tag:,2012:/42 2012-03-24T08:02:33Z The Tapeworm - a cassette-only label. The cassette will never die! Long live the cassette! Movable Type 3.35 tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2012://42.3368 2012-02-08T11:36:46Z 2012-03-24T08:02:33Z

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a special edition of 200 copies made for friends across the pond. This cassette could be none more black and is NOT available from the TouchShop! Track listing: A: Edward Kelley’s Blues B: Drunk On Angelspeech Illustration – SavX. Dylan Carlson has been the guitarist in Earth for 22 years. Founding member, main songwriter. He is working on a solo album exploring interests in the folklore and history of cunning-folk of the British Isles and Scottish and English fairy faith. A-side consists of field recordings made in/around Waterloo station and along the Thames river bed at Southbank, November 2011. Guitar and vocals added by drcarlson, December 2011. Recorded and mastered by Robert Roth, December 2011, Tulalip, WA. B-side consists of guitar and vocals by drcarlson and mellotron by Robert Roth. Recorded and mastered by Robert Roth, Tulalip, WA. Produced by drcarlsonalbion/Robert Roth. For those interested, Waterloo station is a site of personal occult experience for drcarlson - see drcarlsonalbion.wordpress.com for further details. B-side vocals consist of Enochian version of lyrics from A side. Click here for documentation of Dylan Carlson recording the Enochian portion of this cassette. drcarlsonalbion.wordpress.com Reviews Boomkat (UK): Drcarlsonalbion is the anglophilic handle for an incredibly rare solo outing for Earth's Dylan Carlson. After clutching his axe at the helm of Earth for 22 years he obviously felt the need to indulge other passions, with ‘Edward Kelley's Blues’ divulging his interests in “folklore and history of cunning folk of the British Isles and Scottish and English fairy faith”. These manifest themselves as two murky tracts composed from his own field recordings and guitar drones, plus vocals and mellotron provided by his pal, Robert Roth. A-side ‘Edward Kelley’s Blues’ features field recordings made in/around Waterloo station and along the Thames river at Southbank, November, 2011, infused with expressive feedback manipulations and eyrie incantations. On the B-side Robert Roth adds hallucinatory mellotron apparitions, while Carlson recites the lyrics again in “Enochian” language; a magickal, angelical grammar of shadowy, antediluvian provenance. Act fast if you want one… The Wire (UK): The great beast speaks! Earth guitarist Dylan Carlson’s new tape comprises two sides of drones and field recordings over which he intones magickal lyricks in the flat, nasal chanting style of Crowley’s “Calls Of The Aethyr”. On side A he declaims in English; on the reverse he speaks the same words translated into Enochian, the language that John Dee used to talk to the angels and that Crowley co-opted (the tape takes its name from Dee’s assistant, the seer Edward Kelley). How much you get out of it depends largely on your capacity to keep a straight face through these earnest incantations. But the tape also represents a return to the Earth sound of yore, albeit in more meagre form. Carlson lets his guitar drone in a way that he hasn’t since the early 1990s. His tone has none of the bottom that “Earth 2” had, but the upper overtones and rattling epiphenomena of that record – the harmonic richness that linked Metal, improbably, into the mystic minimalism of La Monte Young and Pandit Pran Nath – are compensated for here by Carlson’s field recordings. The grey pulsing of track noise snatched from London’s Waterloo Station makes up for beat notes, the screech of trains does the same for partials. This effect goes some way to vindicating Carlson’s magickal posing. The sonic phenomena that Young and Pran Nath were interested in often do seem like voices from another plane: you play one set of notes for long enough and hear another very different set calling back at you from the beyond. The spectral soundtrack that Carlson has caught on his tape recorder is similar, made up of contingent effects of activity – feedback – rather than the sounds of action itself. [Nick Richardson] Aquarius Records (US): We almost weren’t able to review this one at all, as the first pressing sold out in a heartbeat in the UK. Thankfully the lovely folks at The Tapeworm label, made a whole second special pressing just for all of us over on this side of the Atlantic, a special “obsidian mirror” edition, in which the cover and the tape are white on black, instead of the more recognizable black on white of most Tapeworm releases. But what’s all the hubbub about then? Well, in case you hadn’t figured it out, Drcarlsonalbion is in fact Dylan Carlson, he of twang flecked desert drifters and former sludgelords Earth, who on this, his first proper solo release, explores his occult interests in capturing the sounds on the A side at the Waterloo station and along the Thames river, both apparently sites “of personal occult experience”, the sounds themselves though are lovely, a gorgeous gristly drone, blurred sheets of static, and deep moaning tones, softly undulating, sort of like a crackling electrical field slowed waaaaay down. Carlson’s added some guitars and vocals, but blended those seamlessly into the smeared ambience. The vibe is very Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker, hazy and gauzy, washed out and dreamy, darkly meditative and hauntingly abstract, really in fact quite beautiful. The flipside is guitar, vocals and mellotron, the lyrics according to the liner notes, are Enochian versions of those found on the A side! Those vocals are delivered like some strange sermon, the words nearly lost in the gorgeous swirling maelstrom of distorted guitars and swirling feedback, it’s like some ancient ritual, some Druidic rite performed on some ancient stone plinth, on a windswept mountain top, one that just so happened to feature mounds of amplifiers and rows of distortion pedals. Meditative and psychedelic, blackened and blissed out. Sort of like old Earth blurred into something more like Sunroof!, with Carlson the mysterious wild eyed shaman, his cloaked visage nearly obscure in the cloud of buzz and thrum and whir and howl. Awesome.]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2012://42.3338 2012-02-08T11:36:45Z 2012-03-10T10:01:07Z

