Pax Titania, the solo electronic project of Christopher Cprek (currently residing in Louisville), incorporates homemade electronics, sequencers and drum machines to create sweeping textures and bumping rhythms.  Orphan Daughter of an Orphan Daughter, released on Catholic Tapes, is like a high-speed chase scene on Light Cycles, as colliding drones outwardly flex their energies just above the speedy oscillations of a 2-dimensional plane.  It’s musical accompaniment to an action scene, a unique vision that is bound to cause some head wear.

Cliffsides is one of the projects of Brooklyn-based synth jammer Ryan McGill (Bones of Seabirds).  His recently released tape called Singularity contains two melodic works for synthesizer that launch the listener into celestial orbits.  Thick, spacey passages of delayed synth washes, combined with heavy bass notes that drop like meteors, are carefully constructed to form a heavy cosmic aura.  Drones and filter sweeps combine to form a mountain of sound.  It’s the sound of a spaceship set to fly just 200 yards above the earth’s surface, zipping across the sky, tracing it’s geological formations.  Ambient arpeggiations rain down from the skies above sub-bass tones, while emotive string pads slice through the center leaving gorgeous, wistful melodies in their wake.  This is an invitation to another place and an easy passage to a new universe.

This was my first acquisition from Franklin Teagle’s Anathema Sound.  Forming only a year and a half ago, this label already has 23 releases to date.  With such great artists and original artwork (Matt Yacoub), this is a definitely a label to keep our eyes on–check them out.  Also, I should mention–keep your eyes out for a new project called Afterlife, a collaboration between Franklin Teagle and Ryan McGill.  Some of you may have checked out the Stunned Records release, a split with Ossining (Brad Rose & Kevin Danchisko of Sovetskaya Gone).  I got this in the mail last week (thanks Phil!) and both sides are excellent.

Mirror to Mirror, a new project from Jugular Forest’s founder Alex Twomey, melds mystery with new age ambient virtues.  Minimalist atmospheres are packed with emotive intensities so powerful, they tend to feel more like noise pieces.  Rerest is the first release of this new project, conceived in February of 2009.  It’s a departure from his work as Persimmons Pomegranate, a noise-based project where the music jumps from strange drones to ecstatic spaces  (also excellent work–check out Window).

With the press of the play button the sound begins to accumulate, forming yellow-tinged shadows that pass beneath every breath.  In the corner of the darkly lit room, a distant light reflects upon a pool of blood.  You notice that the air is stagnant, but then someone opens the door.  This transition causes the walls to disintegrate.  Emotional, uplifting, inspiring, meditative, and underneath it there is an attractive darkness. Rerest excels at activating the imagination.  I find it particularly amazing that a short tape (c20) can have such an effect; this music will transport the attentive listener.

Jugular Forest is proving itself to be an up and coming label.  This is my 4th cassette from them and everything I’ve received so far has been great.  I highly recommend picking up some of these tapes before this label is discovered.

Knit Prism is a new project by House of Sun label head Mike Pouw.  His new tape, Amaranth, is an excellent introduction to his work and to his label.  (I should point out that what you are looking at is actually a double cassette – total props on the case!)

The beauty of Amaranth lies in it’s ability to coerce the listener to enter dream states, so much so in fact that I wonder whether this was intended as a hypnosis tape.  The unconscious is awakened by distant melodies and slowly morphing loops and drones; deep tones creep into the chest and induce the physical body into a relaxing sleep.  Synthesizers, guitar, effects and tapes, some of which seem to be recorded in space, are slowly combined and offset– as meditation.  There’s an element of musique concrete happening here, lying in the background as textures and appearing in the foreground during transitions.  Delicate and mysterious, the flow of Knit Prism’s works are not to be missed.

Charlatan’s Equinox tape accesses some of the melodic zones Iasos might have reached in 1975′s Inter-Dimensional Music, but the music is a bit more minimal: transcendent washes of melodic notes that flutter and hover about in the stereo field.  It’s not quite what Steve McLinn (Ojas) refers to as ‘big synth’ music, but it sounds huge and seems to lead us from vast landscapes into the star field.  These uplifting jams will open your heart and mind.  I have one other Charlatan tape that came out on Digitalis LTD a few months back, but this one is even better.  Highly recommended, but limited to 40 copies.

The new tape by Brooklyn-based artist Prehistoric Blackout (Taylor Richardson of Infinity Window, Purple Haze) called Stone Reaper collages synths and guitars to create cloudy, layered electronic music for mind-altering states.   This is murky, cavernous mysticism ran through a phaser pedal in a fish-bowled room.

