06/07/2024
Any tape freaks still on the Phazebook? We got three new ones out today at https://spleencoffin.com
TIM OLIVE – SINTERED cassette
Tim Olive lives in and operates out of Kobe, Japan, where he has built an impressive discography of solo and collaborative recordings using magnetic pickups as a primary instrument. Sintered was created with several of these magnetic pickups, along with metal objects, radios, and spring reverb. Working with such temperamental technology, it’s clear that Olive’s intuition and timing are assets put to good use here, sharpened from decades of collaboration and improvisation, from his early work as a core member of avant noise-rock group Ni**od through his continuing collaborations with Anne-F Jacques, Jason Kahn, Takuji Naka, Kayu Nakada and many others. With a sharp ear and a steady hand at the helm, Sintered unfolds almost as if the hum and interference of the electronics were simply being presided over, carefully guided to elegant compositions of their own internal logic.
HUMAN ADULT BAND – THE MOVERS BROUGHT RAINBOWS cassette
Long-running Jersey outfit Human Adult Band come to us after dropping a sickening array of no-fi noise rock and damaged art punk tapes and records upon the public. And yet, The Movers Brought Rainbows is probably their most abstract and alien work to date. While the guitar/bass/drums/voice formation is still the genesis of these recordings, at its core feedback and reverb are the star players here. Source sessions recorded at various locations are unapologetically run through the ringer, subjected to tortuous electronic post processing, and what reaches your ears is an almost atmospheric level of abstraction as echoing drums, voices, amplifier feedback, and electronics are all mashed up and smeared together.
COMFORT LINK – METAPHYSICAL SWATTING cassette
After emerging from a red shag-carpeted basement in Baltimore in 2012, Comfort Link produced a series of skewed concrete muzak albums knitted together with wobbly tape loops of found and recycled sounds, gradually shifting toward a darker post-industrial sound collage style on more recent releases.
On Metaphysical Swatting, battered reel-to-reel tape machines and portable cassette recorders scramble up the primary sound sources of voice and organ - ancient reels of tape with loose oxide are oversaturated, obsessively spliced and delaminated, re-worked into skittering loops, crunchy tape delays, shifting waves of hiss and endless feedback devouring itself. Metaphysical Swatting feeds on familiar tastes and tactics employed in earlier Comfort Link works but regurgitates something more conspicuously surreal and sinister.