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Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A: 15:24-15:46 (B-side left intentionally blank) Illustration – Old Apparatus Old Apparatus are a four piece audio/visual collective transmitting from East London that have been releasing bass orientated electronic dance music on Mala’s underground label Deep Medi Musik. This edition for The Tapeworm is an improvised instrumental piece using guitar, piano, violin and found sound ambiences recorded entirely in the front room of the house they share together. Given that most forms of electronic music are bound by linearity and grid based digital audio workstations, Old Apparatus consciously embarked on an exploration of nonlinear forms of musical expression. The audio on the tape is a snapshot in time of that exploration. Click here to view documentation of the recording process. www.oldapparatus.org Reviews Boomkat (UK): With two mysterious singles and a remix of Shangaan Electro to their name, Old Apparatus step to The Tapeworm for their most detached, esoteric transmission yet. ‘15:24 - 15:46’ features the East London four-piece forgetting about their signature Bass weight and improvising for over twenty minutes on guitar, piano, violin and found sound ambience in the front room of the house they share together. Over the 20 minute playing time they share a mystic, pastoral vision hinting at neo/avant-classical structures and modes of expression with a sensitive electro-acoustic rendering, capturing a snapshot of four minds which are anywhere but the front room of a house in East London. Their thoughts are airborne and weightless, non-linear and beautifully diffuse, flying at tangents like a bird navigating windy aerospace, but equally prone to take on weight without notice and metamorphose with dramatic gravity. It might not be what you're expecting if you've heard their other releases, but then again it might well be… Awkward Moments (UK): Old Apparatus are arguably the best known to release currently on cassette and most suited to it of this list. The experimental act consisting of five(?) or so members who surprised us with an astonishingly good live show last year to accompany their own releases which blew us all away. I was expecting more of their signature composition (which is to say not knowing what to expect) but was somewhat thrown by the fact that they seem to have skipped past the bass scene altogether this time around, going closer to field recordings. At first I didn't get what had happened, but once I'd worked out that the b-side was blank and rewound for a second listen, expectations were suitably managed and it was a pretty damn good listen. The tone of the 21-minute release is just nice and well constructed, and pleasant. ‘15:24-15:46’ is lacking the depth and electronic emotion of the rest of their catalogue but rather fills that void where you just want to get lost in music creation, without feeling drained afterwards. As a result I've kept reaching for it since purchase, so definitely have to recommend checking it out. Like an overhyped movie, just go in with no expectations. Aquarius Records (US): Yet another batch of aural oddities from the esteemed and mysterious UK tape label, The Tapeworm, this one the result of an improvised home recorded bit of abstract electronic experimentation, from this audio/visual collective who in real life tend to specialize in a much more dancefloor driven sort of electronica, but here, the group are loose and free, conjuring up spaced out clouds of blurred psychedelic drift, laced with bits of glitch, sonar like pings, haunting pianos, bowed violins, strummed guitars, everything wreathed in tape hiss, the sound almost Caretaker-y at times, melancholic and mysterious, slow burn shimmers that wrap themselves around glistening guitar harmonics drifting weightless in fields of electronic crackle, Morricone-ish twang, wreathed in reverb and draped over long wavery tones, a sort of tentative unearthly dronemusic, a super abstract deserty slowcore, the vibe dark and ominous, soundtracky and mesmerizingly atmospheric. There’s a deep throbbing low end running throughout, occasionally pulsing minimally, but also occasionally blossoming into something thick and viscous. The hushed drifts of smeared sound adorned with swoonsome strings, darkly delicate piano, all manner of field recordings, tangled melodies, murky swirls, all woven into a hazy soft focus landscape of dreamlike ambience, and ethereal slo-mo dreamdrift dirgery. So gorgeous. And like all Tapeworm releases, SO LIMITED. Grab one before they're gone.]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2012://42.3337 2012-02-08T11:36:44Z 2012-03-03T14:28:07Z

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Click here to see documentation of the action, courtesy of Mr Corner. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Corner]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2012://42.3215 2012-02-08T11:36:43Z 2012-03-15T10:03:53Z

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Click here for documentation of the recording process. Achim Mohné would like to thank www.ping-tonstudios.de www.achimmohne.de Reviews Awkward Moments (UK): Something I took a punt on and was massively pleased about, also out by The Tapeworm label, a release from Achim Mohné titled ‘And It Could Have Been Dead…’. Only 150 made of this one – which is all sorts of madness. The whole creation of a tape-from-tapes style concept just looked bizarre, and although not what I called an easy listen one of the most interesting things I’ve heard in time. Borderline Steinski styled chop ups and ambient hiss loops, topped off with random instructional pieces on tape care the end product is a bit of a mind mash. It’s also got a character named Pooman on the cover. Again, no audio previews, but you’ve only got to look at the photos of the ‘recording process’ (right at the bottom) and the press release to get a pretty faithful idea of what you're in for. Aquarius Records (US): One of two new cassettes on this week’s list from UK cassette label The Tapeworm, the other a weird bit of haunting minimal living room ambient electronica slowcore from Old Apparatus, and this collection of tape experiments from multimedia artist/musician Achim Mohné, whose sounds sources are almost as interesting and baffling as what he does with those sources, a 1982 instructional tape for a Blaupunkt tape player, that overlaps various instructions in different languages, as well as adding blasts of white noise, overlapping the various different styles of music offered as samples, and messing with the tape speed. A serious blast of Plunderphonia for sure. Then there’s a track that uses as its source a 1999 performance for disassembled VCRs, video monitors, glue, medical gloves and rubbing alcohol, with Mohné cutting up the tapes, taping them back together, and manipulating them over the VCRs playback heads, the result is a dark, woozy assemblage of hiss and warble, whirs and disembodied voices, snippets of music and dialogue, deep rumbling tones and plenty of glitch and thrum and buzz, it sounds a bit like something you’d hear on Raster-Noton, albeit a bit more collaged, homebrewed