Daryl Worthington delves into the shining chaos of the tape scene, finds the dirty environment, finds the kosmiche architecture, the aquarium jazz and the room curvy dance music

Rose Bolton by Marc de Guerre

The trend of finding underground tapes feels weird, the formats are so diverse and fragmented, in the end, everything seems to be happening, and it's happening all the time. But patterns sometimes appear suddenly, a card-style zeitgeist, which penetrates and connects together.

Recently, a large number of artists have worked in familiar live recording, electronic and minimalist spaces, but glued them together with a unique messy ending. They don't work hard to create virtual environments, improve or deconstruct sound, or record live for high-definition authenticity. On the contrary, these composers are in the middle ground between man-made and non-man-made noise pollution. A dirty environment full of disturbances and debris.

The Mappa label in Slovakia is a key fulcrum in this messy corner of the tape world. Their latest work Cheryl E. Leonard's Schism breaks the boundaries between nature and man-made. The main track has a microphone placed on her computer to record its internal operation. The sound is intertwined with the recordings of local wild animals. This is the real picture of our sound world. As the gap between electronic and organic is getting smaller and smaller, the chirps and calls of microchips create a kind of uneasiness with birds. harmonious. The second track Eremozoic saw Leonard put the microphone in a 100-year-old bottle pulled from the soil in San Francisco. The turbid glass acts as a filter, and a piece of rubbish transforms the outside world into strange resonances and strange echoes.

The sound image created is reminiscent of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing's book "Mushrooms at the End of the World". Tsing traces the product chain of Matsutake to highlight the complex connections that shape the earth. In short, human beings, our technologies and institutions are not superior to nature, we are fully integrated into it. Tsing uses a musical metaphor to explain this combination. It is a polyphony of intertwined autonomous melodies, rather than being dominated by a unified melody and rhythm, as in rock music.

The Mappa version released earlier this year clearly stated the connection with Tsing's writing, Infant's Face First In The Entangled. The baby forged the sound reflection of the network between the mushroom and the other creatures described by Qing. Music clearly lacks separation between synthetic and natural sounds. The human voices are cut and processed so that they sound like seeds propagating in the wind, while the electronic texture spreads like someone sifting through the soil. Numbers and soil are intertwined. Nothing can compare to the role of the lead instrument. Your ears need to track the overlap of different sounds in order to have any feeling for this strange sound network.

These messy maps of organic and inorganic sounds don't just come from Mappa. Londoner Amy Cutler’s recent tapes about crows and crows, the end (and also the end) of the earth and variants has entered a similar muddy area. Inspired by a medieval English riddle that uses the word earth (erthe) twelve times in its three lines, Cutler weaves and entangles live recordings, surface noise, and creepy electronic devices, surrounding the lamenting Folk songs and a peaceful loop. Electronic interference and live recording often sound like feet stepping on a rock, but as the tape plays, the line between them becomes more difficult to grasp. Singing voices are often affected, whether through the resonance of the cavernous space in which they are recorded, or through digital degradation on the "face of the living on earth." Like the releases of Cheryl E. Leonard and Infant, Cutler's work combines organic and inorganic matter, injecting the soft buzz of electronic products into the geology, removing the boundaries between music and non-music, composer and environment . The key seems to be the way these elements connect, overlap, and entangle each other. In that collision, they did not try to find some kind of ideal natural purity, but depicted the messy polyphonic combination that we all belonged to.

Middex-The apocalypse that makes the engine roar wreaks havoc on your soul (self-published)

The apocalypse that makes the engine roar wreaks havoc on your soul, and it reads like God has given you! The title of the Black Emperor is out of control, but Londoner Middex, aka Kevin Hendrick, is here to work hard to resolve inertia instead of the end of the world. The arrangement of bare drum machines, dilapidated synthesizers, and deep vocals hints at John Bender's DIY electronic quirks, or if all her psychic escape routes are blocked, it may be the lady in space. His lyrics transform ordinary language into beautiful phrases, "Extremely detached power, a lonely blue flower, dying in the third home", the opening line "The building of panic", or "Our souls are like mud. "Lark", a self-care advice that sounds suspiciously like battling a panic attack. Vague word associations begin to outline specific frustrations, whether it is with those in power, landlords, or all boring. Through sheer elegance, these poetic clear lines prevent complete succumbing to despair. As Hendrick said in the "rest position", advancement may have been cancelled, but by hijacking the current banal language, he made the wrecked machine less depressing.

