alterity problem / outer space “split” c26 cassette

• alterity problem - a new problem
  
• alterity problem - heating problem
  
• alterity problem - the kid’s a heater
  
  
• outer space - aspartame
  
• outer space - usa endless

deception island press release...

di38: outer space / alterity problem split c26 (edition of 300). two fantastic new outer space tracks in the moebius strip / infinite riff mode of the arbor lp, b/w some brilliant cracked / outsider electronics (occasionally evoking telecult powers with really outre syndrums -- dude is from montreal, after all!) from alex moskos of aids wolf / drainolith / thames. bonkers split concept: alterity problem, the montreal-based duo of lifer oddballs alex moskos (also of aids wolf, drainolith, thames, and the medicine rocks) and cryptic associate joel taylor turn in a suite of extra-damaged jams about kids, heaters, and problems, these titular concerns reflecting a certain noirish surrealism and a slightly outre pose — both very much present in the audible payload — that distinguish alterity problem from their most obvious contemporaries. sometimes it’s like a matra 12 heard through a wheelbarrow of pills and six miles of bulletproof glass; other times it’s like spinning d-beat recs under general anaesthesia. sometimes there are oddly, immensely satisfying syndrums in all the right/wrong places. the flip finds john elliott (of emeralds, mist, and many others) back on di with a fresh side of outer space tracks that work a polished, high-impact aesthetic angle very distinct from the decaying hyperabstraction of last year’s massive lightyear demonstrations while continuing to radiate the same throughgoing trippiness and post / antihuman drive. first, “aspartame” materializes from a glowing sandstorm of synth and vocals, coalescing into one of the most dazzling and aqueous examples of elliott’s signature endlessly unfurling klein bottle riffstyle to date. the ensuing nine minutes of this piece display a mastery of the “dusseldorf style” of building deceptively intricate, episodic tracks on metronomic backbones, as claustrophobia and a sense of awakening to the reality of being chased by something superfucked gradually dawns, only to give way to an epic sunrise over a desert of ash and bleached bones. the finale, “usa endless” (dark commentary?) has hung around long enough to see all inclination toward propulsion surgically removed. we’re floating six inches off the ground, in the driveway with the doors open, engine running, and wheels spinning endlessly, far too fucked to do anything other than sit back and watch the dash boil while sunlight falls like iridescent jelly on the seats. extra weird. alterity problem is joel taylor and alex moskos. recorded in montreal by alex moskos, january 2011.

dr. quinn medicine woman “advanced dungeons and dragons” c30 cassette

• d20
  
• soloflex
  
• i hate myself and i want to cry
  
• vin diesel
  
• suburban blaster
  
• sohio
  
• suburban blaster
  
• keyless entry
  
• you look good
  
  
• fortune cookie
  
• zzxst001
  
• coin toss
  
• skip-it
  
• sub-zero
  
• dead batteries
  
• puppy
  
• room temp beer

deception island press release...

di37: dr. quinn medicine woman "advanced dungeons and dragons" c30 (edition of 150). dqmw is ryan kuehn of thursday club, hot air balloon ride, etc, who for my $ is probably more responsible than any other individual for the less immediately obvious particulars of the contemporary cleveland aesthetic.  "ad&d" has the best kind of "collected home recordings" feel to it and is definitely the most appropriate layperson's introduction to ryan's work, which encompasses grmmy hyperreal metals, terry riley-esque ivory-tickling, psychedelic jaws-of-the-cosmos vocal manipulation, obnoxious gear demos, bleary expanses of fading transmissions, etc.  truly bizarre "rust belt basement stapleton" vibe to this one. ryan kuehn is as total an enigma as they come, and is probably more responsible than any other individual for the persistence of cleveland’s status as a hub of utter strangeness, between his long-term stewardship of “the record exchange”, a nosebleed haven for human / audio fuckery and deep afterhours gurgle on wcsb, and thursday club, his collaboration with brian detrow, which spent the early oughts mapping much of the territory within which an ensuing wave of northern ohio fuckups, from fragments to moth cock, would operate. in that sense, thursday club’s dna is woven every bit as deeply into the cleveland aesthetic as that of skin graft or tusco terror, and despite the name, ryan’s solo recordings as dr. quinn medicine woman hew much more closely to the psychedelic free electronics and mossy synth throb of tc than, say, the righteously pointed misanthropy of hot air balloon ride (with john elliott), the thousand-yard-starin’ tape zonkery of the reel deel (with john elliott and chris madak), or the negative-wavecrust hose blast of dpi (with wyatt howland, amanda howland, and j guy laughlin). while prior dqmw jawns have flaunted their opacity and insiders-only scruples, advanced dungeons and dragons simply shrugs, pulls back the curtain, and takes out the trash. as effective and consistently surprising a cereal box decoder ring as any in kuehn’s vast ouerve, it’s a rare opportunity to stagger your way across a hypercube tumbling through the ether, sipping nectar through a straw in a storm of mercury droplets (“d20 ), passing out on the deck of a heavily filigreed hovercraft (“soloflex”), wrapping your head around salvia jaws (“vin diesel”), spraying tar from a whipped cream can (“suburban blaster”), and waking up on a screwy plateau on the edge of time, where a drop of water takes eight hours to roll down your face (“keyless entry”). …and that’s just side a, with the reverse taking in the grmmy hamminess of “fortune cookie”, the zonked/dissociated lesswave of “coin toss”, the glassy, celestial glide of “sub-zero”, and the bleary, tumbling wool-fi minimalism of “room temp beer.” extra fucked classic rust belt basement tapecult aesthetic. one for the true heads.