and lo-fi. Another track is a live performance for multiple turntables and cassette recorders, and finds Mohné mixing a dizzying onslaught of different musics and sounds, from pop to noise, from metal to classical, all chopped up and looped and layered, almost like a skipping Negativland cd, or some sort of John Oswald / Philip Jeck DJ set. There are a couple tracks that employ handheld recorders, one that uses recordings of fairy tales, another that’s a sort of twisted Jeck style tape player / turntable mash up, those all murky and muted and droned out and atmospheric, and then prepare yourself for the final jam, a super short ultra dense blast of tape noise, that’s actually the beginnings and ends of the first 34 releases on The Tapeworm label! Cool twisted stuff, that ends up being surprisingly haunting and beautiful much of the time. And features an awesome (and awesomely creepy) cover drawing of some character called Pooman, in a drawing called “The Tapewyrm Will Drive Out Any Stuck Up Turd With Fragrant Sound!” Indeed!]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.3259 2011-10-28T15:49:17Z 2011-12-22T19:13:56Z

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Buy in the TouchShop The first publication from The Bookworm. Contents: “Parasitic Infestation”, an essay by Ken Hollings. Illustrations from the first 25 Tapeworm tapes, including works by SavX, Derek Jarman and Leif Elggren. Cover illustration: Savage Pencil. 66pp, 110mm x 117mm, soft cover, thread bound booklet – no ISBN. Edition of 250 copies only. Printed on Munken Print stock. Typeset in Aldine 401, Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk and Miso. The Tapeworm launches its new publishing venture, The Bookworm, with a tidy compendium of its coverart, alongside an especially commissioned essay by writer Ken Hollings, the author of the books Destroy All Monsters (Marion Boyars) and Welcome to Mars (Strange Attractor Press). Ken’s work has appeared in a wide range of journals, reviews and anthologies. He has written and presented critically acclaimed programmes for BBC Radio 3, Radio 4, NPS in Holland, ABC Australia and Resonance FM and has given talks and lectures at the Royal Institution, the British Library, the ICA, Central St Martins, the École de Recherche Graphique in Brussels and the Berlin Akademie der Künste. Future Bookworm books are currently being penned by writer/poet Leslie Winer, and graphic designer Chris Bigg (4AD, David Sylvian). Reviews Record Collector (UK): Since 2008, The Tapeworm imprint has been busy celebrating that most anachronistic of formats, the audio cassette, disseminating a series of highly-limited spools, featuring all manner of specifically commissioned sonic art, from feral noise infections to spoken word pieces and conversations with Derek Jarman. The distinctive monochrome sleeves adorning these editions – the first 25 of which are collected here – reflect their esoteric content. Most display a spook of jagged cartoonish scrawl that’s instantly recognisable as the work of artist Savage Pencil, a fitting guide to the harshness inside. But other images, such as Dave Knapik’s The Lampshade Is Not A Past Tense or Oscar Henriquez’s Analog Apparitions, outline an amoebic-like galaxy of alien germ life, hinting at the parasitic infection described in Ken Hollings’ absorbing introductory essay. Alongside tales of country-listening cosmonauts, he celebrates an indefatigable mode of documentation and dispersal. In this context, The Tapeworm’s artefacts become totemic forms of defiance, affronts to contemporary high-tech culture’s easy-come, easy-go consumption strategies. Between main street stockists sounding their death knell and the underground’s attempts at a format resurrection, The Art Of Worms presents a modest manifesto for the continuing existence of the humble audio cassette. (Spencer Grady)]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.3202 2011-09-21T08:51:19Z 2012-01-07T20:11:18Z

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www.bitsteam.de Reviews Boomkat (UK): Intensely visceral electro-acoustic sound designs on The Tapeworm. If you've only become familiar with Stephan Mathieu's opulent soundscapes like “Radioland” or his Dekorder 10"s in recent years, then it's probably about time you checked his more challenging digital compositions, and this is a great place to start. We best let Stephan sum this one up: “Flags is a homage to the beauty of data. The pieces are created from photos of my studio equipment which were transferred to audio via header changes”. OK, so that doesn't give away much about what it sounds like. Well, essentially it's not “nice”. There are sounds in here which will make your eyeballs quiver and possibly make you feel like your brain juices are about to run free (especially when consumed on headphones), but for some (us included) that's a very favourable experience. Very highly recommended to fans (who own a tape deck!) of Florian Hecker, Marcus Schmickler, or Keith Fullerton Whitman. Aquarius Records (US): One of two new Tapeworm's this week, as in limited cassette releases on UK tape label The Tapeworm, the other is a bit of Tesla coil rhythmatism from NYC audio alchemist Lary Seven, and this one, a selection of data driven sounds created by aQ fave Stephan Mathieu. And we do mean these are actually the sounds of data, with Mathieu taking pictures of his equipment in the studio and then transforming that data into music, or more specifically sound, as while this strange array of grinding static, crunchy rhythms, looped thrum, screeching sine waves and modem-malfunction crunch and stutter may be music to our ears, this is a pretty challenging chunk of abstract industrial rhythms, and Raster-Noton style beep-click-buzz, but raw and blown out and in the red, sound that seem to be pushing the speakers to their very limit, but in doing so, creating a strange sort of low fidelity primitive electronica, a jagged collage of Merzbowish grey noise and crumbling electro-glitch buzz, the sound snowballing into thick squalls of corrosive almost psychedelic sounding blur, but just as often splintering into a strange sort of caveman krautrock, rendered in shades of hum and hiss, peppered with jagged shards of electronic gristle and barbed streaks of smeared hiss. Definitely pretty far removed from our favorite Mathieu records, but pretty curious and cool nonetheless, a noise record, but one that's dynamic, and rhythmic, surprisingly engaging and listenable in a way much noise is most definitely not. ]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.3201 2011-09-21T08:49:42Z 2012-01-07T20:10:04Z

