
This music has some serious roots in talent. The timing alone is absolutely majestic. The sounds beat and sparkle along like breathing or blood pumping through your core. The first side of the recording is a little more hairy. Approaching your ears like ghost rattle in the night, your hands might grasp to make sure security is near. As the sound trek moves moves on, a comfortableness settles in. You realize this ambient soundscape is just that beautiful. I can hear some essence of Jon Hassell & Brian Eno's, Fourth World Vol. 1 - Possible Musics from the beginning of the eighties.
This is a great set and MJ MJ Records was sharp to release this on the label. If you love music, had a label, saw and heard this show, how could you not want more people to hear what courses through your city? Well worth the purchase.
Driving sounds pumping your consciousness full and clearing out ambient cobwebs. IE surges forward with pulsating synthesizer mercury. Heavy and free flowing sounds, sparkling in a turbulent electronic current. Energy to remove the madness of the daily world.
This is a live recording of IE at the Profile Event Center in Minneapolis. Each side of the tape is a ten minute foray on to open night roads, where speed is blurred by the distance light can travel. IE is a four person ensemble with John Vitale on bass, Meredith Gill with a percussive assault, Michael Gallope and Travis Workman melting fingers to the keyboard arrays. This group produces tones that hearken to times of hazy tripped out early seventies bands. Listeners being absorbed by their surroundings as ambivalence of the world around them creates the one moment they are in. IE is incredibly smooth with sounds balanced together so very well. They seem to fall into the pipeline and finally appear after the wave ends.
Electronic forms dancing in bewitching sonic fields. They take all forms in order to mesh with each separate listener. A Giant Fern turns the spotlight on, in order for their true identity to be heard.
On winter islands, in a still forest of pines, a lone warrior parts motionless molecules with an incredibly sharp sword. Percussion and strings echo through the consciousness as frozen air is cleaved in a rhythmic well practiced dance. The picture fades as the land is bombarded with the static of time. Ride the iron train of drone and enjoy the sounds more than the sights. The ethereal whistle blows for so long as the rumble of motion vibrates through the mind. Somehow hollow and completely dense simultaneously.
Amazingly the Kösmonaut release Master Generator is finely deft in the art of mutation. By the time track four "Waiting Room" ends, a new cycle of sound starts with "Lumbar Puncture". Finding home in a middle eastern tone and timber and covering the sound field with a smokey obscurity. Back to an almost frightening ferry through ambient haze, notes chiming like broken shutters in the wind.
The sky radiates again, not with sunlight but sustained glow from meteors burning up in the atmosphere. All darkness as the sounds diminish. One flame ignites as the world drone begins again. The last track, the title track, "Master Generator" frays the lines once more and spirals away into ethnic ambient bliss.
Available on cassette from A Giant Fern. This was released in the summer in an edition of fifty. Kösmonaut is Patrick R. Pärk, and this release is dedicated to his daughter Sevigny. Patrick has used his talent and skills to Heal Through Music. You can read more here. An excellent release for A Giant Fern, falling right in to the label's core of sounds.
Beautiful ambient music is always a nice treat to listen to and write about. This release on A Giant Fern by Rhucle, is a substantial addition to tones evoking higher spiritual awareness. As with all music on the this razor edge pathway up, the talent rest in never reaching the top or looking down below. Understanding spirituality revolves around the thoughts that it will never be fully understood, or even partially for that matter. And in this realization, the disappointment associated with never reaching a goal and always being on a journey, can be frightening. This cassette titled Colourless by Rhucle mirrors those thoughts in sound.
This composition focuses on the process of points in between. Hovering in this realm for long enough, the allurement becomes hypnotizing. Colourless consist of eight tracks covering close to forty minutes. A drone world pushing past the infrared and finding place in longer wave lengths. Complete peacefulness in sound, and this is incredibly difficult to achieve. Setting out to create a composition used for the sole purpose of meditation often results in a strained outcome of over the top sounds. Rhucle seems to only express the feelings and temperament existing in or around the time Corlourless was created. This makes a unique recording in the sense this same state might never be exposed again. Fortunately for anyone who enjoys these splendid tones in ambient music, Rhucle is in a groove with two releases new release on Oxtail Recordings and Constellation Tatsu.