Side A opens with a tweaky, but poppy guitar progression that’s momentarily overtaken by a white noise storm and morphs into loopy synth noodles stream of consciousness-style through stereo-panning and rhythmic muting.  The B side begins by continuing the psychedelic trip-out light vibes of the first side.  Noise-head sample warping momentarily devolves into tribal drum circles surrounded by a multinational boys choir, providing the perfect ending to ruling cassette.

This tape was recently released on Pizza Night Tapes alongside 3 other great-looking releases.  I highly recommend taking a look at Sam Goldberg’s label, as it offers an excellent selection of experimental cassettes.  Definitely pick this one up.

^^^ is a beautifully packaged CDR by mi or and the pedestals, the project of Ceci Moss.  Ceci generously sent me her solo disk back in April, and soon afterwards I had the pleasure to share a bill with her in NYC at DIY venue West Nile.  Using synthesizer, computer processing, effects pedals, and voice samples, her live performance manages to recreate similar spaces found on this CD.

The disc opens with intense waves of digital heaviness, a spatial vacuum that presses at the temples.  Hints of open spaces pierce this river of sound, until the flood of inverted gravity begins to slowly degrade into a dimly lit spectrum of falling particles.  These particles rise, taking the form of stars that become constellations.  Here the music takes a turn, becoming synth music of the cosmos,  a soundtrack to the night sky.

When the second track takes shape it becomes apparent that we have traveled: a place of foreign origins, an altered perspective.  The breadth of this new ambiance echoes through the dense, new atmosphere, as a mix of electronics and voice spin up a web of sound that reflects the natural rhythms only found in reoccurring dreams.  From here on out, the listener is free to explore the quiet dynamics of the invisible and the unlikely.

This disc is a total treat.  It comes from a very unique perspective and definitely one that is well versed in experimental and ambient musics.  Support her efforts by acquiring her works here: ceci AT amillionkeys DOT com

LINKS: http://www.myspace.com/miorandthepedestals OR http://amillionkeys.com/mi-or-and-the-pedestals

About the time I released the first batch of Gift Tapes, someone told me about a crazy productive guy named Josh Burke. I hadn’t heard his work before, but I had seen the name. He pops up all over the place – distros like tomentosa and the like. When I looked into it further I found out he’s the dude behind Sky Limousine & Futuresport. And further research lead me to the labels he head’s up – Clear Audio & Video, Slime City & Avocado Jungle. Descriptions of his jams really got me digging deeper – each seeming to contain ‘warm synths’ (can’t go wrong). In my experience, people this insanely productive are always doing interesting work (ie. Brad Rose of Digitalis, Lieven Martens of Taped Sounds, Chris Madak of Deception Island, or Pete Swanson of JYRK/Freedom to Spend). Many props to these dudes and the many others out there releasing important work on their labels and still finding the time to make their own rippin’ jams – these dude make things happen.

I acquired this tape titled Wonder released on Clear Audio & Video released in 2009. Josh Burke’s work is excellent. Light & quiet, thick and murky-mysterious, I found myself entering day dreams of green forests and blue skies. It’s soothing, emotive music, almost introspective… slightly contemplative. Synths create the landscape, melodies rise and fall, drones warp and skew, but the clouds are what lead us to our final destination. A certain weightlessness is inherent in his long form compositions, flush with oxygen and the smell of fresh rains. This Chicago-based new age ripper totally delivers.

You’ll find all of these release very limited, but each one I’ve heard is excellent. I have 4 tapes now and many more I’m in search of. If this one is no longer out there, grab what you can. I haven’t been able to get his Clear link to work, but if you want to learn a bit more about his discography, check the links here: Discogs: Sky Limousine, Discogs: Josh Burke, Discogs: Futuresport

A few weeks back I was completely surprised by a little package I received in the mail.  Upon opening the gift, I cracked a smile- followed by a few cuss words (this dude is kicking my ass).  It was another Pulse Emitter new age disc: Meditative Music 3.  If releasing current new age music was a competition, then Daryl is the champion.  Take the packaging for instance: the pastel-tinted nature photos, the CD case itself, the one-line description on each disc… it all lends itself so perfectly to being something you’d find at a yoga studio’s gift shop.  On top of that, these discs are totally self-released and the music is comprised of minimal synth tones that truly have healing qualities.  These CDs are totally legit.

Meditative Music 3 couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.  I’m totally excited about this series, but since I had reviewed the other installments (see this post) a few months back, I felt like I needed a new approach to writing about this one.  The stars must have been aligned because I injured my back and decided to make an appointment with a massage therapist.  This provided me with the perfect opportunity to give this music the kind of listening it deserves.  The masseuse was super cool and allowed me to play the disc in her boom box after reading the one-line description on the back of the case: placid waves for reflective times.