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Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A: Live at White Columns, New York (2001) B: Live at Experimental Intermedia, New York (2004) Illustration - SavX. Biography: Lary 7 is a multimedia alchemist able to coax profane and inscrutable sounds and images from numerous and mysterious devices. His work has been described as that of a magician or scientist, not always certain of the outcome, but determined to see it through to its (Il)logical end. Since the late 1970’s he’s been building, soldering, photographing, recording, mixing, filming, playing, recombining, collecting, re-interpreting and creating in order to make something happen. He is the co-founder of Plastikville Records and Directart Productions Ltd. and is the founder of the Analogue Society. Mr. Seven lives and works in Manhattan’s East Village and is one of the last remaining vestiges of a once vibrant community. Reviews Aquarius Records (US): Latest strange sonic missive from aQ beloved UK tape label The Tapeworm, this one from a multi media artist/musician/filmmaker/soundscaper named Lary Seven, who most of us here had never heard of, but who we discovered is a bit of a NYC fixture, a legendarily cantankerous maker of art, both audial and visual, there's very little in the way of details about the sounds here, other than they were recorded live in 2001 and 2004 in different spaces in New York. The first track is a gorgeous bit of looped minimal buzzing, darkly rhythmic, and strangely hypnotic, quiet enough that you can still hear the conversations in the room, which makes for a strange collage of random voices, textured electronic crunch and stuttering blurred glitch, impossible to determine the sound source, but it does seem to essentially be a collection of whirs and hums, clicks and chirps, very machinelike and robotic, like an ungrounded speaker or an instrument with the cable just barely plugged into the jack, creating a strange array of fluctuating statics, which are then sculpted into something that sounds a bit like a way more lo-fi home brewed Raster-Noton recording. The second side / set again features the room sound, footsteps, voices, throat clearing, sneezes, various scrapes and shuffles, until finally, Seven introduces some electrical buzz, which then undulates, pulses and thrums, extremely minimal, lushly layered but in the context of a live performance in a big room, almost like a symphony of appliance hum, eventually, Seven does crank up the voltage, creating another framework of skeletal rhythmic skitter, the electronic fields swirling around a dark, throbbing industrial thud, like some sort of weirdo mad scientist primitive house music, being performed with an array of malfunctioning Tesla coils. Again, pretty dang cool, and another weird and wonderful set of sounds to add to the Tapeworm's twisted canon. Vital Weekly (NL): Lary Seven is around since the 70s in the art and music scene of New York, and has his own Plastikville Records label. On “Rotation” we find two concerts, one from 2001 and one from 2004, both captured with a microphone, so the audience is audible at times in the background. From what I hear this sounds like Seven is playing various turntables, loaded with a bunch of objects and the stylus is picking this up. Maybe there are additional sound effects. This is all quite conceptual music, I think, and no doubt would serve from a bit more editing, but especially the abrupt changes in this make up for it. Now if this was a bit shorter… Maybe its because we lack the visual element that makes this more difficult.]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.3163 2011-08-26T12:23:13Z 2012-01-07T20:09:00Z

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Merge Festival. Venue: The Bear Pit Bear Gardens London SE1 9EB London Town's finest cassette-only label, The Tapeworm, presents its third annual event in the Capital. Exemplary music and much excitement is to be expected from a line-up of the label's mates. Mr Ken Hollings, a writer of note, shall be reading his text from the first Bookworm publication, to be launched on the same night. Sweden's BJNilsen will be flying in and making a splendid noise for you all. A second Swede, CM von Hausswolff (he's a king, dontchaknow…) will share a stage with Touch's Mike Harding, in a reading of Edgar Allen Poe like none before… Cult vs. occult - former Medicine Head man Peter Hope-Evans and illustrator Savage Pencil will whip up a dark blue storm. Mr Pencil's fine drawings shall also be on display. Hopping on the bus from Elephant & Castle is Zerocrop and his band; pop perfection from a local lad. And finally, a London eye - video installation by Vicki Bennett, aka People Like Us. Plus! Last minute additions!! Special guest artist Joachim Nordwall plays his “Ignition” album, live; and special ghost artist Michael Esposito does some spooky shit. How exciting!!! Plus, Dale Cornish from the Baraclough groop will be spinning the cassettes of steel. Running order Side One: Michael Esposito von Hausswolff/Harding Joachim Nordwall plays “Ignition” BJNilsen People Like Us [video] Interval Side Two: Ken Hollings Edwin Pouncey & Peter Hope-Evans BJNilsen Zerocrop People Like Us [video] “Enchaos” - all artists, altogether, almost… www.mergefestival.co.uk Download flyer [.pdf]]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.3054 2011-05-25T07:02:20Z 2012-01-07T20:07:27Z

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Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A: 777 (Mix 2) B: 777 (Mix 3) Illustration - SavX. Andrew Lagowski writes: “The 7th Synphonie of the Seven Swevens a.k.a. 777 by Dr. Fleischbrittel was recorded direct to cassette on 29th and 30th May 1983 at IP1 3PG, Ipswich. The project was realised as a means of escape from the band mentality that I was part of at that time. It offered me the chance to free-form in more ways than one and express my more demonic leanings - those of a frustrated teenager recording in whichever bedroom had the space for the equipment. Unbeknownst to them, my parents were sonic partners in this exploit. Power drill and spade by Ryszard Lagowski. Vocals by Dr. Fleischbrittel and family. Reworked & edited on 6th March 2011 by Andrew Lagowski.” Andrew Lagowski, London, 17 April 2011. Biography: Andrew Lagowski has been making and recording electronic music since 1982 and before that was a drummer in a new wave band. Since 1987 he has released over 25 albums and ten 12" singles and continues to release on various labels Worldwide. Projects include Nagamatzu (co-founder, guitarist, programmer, engineer), Lustmord as engineer / programmer (e/p), Terror Against Terror (e/p), Isolrubin B.K. (e/p), Legion, S.E.T.I. (the one with the d.o.t.s.) and Lagowski. He has also been a synthesizer programmer for Yamaha R&D in London and continues to have work featured in film and television through licensing deals. www.lagowski.com Reviews Aquarius Records (US): Another bafflingly