Rose Bolton-The Lost Clock (Cassauna/Important Records)

In Rose Bolton's four works in "The Lost Clock", the movement of tones, hums and bells is jaw-dropping. The slight nudges and fluctuations on the surface of the voice felt like some kind of kind prank. In "Unsettled Souls", it sounds like a bowed instrument, but it may be that the veil of the synthesizer is curled into a percussion with almost no percussion. 'The Lost Clock' has some faint remnants of beat pulses, and when the real drum beats appear, it flows into the mix like a gentle stream of water instead of anchoring anchors. The veritable "Sky Mirror" slipped into the shadow of the haggard strings, as if the tension of these composition teachings was finally relaxed. The whole tape is soft and addictive, as if staring at the twinkling city lights at night, making time pause.

Prolaps-hypercyclic platinum. 2: Growing season (Hausu Mountain)

The huge, swarming beats of Prolaps tear the dance music into the most primitive energy, and then explode the essence. Ultra Cycle Pt.2 is the second of four albums planned to be released by the duo of Machine Girl (aka Matt Stephenson) and Bonne Baxter (the lead singer and producer of Kill Alters) this year-every winter solstice and vernal equinox. One sheet. Their repertoire boldly combines bpm into a minimalist whole. The footwork hyperactivity struggles with the low end of the structure, the crazy drums and bass accelerate into the gabba euphoria, and the multi-rhythm sprouts more multi-rhythm before detonating into a distorted robot cover. It sounds like multiple Amen interruptions colliding, an AI drum ring crashing, or in "You Can't Ddddiiiieeee", as if the duo somehow managed to sidechain an ecosystem. They sometimes hit the direct house or techno slot, but there is always a ridiculous texture, or the dazzling unpredictable beat switch knocks the whole thing to the head. Nevertheless, for all these wild sounds, its core is dance music, and the nearly two-hour playing time of this tape will cause constant movement of the mind, limbs, and anything in between.

Namoro-XTRA CAXXIA (Grimalkin Records)

"Sex is good, but have you ever fucked this system?" Namoro, also known as the Paris duo Bili Bellegarde and Masacre, was sung in the opening match of XTRA CAXXIA. This is a proud and erotic music, which is contended with restrained behavior in every note, every note, every note and groan in the eleventh minute of EP. Recorded in their studio apartment on the eighth floor, XTRA CAXXIA is full of underground space and the nighttime charm of hidden faces. The opening remarks and "Your Eyes Betrayed" (feat. Kelyboy) are black, full of pulsations of ecstasy, and if you close your eyes, the floor will jump. 'Moon' and'Audre Burns Me' slow down and enter the romanticism of tobacco smoke, the sad soundscape and the sleepy slow dance-imagine the blurry staggering through the dawn as the city accelerates around you The blur. The entire production process oscillates between wild dance floor energy and intricate depth, which makes XTRA CAXXIA feel like a guarantee that fascination is liberation rather than embarrassment. The four songs are pure anti-shame music and uncontrollable freedom.

Jianghu Liar——Glass Frame (Glyph of Moon)

Charlatan is Brad Rose. On The Glass Borders, he assembled the original building with a kosmiche synthesizer, trickle melody, and shiny live recordings. The opening line "All Your Gifts Are Weightless" changed from a noisy arpeggio to a high-speed bell, and then dripped into quiet chords and soft fragments. All four tracks seem to be carefully combined and structured patiently, but are closely related to the natural circulation of things, so listening feels like looking at the stalagmites and stalactites formed around you. The closer "On The Cheek" is far from sequences and arpeggios, it is reminiscent of standing in the rain and listening to the image of someone playing the piano indoors. The warm light seeps into the cold. The liner notes say that these repertoires are rooted in Rose's father's experience, and the way these works seem to establish a protective shelter is most keenly felt. It seems that electronic devices are working hard to build a place to live for future generations.