Start here with Colourless on A Giant Fern label. Of the three newest cassettes by Rhucle, this one hovers like a light for your consciousness. Like a newly spun web with the the spider on sudden holiday. There is such delicate beauty and no danger at all.
If you could some how amplify the sounds of microbial processes, this cassette by Problems That Fix Themselves would be a good example of how this world drones on. Listening to molecules move, sounding incredibly dense and layered. Chemical reactions sparking indescribable notes of interest. Similar to the quietness of a starry sky being intruded by matter burning through the outer layers of the atmosphere. There is something alien about this release titled The Mold Will Die. An ambient world where you can never find complete comfort.
The composition consist of basically four tracks over a period of about a half an hour. The world created is a bath of radiation. Gamma rays of sound bombarding the consciousness above and beyond the anesthetizing drone taking all the space in the background. In this state, the mind is open for conditioning. Much like an episode on the original Star Trek where Kirk ends up on the table looking at the swirling mind control disc above (Dagger of the Mind). There is a formidable tone that consistently creates dread for continuing, but everything sounds remarkably captivating. Listening through The Mold Will Die forces thought of myriad of detail in our present space.
Problems That Fix Themselves are Alex Borozan and Joshua Tabbia. This is the third time i have written about their work. The besides cassette is sold out, but the Which is Worse lp is still available.
This release on A Giant Fern is really concise on the sound spectrum, compared with the two previous releases. Take a moment and give this a listen. Very difficult to not check out every A Giant Fern release. Everything has been so special, and what Problems That Fix Themselves laid down, is an excellent example.
The radio dial turns.... An infinite spectrum of possibilities, music, talk, static and squelch or any combination of these sounds. The fuzzy hiss becomes clear and the prevailing media is as it should be, guitar, bass and drums. When does this exist? Who is playing the instruments? Why are there people saying things from the well of time? The answer is Sulcus and this is their release Transistor Matadors.
Traditional modern rock swirling in disintegrating airwaves. Lengthy contaminations of broadcast oddities stuck together. Separation only causes the original copy to become utterly damaged. With adroit talent of the Sulcus technicians, only the truly beautiful mutations are taken. These are then bestowed on to the listener's with the knowledge of the existence of this San Diego laboratory. The amassment of terrestrial sounds lurking invisibly on reels of fused magnetic tape is a true project of extraction. With heads down working and alternately playing this stoned out soundtrack, seriousness would eventually erode. This collective of consciousnesses does have the higher process of humor and this wanders though the hour long course. The tightly sounding session of music backing the entire tape drops away completely on the third to the last track "dead end hosts". These sounds fall in a helical motion until the operatives realize the controls were unmanned. The last ten minutes bid Sulcus farewell with contemplative driffty guitar, and one massive reprise for this work session. There are a few ghostly vocals floating on this transmission and this entity does appear on the last track as if to say goodbye in some garbled form.
Stochastic Deployment vol2: Transistor Matadors is available now! You can download this for free here. They have over twenty one hundred downloads of this hour long ride. As for the cassette, you will need to contact Sulcus and find out if there are any available.
To be complete, i did write about Sulcus at the beginning of this year. Here is the link if you want to check it out.
Slowly unfolding, Painted Faces has the patience to feather the sound canvas with mesmerizing delectation. If anyone is intrigued by genres being mashed together, they should listen to Hermit of Bushwick with special interest. David Drucker has moved off into a style of music that could be called lo-fi drone pop. Not sure if this was the his intention on the initial composition start, but Hermit of Bushwick is difficult to classify, making it hypnotizing.