brilliant batch of tapes from UK tape label The Tapeworm, and while we often find ourselves at a bit of a loss to describe whatever sonic oddity they've unearthed or discovered or dug up or conjured from the ether, not sure we've ever encountered one like this before. With very little info to go on, what we can surmise from the description we read, is that this might be some sort of home-recorded ritual, perpetrated by a teenager (Andrew Lagowski?), with his parents in the other room, taking leave from whatever rock band he was playing in at the time, to create, well, THIS, a strange bit of sinister collaged ambience, wild squiggles of feedback, what sounds like running water, manipulated tapes, stumbling percussion, what almost sounds like field recordings, owl calls or something like owl calls, detuned guitar melodies, shards and fragments of sound, all blurred and smeared and tangled into a sci-fi lo-fi soundscape, jumbled, textural and weirdly rhythmic, a definite kitchen sink approach, or maybe toolshed approach would be more accurate, a strange selection of noise making devices including various effects and fuzzboxes, a reel to reel tape player not to mention a drill and a space (perhaps wielded by the artist's brother), and while there is a sense of randomness and chaos, much of this is quite listenable, and for sure is beholden to (whether intentional or not) Nurse With Wound, Hafler Trio, and other unconventional sonic experimentalists. Two distinctly different mixes/versions, edited and reworked earlier this year. Pretty excellent stuff. Vital Weekly (NL): As a teenager Andrew Lagowski sat down in his room with his Korg MS20, a guitar and some other assorted equipment and recorded in two days two pieces, back in 1983. This year he un-earthed these pieces and reworked them a bit, so its not entirely clear what is old and what is new. On the a-side I had the impression this is forecasting his later ambient work as SETI, but maybe I am looking it at the wrong way. The b-side is much more a child of those days, in which Lagowski is fooling around with a guitar, and sounds a bit like Cosey in her Throbbing Gristle days. His parents in the next room are also present in this recordings! An embryonic tape, but nice to hear where Lagowski comes from.]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.3053 2011-05-25T07:01:10Z 2012-01-13T12:21:29Z

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Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A1: Chug A2: Sting B1: Shred B2: Bite B3: Bends Illustration - Florian Hetz. Burning Tree are Dag Stiberg & Dag Erik Knedal Andersen. Dag Erik Knedal Andersen is perhaps best known for his “hyperactive, take-no-prisoners” approach to drumming. He has been a ubiquitous presence on the Norwegian improvised music scene over the last couple of years, and has toured all over Europe with groups such as Golden Dawn, Cunt Rash, and the now-inactive Supersonic Rocketship. Dag Stiberg has been studying alternative approaches to the saxophone sound for a decade, both solo and with his band Maranata. Mostly known for his wide use of guitar effects he has taken another approach in the band Burning Tree, which explores the sounds of the acoustic realm. Burning Tree decided to go into the studio in February 2011 and record an acoustic session. They had recently done a lot of noise stuff with their noise bands Cunt Rash and Maranata and wanted to bring that energy to this recording. The result is a very harsh free jazz tape with five tracks – total 35 minutes – with extremely dirty saxophone and ecstatic drums. www.knedalandersen.com www.myspace.com/dagstiberg Reviews SPIN Magazine (US): SPIN's 20 Best Avant Albums of 2011, #7 – Full-contact drummer Dag Erik Knedal Andersen and pyrotechnic saxophonist Dag Stiberg, twin powerhouses of Norwegian free jazz, show absolutely no mercy on a rapturous 35-minute cassette of blown-out, high-velocity, ultimate-fighting improvisation. The Esoterrorist (US): Notorious Norwegian improvisers Dag Stiberg and Dag Erik Knedal Andersen are formerly known for their electric noise work in bands such as Cunt Rash and Maranata, but on their recent Tapeworm cassette, Stinger, the duo creates a more acoustic, yet undeniably harsh, brand of free jazz. Stiberg has been studying alternative approaches to his saxophone’s sound for at least a decade, running his unconventional styles through numerous distortions and effects and achieving absolutely brilliant results. The same level of praise is deserved of Anderson’s fierce and relentless cacophony of drums he has contributed to bands such as Golden Dawn and Supersonic Rocketship (R.I.P.). It is also worth mentioning that Anderson’s level of technical skill is actually quite rare in many groups of similar taste. It is because of these heightened abilities of the Dags’ talents that an organic and acoustic approach to improvisation seems fitting for the two. And they do more than just pull it off; Burning Tree make some of the most elaborately colorful and impressive free jazz improv one could hope to hear lately. The duet put off a consistent ecstatic energy that can easily be lost in the meandering of noise jammers. This consistency causes the listener to never lose interest throughout the 5 tracks of this 35-minute release (limited to 200). Highly recommended. Burning Tree's tape was also featured in The Esoterrorist's 2011 Favourites list – Tapeworm never fails to impress us, but this cassette from Norwegian improvisers Dag Stiberg and Dag Erik Knedal Andersen shocked us at how amazing these two work together and how eruptive and clever their brand of free-jazz is. This tape definitely proves that any line between improvisation jazz and improvisational noise should be blurred. One of our highest recommendations. Aquarius Records (US): Three new tapes this week from aQ beloved tape label The Tapeworm (out of four new releases, we'll list #4 next time, it's a doozy!), running the gamut from solo piano to opera to bedroom recorded tape experiments to this. A wild skronked out blast of Norwegian free jazz from his drum/sax duo, described by the label as “harsh free jazz” which this most certainly is, the drumming relentless and intricate and wildly chaotic, the sax bleating and squealing and spitting out insane atonal melodic runs, the two instruments sparring constantly, like dueling solos, the method to their madness surfacing here and there, but for the most part a head spinning barrage of sound, that will probably hit the spot for folks into the wildest free jazz, think Borbetomagus meets the Jooklo Duo and you'll be in the ball park. Dizzyingly intense and wildly relentless, file under the Borbetomagus coined descriptor: “snuff jazz”. Crucial Blast (US): I've only caught a couple of select offerings from the Tapeworm cassette