night burger “what happens next” c36 cassette

• what happens next
  
• profligate
  
• as always
  
• you drive
  
• my turn to hide
  
  
• what happens next (dross)
  
• settlement

deception island press release...

di36: night burger "what happens next" c36 (edition of 200). noah anthony of social junk's solo project and absolutely my favorite thing going in philly right now. weird / bleak / minimal without the sense of holding out on the listener, long on classically dubby mutes and bucket brigade stunts, and maintaining one foot in "songcraft" of the martin rev / daniel miller variety and another in a surprisingly chain reaction-esque abstraction. since he landed in philly a couple years back, noah anthony of social junk has participated in a dizzying number of warped units, including mirror men, mindless attack, the late form a log, and of course night burger, solo vehicle for his virtuosic command of postdub / postjunk technique in the service of a stunningly bleak, utterly forlorn, and eerily refined agenda. that this project, which has cultivated a well-earned reputation for prolific and mind-erasingly intense live performances remains sparsely represented in terms of studio recordings makes an immaculately structured album-length release such as this one particularly special. what happens next? gets lurching with a slo-mo jackhammer riff that hits like a thousand telephone switchboards getting sucked into a neutron star. anthony’s vocal persona is hollowed-out and resigned, a terrifying shell of the dosed everyman angle worked in sj. the a side progresses through dessicated combo organ perc of “profligate”, wrapped in tick, melt, and whisper, to the keening rust belt-style reedwave, iq-annihilating bass drops, and bucket brigade gurgle of “as always,” “you drive” and “my turn to hide”. on the reverse, “what happens next (dross)” transforms the numbing bonecrunch impact of the original into a sick thud / clatter beneath a frigid organ riff, while “settlement” stretches into epic territory, an unintelligible interior monologue dissolving in a stiff bleach solution amid a hail of highway flares, giving way to a muted psychedelia of the hyperclean factory sort, surprisingly not unrelated to a plausible interpretation of, say, early chain reaction recs. phenomenal. i did it for the philly crew: kevin e, party t, rick w, alex h, eamon t, wendy h, lance s, charles c, jeremy h, chris m, etc. all the kids want to be whipped with a chain. - j.r.

telecult powers “orgone freakout: a happening with the telecult powers” c40 cassette

• untitled (1)
  
• untitled (2)
  
• untitled (3)
  
  
• untitled (4)
  
• untitled (5)
  
• untitled (6)

deception island press release...

di29: telecult powers "orgone freakout: a happening with the telecult powers" c40. hand-numbered edition of 150. like a forgotten sonic arts union-era session heard from the business end of an opiated rabbithole, "orgone freakout" is an album-length synthesis of all the most fucked transcendent peaks on the releases (e.g. "amazing laws" and "a beginner's guide to hoodotronix") that have formed the apex of the telecult powers catalog to date, boiled down to their strangely arching bones. it's a phenomenal codex of resinous creaks, empty cisterns, reflected moonlight, phantom choirs, and tendril-like percussive afterimages from a duo of cleveland-to-brooklyn transplants that's spent the past three years becoming one of the best and strangest live acts in the world, establishing a well-deserved reputation as a cornerstone of the contemporary new york underground, issuing a viscous drip of bizarre missives through their unerringly curated temple of pei imprint, and cultivating the masterfully honed feedback between their live and studio incarnations that reaches critical velocity with this release. as ever, mister matthews' handcrafted electronics are at the center of the proceedings and measured expansion of a shared timbral vocabulary continues to be a huge part of his and witchbeam's raison d'etre, while the paranoid opacity and sheer idiosyncracy of their improvising grammar hasn't yielded an inch. this productive tension is at once an indicator of the rewards that await the devoted acolyte and the audible stamp of their rust belt origins. writing about telecult powers back in 2008, i said that "witchbeam and mister matthews lock into their particular skewed orbit, which has something of the unhinged forelornness of nik pascal raicevic’s work, only even more fucked and disturbing, because there’s actually two people giggling at each other out on that ledge. ...one could revisit it a thousand times without ever really getting a handle on it or parsing it successfully. in short, it’s necessary, rewarding, and fantastically heavy work." that still pretty much sums it up, i believe, and it's only gotten more true with time. materials: di27-30 were pro-dubbed by nac in st. louis, missouri on the same basf chrome stock used for every deception island release since di15, with tinted shells, imprinted in matching color on both sides. they're packaged in standard lenco polyboxes (except for di27, which comes in a side-by-side double norelco case) with white gloss enamel screenprints on white 110lb j-cards and feature hand-numbered photocopy wraparounds on michigan'z finest 100lb french paper. care has been taken at every stage of the production process to use domestically manufactured materials and ph-neutral, archival-quality papers and adhesives. fair warning: the low-contrast nature of the design and the highly reflective materials used have made it more than usually difficult to photograph these tapes. the insets are intended to give you some sense of what's going on with the imprints, j-cards, etc, but my less-than-stellar photos don't really do them justice.