This cassette is completely different to say very plain and simply. Nine songs that move from twinkling electronic wander to sporadic vocals twisting your mind. Listen and think about the words Painted Faces conveys, poignant and haunting simultaneously. There is a drone quality sometimes becoming clearly apparent then disappearing into blistered deconstructed guitar, making itself heard in the moonless night. I want to say... Amps for Christ mixed with a Zappa record that wobbled off the turntable. Great cohesiveness as a complete composition. Relaxation with out napping, just five to ten second drifts.
This was released at the beginning of August on Already Dead Tapes and Records. There are fifty black cassettes and twenty green. Amazingly there are fourteen releases after this on the label in a little over two months. The good thing, Hermit of Bushwick is still available from the label.
As our world rotates on it's elliptical orbit, the energy of all living beings is radiated beyond the planet's gravitational pull. Much like breathing, this energy rises and falls through the passage of time. From sparsely populated to famine from overcrowding, at peace or societies in war, natural disasters, baby booms, deforestation, and times of renaissance..., energy changes. This composition by Brad Deschamps as Anthéne captures what is natural, the energetic field of life on an evolving celestial body.
Permanence is a beautiful composition both in sound and physical presentation. Seven tracks across forty five minutes, takes the listener far below the surface. A deep plunge into sounds resting on the edge of a somber world of contemplation. An ambient journey that helps assuage the vastness all entities reside in. In a largely empty universe, Brad finds tones with feelings. His project Anthéne, captures the essence of this swirling ambient force, and at the same time, keeps this desolate drone in context with the expansive surroundings. This stunning foray into blissful space captivates the listener with it's melancholy warmth. A good composition to always go back to.
Permanence is a cd release on the Cathedral Transmissions label. Anthéne is Brad Deschamps who runs the Polar Seas Recordings label. The cd was released in a limited quantity and is sold out. Have not found any Permanence cds for sale, so enjoy the digital by listening and/or purchasing.
Allaying hum of unseen electromagnetic energy cast from poll to poll above the earth's atmosphere. In a silent world where no ears can hear, sound goes no where. Tristan Welch harnesses onto this spectrum of obscured frequencies. The elusive energy in the air before us, funneling this moment in time deep into our consciousnesses.
Two side long tracks edging into your mind like space dust covering the solar system. This composition breathes the higher drone. The feelings are ultimately relaxing. Titled Washington D.C., Tristan finds grooves in simplicity and patience. Allowing thoughts to expand while these droning notes occupy the emptiness. Like an electric blanket to protect the body as the spirit travels in distant space. Washington D.C. allows your mind to become keenly aware of the unkwon sounds that swaddle our physical selves. You will want an auto-reverse cassette player on continual loop when this tape goes into the deck.
Take a moment and absorb the goodness! Copies of Washington D​.​C. are available from Tristan's bandcamp page. Not sure how many there are, but the word is getting out. There are three other write ups you can read and all of them have good things to say. I think the physical copies are going to disappear quickly.
Carving up the parts and stacking them back together uniquely and distinctively. Bob Bucko Jr has crafted a droned out tirade of jazz and electric energy. Pounding at the windows but never breaking the glass. There is no room for more anything. The earbuds have a full BBJr smattering again and Pareidolia will keep them saturated for a long while.
For tracks make up this forty minute tape. The balance from front to back is perfect with each other. A sea of roaring waves lulling your consciousness while the extreme edges of the world crackle with sounds never imagined before. Bob Bucko Jr has a serious talent for playing and waiting for the echoes to fade away before his havoc on the guitar begins again. Like he is speaking some forgotten celestial language from prominent mountain tops.The sounds leave their gravitational constraints. The surface drones away until the skies snap again returning frequencies of fascination.
This Bob Bucko Jr release on Already Dead Tapes and Records came out in mid July and for those interested in picking up a copy, be quick. The are five of sixty left on the site. Release number 207 in a catalog already at 223.