series, mainly the ones with a more creep-stained, witchy touch from Stephen O'Malley and Meltaot. This newer offering from the British tape label isn't the sort of ghoulish improvisational scrape and drone that those artists delivered, but it is an exceedingly abrasive bout of high-intensity improv violence that demands to be listened to at ear-bleeding volume levels. Limited to an edition of two hundred copies and packaged in the minimalist black and white artwork that is the signature look of the Tapeworm imprint, Stinger delivers five blasts of ferocious free-jazz squonk that bear titles like “Sting”, “Shred”, “Bite” and “Bends”, which all appear to infer the potential effect that this cassette might incur on the listener's nervous system. The Norwegian duo Burning Tree consists of drummer Dag Erik Knedal Andersen and saxophonist Dag Stiberg, and with their limited palette of sax and percussion execute some seriously blazing noise-jazz abuse across the length of this thirty-five minute album, starting with circling runs of sax bleat and crashing cymbals, then cranking up the chaos until they peak out with cyclonic blasts of abrasive skronk as the drums explode with complex fills, speeding up to almost blast beat speeds, and whipping through intricate patterns that are all smashed together as Stiberg races his sax through spastic dissonant runs and aneurysm-inducing blowouts that resemble the death-shrieks of a mortally wounded beast. This tape is a fucking scorcher, and any and all disciples of brute-strength free jazz like Borbetomagus, Weasel Walter's recent ensemble work, and Tiger Hatchery should stick this on their to-do list, pronto. Vital Weekly (NL): A duo of from Norway, being Dag Erik Knedal Andersen on drums and Dag Stilberg on saxophone. Normally he plays these with a whole bunch of guitar effects (in his other band Maranata), but here its all acoustic, for both of them. Total and utter free improvised music - free-jazz if you will. This tape last thirty-five minutes and this seems to me the same amount of time spend in the studio - with stuff like this there is no need for editing, dubbing or producing - this music is just being documented, “as is”. Now you could easily wonder if this music needs to be documented at all, or whether its the live element that should count only. Obviously I don't agree - I think it should be, and when recorded under fine conditions: why not. This reminded me of an old Dutch band, Der Junge Hund, whose first LP lasted thirty-five minutes and they didn't spend more time in the studio. Ear blasting, chaotic, wild, lovely. The Wire (UK): Nice collab by Norwegian improvisors Dag Stiberg and Dag Erik Knedal Andersen who blurt out a very frenzied session of sax/drum gruntery of the highest order. This is, of course, one of the kings of improvisational formatting, and these guys go at it pretty damn well. The drums may have a bit more linearity to their approach than I favour. But hey, that's just me.]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.3051 2011-05-25T06:57:07Z 2012-01-25T14:54:40Z

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www.othonmataragas.com Reviews Aquarius Records (US): One of four new releases from UK weirdo tape label The Tapeworm (three this list, the 4th on the next), and as always, a baffling selection of sounds, this one from an entity/artist known as Othon, and the label description makes it seem like we should know Othon, this is in fact the first we've heard, and it's hard to tell if this is indicative of his usual sound or not. The A side, as the title might suggest, is solo piano, and is quite lovely, the original is dramatic and dynamic, slipping from lilting and melancholy to bombastic and intense. The side finishes off with two interpretations of pieces by Chopin and Mendelssohn. The B side features Othon's oldest recordings, captured live during his final recital at London's Trinity College back in 2006, and features a super dramatic bit of operatic bombast, with Othon on the first track pounding away, unfurling dense flurries of notes on the piano, accompanied by fluttering flute, and all supporting some super intense operatic vocals, while the second track is more hushed and low key, but dramatic in its own way, but here you can hear the crowd, camera shutters clicking, feet shuffling, adding a strange bit of ambience to the very intense musical drama playing out before them. compulsiononline.com (UK): Othon should be familiar to compulsiononline regular readers. His debut release Digital Angel, which featured guest contributions from Marc Almond and Current 93's David Tibet alongside Ernesto Tomasini received a glowing review. Silky Hands Of A Rough Piano Boy is a limited tape release from the Touch affiliated label The Tapeworm. Silky Hands Of A Rough Piano Boy shows the more classical side of Othon's work. That's hardly surprising. Othon, a Greek-born London-based composer is classically trained, and an accomplished composer and pianist. Pierced and tattooed, he is anything but conservative. He's provided soundtracks for Ron Athey performances and contributed to the soundtrack to the Bruce LaBruce film Otto or Up With The Dead People. The opening instrumental “Behind the Veil Behold the Liquid Light!” features a rich piano score tumbling into dramatic discord of bashing chords and tinkering notes and back again to melodic piano. There's a comic, ecstatic finale to the piece which is befitting of the surreal grandeur on display here. A further two tracks, showcasing the romantic, classical side of the performer, feature Othon's interpretation of the works of Mendelssohn and Chopin. It's obvious from these that he is a virtuoso on the piano. Flip the tape over and you're met with some deranged operatic histrionics from a 2006 performance. Over a barrage of piano notes and chords Shona Watson's dramatic operatic voice sweeps, soars and shrieks. Only the alto-flute on “Kali Dances” is restrained, everything else is exuberant and chaotic. The only thing that even comes close for comparisons is Dorothy Lewis's operatic appearances with Coil and particularly with her son Thighpaulsandra. The second live selection, again featuring Shona Watson's powerfully rich vocal, is “Digital Angel 000”. This track was originally conceived as part of the Digital Angel suite of songs that appeared on Othon's debut album. Much more reserved than the preceding track the emotive piano score builds into a flurry of notes picking up on the recurring “Left Behind” lyrical motif captured in Watson's high register tones - and originally sung by Tomasini on “Digital Angel I: The Union” from the more experimental cycle of songs from the album. Silky Hands Of A Rough Piano Boy is released in an edition of 200 copies and showcases other facets of this supremely talented pianist/composer not captured on Digital Angel. Impermanence, Othon's new album on Cherry Red side label SFE, featuring ongoing-collaborator Ernesto Tomasini, alongside guest vocal contributions from Marc Almond and Camille O'Sullivan, is released in November 2011. The Wire (UK): Pleasant recital by this Greek born, London based pianist who has worked with David Tibet, Marc Almond and others. The A side features a couple of classical standards and an original in the same vein. The flip, recorded in 2006 as part of a recital at London's Trinity College of Music, features what sounds like a flute and soaring female vocals for accompaniment (reminiscent of Cathy Berberian's work with Luciano Berio.) That side's blazin'.]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.2937 2011-03-01T06:36:45Z 2012-02-09T00:25:08Z