Gnäw-Me (Cruel Nature Record)

The next few years may be dominated by the collaboration of remote recording during Covid, but Gnäw, Iranian-born Arash Ghasem, and Finnish-born Simo Hakalisto managed to make these tracks face-to-face in Prague. Ghasem played a selection of traditional instruments, setars, pump organs and percussion instruments, which were processed by Hakalisto's modular synthesizer. Acoustic sounds dominate, whether it's the crisp playing of'Mirha', the pulsating percussion driving'Waters Of Ether', or the lazy vibrato of'Marras'. The meditation of the oriental scale is effortlessly wrapped in the electronic warmth and soaked human voice, synthesis and organic become completely symbiosis. Hakalisto said that the Ciat-Lonbarde Tocantes instrument—an electronic device that controls the pitch by moving the hand on the touchpad—is an important part of the work. The touch is very keen, as if the pair suspended a large piece of esoteric sound in the air and shaped it into these burnt psychedelic jams full of happiness.

Phexioenesystems-Conspiracy and Entanglement & Kailin-Auteur Theory & Jordan Stanley-Kongbai (Salmon Universe)

The new batch of the London Salmon Universe curated by DEEP LEARNING (Richard Pike) and JQ saw them continue to explore the unique headspace they opened up between the predatory, 80s Japanese environment and almost vapor waves. Phexioenesystems has a dewy quality, that is, Dominic Thurgood's electronic products on Complicities And Entanglements. The track plays like a delicately balanced water scene. The sparse synthesizer numbers are reminiscent of Hiroshi Yoshimura's pure texture, and it feels like it was designed as a well-balanced machine, not a combination. The components are placed together and allow interaction and development. A professionally balanced push-pull force system achieves a quiet internal and external balance. Kailin aka Colin Hallet's Auteur Theory has entered a more vague area, focusing more on tension than balance. The faded day-glo synthesizer was scratched by Ben Vince's saxophone in the opening, creating something similar to the lo-fi house made by Bohren & der Club of Gore. The definition of this album is a duality, degraded, worn-out sound, covered with high-definition instruments, like the color cracks opened in a black and white movie. Empty For Each is the self-mixing behavior of Jordan Stanley (real name Jordan Russell-Hall) based in Edinburgh. He re-recorded the music he had previously recorded at a different speed, and then further chopped and recolored the audio. This editing makes the slightly faulty pads and the soaring soundscape present a lush, shaky quality, remixed in a way of evolution rather than dilution. Trance-y thorns become flashing monuments, and chord progressions become crumpled pulses. The added texture and tremor make the whole thing sound more narrative and fulfilling.

The inspiration for 2021 came from the dream Boom Edan, real name Tuukka Asplund, he encountered an open microphone jam in the underwater jazz cellar, and it was very strange that he tried to reproduce it. The dramatic blows of piano, tin can percussion and synthetic doos and dah float on the "Sad Water Tiger", condensing into a disturbing and tranquil anti-rhythmic movement. 'Spontaneous Incabuts' squeezed an unplanned drum solo through the noise of birds and other animals. Despite the playful qualities of these nine tracks, they sometimes give a positive Lynch-like feel-equally kitsch and disturbing. The only comparison I can think of is Rashad Becker's electroacoustic anthropology, but this connection is more of strange form than content. 2021 sounds like a free jazz band bubbling in a fish tank filter, realizing Asplund's goal because the music spreads with its own abnormal dream logic. A surreal, aquatic mixture rippling through the speakers in an endless way.

Catheter-Sliding Thrombosis (Steep Gloss)

I have always believed that the failure depends on a normal line, that is, the end point where the sound is intended to make the interruption obvious, but the slip thrombosis of the pipeline is a failure along the way. Except for the fact that they live in the southern United States, there is not much information about the reclusive duo. They sent these recordings to Steep Gloss with tapes wrapped in surgical stockings. A large part of the source material was secretly filmed on public transportation, and other passengers were talking or playing music on their mobile phones. These tiny audio clips play in intermittent loops, although they are more like wobbly Venn diagrams than concentric circles of sound. This is a kind of hypnotic listening, never worn away enough to become noise, never ethereal enough to become an environment. The soundtrack of a world, everyone is plugged in, everything is slightly off the axis.

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