A slow fade from silence gives way to the rising tones that transform your consciousness into a dense underwater cloud of plankton.  Families of micro-organisms lie static and hovering just beneath the surface.  They harness the power of the sun, soaking up the solar energy, contributing to the natural cycle of life.  Dense analog vibrations are contrasted by crisp, digital metallics.  These bell-like FM synthesis tones encapsulate the piece in crystals.  “Does this feel tender?”  Those were the words that brought me back from my oceanic dreamworld, and they really couldn’t have been better put.

Clocking in at exactly 60 minutes, this is the perfect music for massage.  It was so perfect in fact, that the masseuse inquired about how she might purchase a copy of it.  You can buy them from him directly here: synthnoise.com or from Tomentosa.  If you are a fan of synth music, of new age or of anything P.E.-related… all three of these CDs are highly recommended.

In Portland on Thursday, April 30th, I highly recommend checking out Pulse Emitter perform at Dunes.  Brother Raven will be one of the opening acts, alongside Weird Fiction (live video), Sean Ongley & Regosphere.

Short and sweet, Buffle leads the listener into an odd, multicolored world where things happen in reverse.  This is strange music that moves like a lone opossum in search of her lunch… and maybe that lunch will consist of green-glow earthworms?  Here, the trio recreates the consciousness of a malformed creature operating on a pile of ancient mechanical devices.  Guitars, tape manipulations, miscellaneous percussion and toy-sized electronics bounce along in a quirky happy-time fantasy-world.  These semi-randomized improvisations sputter and pluck about, occasionally landing in a miniature forward moving jam – but only momentarily.  Packaged in a clear front/blue back case with a single sided cover and a crazy-cool sticker -  this is a great tape to add to your Belgian weird/positive music collection.

Italian tape label Relax Produzioni is responsible for releasing this tape by the Brussels-based band in 2008.  Find out more info about Buffle here: http://www.myspace.com/buffle AND http://buffle.tk/

And to get a taste of what this music sounds like – take a look at this youtube video (I think this track is on the tape): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrzC1gFjW5E

It’s hard to figure out where to start with the dudes in The Skaters.  James Ferraro and Spencer Clark are crazy productive, sometimes releasing five things at once.  Most of these are released as CDRs, some as tapes, and there are few LPs out there.  Approaching their stuff is a difficult task, and I have a hard time figuring out how to do it unless I relay my own experience with their music…

I first heard The Skaters a few years back.  My first reaction was to put something else on real quick. Every now and again, I found myself going back to it. Something about their work made me curious.  A friend of mine touring in California played with them one night.  He described the Skaters as two weirdos playing all their sounds through some ghetto karaoke box.  I remember thinking that that was an extremely good description of what the music sounded like. But after I heard that, I began downloading tons of their stuff – in hopes of figuring out what it was they were trying to do.  Like I said, it is not immediately apparent.

Months later I was completely stumped by one of Jame’s Ferraro’s side projects: Lamborghini Crystal.  Discogs credits two members: both him and JC Peavey (I noticed in the comments of a post on the Root Strata Blog someone posted that this guy is from Canada). I remember finding about four releases on someone’s server somewhere, not knowing this was at all related to James Ferraro.  Again I was just completely baffled.  What in the hell is even going on here?  All the sounds exist in such a limited frequency band that you’ll be lucky to recognize anything as even remotely related to reality.  And this is what got me hooked…

My first Skaters related purchase was James Ferraro’s Last American Hero-Adrenaline’s End. It’s a fairly recent tape released near the end of 2008 and on one of my favorite labels: Taped Sounds (which by the way, I just noticed has been restocked by Tomentosa).  This tape sounds like the cover looks – like a bar band of badasses in a small town’s back-corner tavern.  Bluesy guitar riffs over synth and drum machine – but with an odd twist: would-be ‘powerful’ transitions are left out, as if the material was gone over with a fine-toothed comb.  Ferraro applies some less than subtle re-edits to take out some of testosterone.  This elevates the work to the place where earth’s sky reaches outerspace.  Not only do these tracks hit, but they surprise the listener.  Another thing I should mention – this isn’t the typical ultra lo-fi sound Skater’s related projects are known for – there’s actually a little low end happening here.  An excellent work and a huge congrats to Ferraro.

Also, if you need a primer on Skaters-related stuff – I recommend checking out this blog: http://surrealapplications.blogspot.com/ There’s a few blogs and other sites out there that make it easy to find rips of their releases, but please support artists by purchasing their works.