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Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A: Witch Girl of Pilot's Knob B: Child Witch and the Watcher Field recording (EVP captures) and track compositions by Michael Esposito. EVPs captured at a cemetery in Pilot's Knob, Kentucky, PAW Case File PAW120. Situational Specific Frequency Tests and Results captured in 2009 at a cemetery location where in the late 1800s, reportedly accused of witchcraft, a woman and her daughter, Mary Evelyn Ford were burned alive in Marion County. The daughter was buried at Pilot's Knob cemetery and her mother at a separate location. At the cemetery a dark foreboding figure has also been seen. People have named this figure The Watcher. It is said that this evil presence tries to get the little girl but cannot pass beyond the crucifix decorated fence that surrounds her grave. Biography: Michael Esposito is an experimental artist and researcher in Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). He is a descendant of Alfred Vail, who invented the Morse code with his partner Samuel Morse, and Jonathan Vail, office manager and assistant to Thomas Edison. Michael studied communication theory at Purdue University, University of Notre Dame, American University in Cairo, Egypt and Governor's State University. He is the co-founder of Phantom Airwaves - an institution dedicated to the study and education of EVP research. Michael has developed concepts, theories, and testing methods of capturing and presenting EVP using structures and frequencies commonly found in relationship to experimental music. He combines EVP with field recordings and related frequency tones of research sites to provide an audio-archeological picture of both sides of the veil. This allows him to present EVP to the audience in a manor that enables them to hear the voices more audibly and understand the voices within the context of their environment. Michael has participated in hundreds of paranormal investigations globally using his techniques and theories within the field of EVP. He and his partner Heidi Harman have collected tens of thousands EVPs and video. He has appeared in a number of films, television shows and documentaries as well as lecturing to a variety of audiences. Phantom Airwaves attempt is to take EVP research a step further developing a body of work researchers and scientists my use in the future to unlock the mysteries of our own mortality. parc.web.fm Reviews Aquarius Records (US): We listed three new tapes from aQ beloved tape label The Tapeworm on the last list, of a batch of four new releases. This one, #4, got left behind by the post man and only just now showed up. Which was a bummer at the time, cuz it might just be our favorite of the bunch, and the reason why can be summed up in one word: EVP! Okay, maybe three words: Electronic Voice Phenomena, which is the sound of the spirit world communicating through radio static, or lost transmissions, little snippet of voices, often just a word here or there, seemingly reaching across from the other side. This particular set of recordings comes to us from Michael Esposito, an experimental artist and EVP researcher, who over the course of his life has collected thousands of EVP recordings and who has appeared on various television programs and in a number of films and documentaries. According to the label, Fantom Auditory Operations is “an attempt is to take EVP research a step further, developing a body of work researchers and scientists may use in the future to unlock the mysteries of our own mortality”, but to these ears, it actually sound more like EVP set to music, strange bits of dark ambience, fields of hiss and whir, tolling bells, rumbles and whirs and various layers and textures, as well as field recordings, wild animal calls, crackling fires, all set amidst a series of fractured melodies and undulating drones. Apparently the recordings here were captured in a Kentucky cemetery, where in the 1800s a woman and daughter were convicted of witchcraft and burned alive. The daughter was buried in this cemetery, while the mother at another location. There is also apparently spectral figure that has been sighted, perhaps trying to get to the girl (or her spirit), but who is kept at bay by the crucifix decorated fence surrounding her grave. It almost doesn't matter if you believe any of that or not, cuz ultimately it's all about the sounds, and the sounds here are truly captivating, ominous and otherworldly, woven into a soundscape that's tense and haunting and super cinematic, with snippets of classical music, looped bells, the tape speed constantly fluctuating, everything warped and woozy, the only constant, the crackling sound of the fire, that presumably haunts the girl and her mother to this day. So cool. And if you love the Ghost Orchid, a long time unanimous aQ fave, you're gonna want this too! Vital Weekly (NL): On the Tapeworm release Esposito uses recordings from a graveyard in Kentucky where in the late 18th century a witch was burned alive, along with her daughter. More hiss and crackling of tapes - but do we hear voices, I sometimes wonder - come along with the church bells. The whole thing has quite chilling effect on the listener and certainly is all bleak and dark. It is somewhere in the middle of a horror soundtrack and a radioplay, to be broadcasted just before the midnight hour. Sometimes things are so scary that one keeps on listening (or watching, in the case of a movie) and this is one such thing. A pleasant trip in the horror house. (FdW)]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.2932 2011-02-22T17:50:48Z 2012-02-25T20:31:48Z

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Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A: Concert for 300 Magnetic Tapes B-Side left intentionally blank. After years of exchanging self-released music on cassette and collaborating via post, Francisco López and Zan Hoffman embarked in 1994 on a somehow surreal small tour of live performances in Spain (Madrid, Alcalá de Henares and Gijón). By mixing own sonic materials and recorded stuff on cassette received directly from hundreds of underground artists worldwide, they carried out live recombination shows with eight cassette decks and a shared mixing board. A synthetic/distilled edit of the most interesting moments arising from those live composition sessions is now released on this cassette release by The Tapeworm. Francisco López: www.franciscolopez.net Zan Hoffman: zhk7.blogspot.com
Reviews Aquarius Records (US): Yet another chunk of awesome audio weirdness from UK cassette label The Tapeworm (along with three other releases reviewed elsewhere on this week's list). They had us with the title, Concert For 300 Magnetic Tapes. We were maybe envisioning something more like Reynols' Blank Tapes, a composition of the hiss and noise from playing back unrecorded audio tapes, this is Francisco Lopez after all, whose compositions offer border on the absolutely inaudible. But instead, Lopez and Zan Hoffmann solicited tapes from various musicians and artists in the international home recording 4 track cassette tape underground, and embarked on a tour, during which the two would add some of their own sounds, to a glorious cacophonous collage of the various contributions. In this wall of taped sound, impossible to tell what is pre-recorded, or what is being performed live (this recording was culled from various performances in 1994), but a hazy, washed out, softly noisy swirl of voices, and sonic snippets, truncated melodies, lots of grinding and buzzing and hissing, everything layered and tangles, often a confusional mess, but just as often coalescing into something strangely composed sounding, tinkling melodies over a heaving wall of crumbling distortion, or some distant lilting dreaminess, underpinned by jagged shards of chaotic crunch, fuzzy radio broadcast like voices swathed in gritty swirls of static, bits of guitar twang surface occasionally, before slipping back into the grey wash of constantly shifting sound. Really cool. And maybe one of the coolest compositions/performances we've heard from Lopez! Brainwashed (US): Concert for 300 Magnetic Tapes by Francisco López and Zan Hoffman is a surprisingly disappointing affair (especially considering Hoffman is known as a fanatic for tape). As the name suggests, this is an archive recording of a live performance from 1994 where López and Hoffman used audio cassettes from hundreds of sound artists to create a dense fog of sound. The different layers merge together into one gray lump and it is hard to get excited about a gray lump. It is a worthwhile release to some extent as an early example of López's work and a rare release of Hoffman's but it pales in comparison to the company it keeps on The Tapeworm label. Boomkat (UK): Perfect release for The Tapeworm - an edited performance of Francisco López and Zan Hoffman playing and mixing 300 tapes solicited from 200 members of the international cassette network in 1994. The recordings were made on a small Spanish tour between Madrid, Alcalá de Henares and Vigo and later remixed, reconstituted and re-mastered by López at Mobile Messor in Paraguay, 2010. The result is a 30 minute blur of chromatic acousmatics, oscillating from billowing clouds of dissolute textures to more tangible fragments of audio fug where snatches of almost discernable voices or whole melodies come into focus before being lost again to an etheric swirl of drizzly distortion. The width of the recording is just vast, creating a constantly shifting, borderless parameter with the illusion of simultaneously being in a majestic municipal space, and at once a dense jungle of phosphorescing static or a busy underwater highway. This cumulation of multiple psychoacoustic spheres is vividly unreal but beautifully mixed and balanced by their steady hands for an utterly immersive and rewarding experience.]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.2931 2011-02-22T17:48:45Z 2012-01-07T19:53:46Z

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Buy in the TouchShop Track listing: A1: deportment (with apports) A2: a rag though naked may be… A3: clipp'd and collaps'd (cupid's wings) A4: my journey (is a hallucination) A5: the falling step A6: ancient flower child singing A7: a harp a skip a jump (blue angles) B1: this shadow turn this shadow breath B2: a man though naked may be in rags B3: in absentia oder in effigie B4: i expect no succour from benevolent powers B5: what charm? what lip? : charmolypi the creation/recreation/wreck creation/of the precursor – the coasters/donovan/sleepy john estes/blind mamie forehand/the fugs/skip james/peggy lee/lotte lenya/sherrie levine/uncle dave macon/moby grape Peter Hope-Evans: mouth organs/organs of the mouth/jew's harps/trinklets/reception bell. Collaborator: Mick Mahoney. Guitar: Baby Taylor. Recorded aboard Mick's canal boat “Cornwall”, Grand Union Canal at Cowley Peachey on Tuesday afternoon, 2nd November 2010. Illustration and calligraphy – SavX Peter Hope-Evans was a member of Medicine Head, a British 70s blues band championed by John Peel and signed to his legendary Dandelion label. Biography: “a ton of worms in an acre, that is a wonderful thought…………” s. bon qu'a ça 28 september 1947 brecon, wales a life devoured by mouth-organs jews harps the otherhood of breath the sussuration of disastarlings peter hope-evans this ob(l)iterature a rendezvous of questions of notes of interrogation by what crossroads? what sphinx? what mask? what voice? www.peterhope-evans.co.uk Reviews Aquarius Records (US): Hard to know what to expect from a new batch of tapes from The Tapeworm, one of our favorite outsider/experimental/whatthefuck cassette labels, sometimes it's drone, sometimes some lost downtempo electronic record, or a mysterious unreleased jazz gem, the soundtrack to an avant garde art installation, or... some harmonica driven blues. Huh? Yeah, even for The Tapeworm, this one is a little out of left field. Or maybe in this case right field. Peter Hope-Evans was a member of seventies blues band Medicine Head, a favorite of John Peel, and here, offers up some skeletal home recorded stripped down blues, just guitar and harmonica, recorded on a boat, floating on a canal, sometime in 2010. The liner notes point to some relevant precursors / inspirations: The Coasters/Donovan/Sleepy John Estes/Blind Mamie Forehand/The Fugs/Skip James/Peggy Lee/Lotte Lenya/Sherrie Levine/Uncle Dave Macon/Moby Grape, and we definitely buy that, but this is essentially some acoustic blues, the guitars minimal, the harmonica soulful, the vocals sung/spoken, the vibe is super intimate, easy to imagine, windows open, the sounds seeping in from all around the canal, candles lit, much alcohol imbibed, and a long night of just jamming in the dark, simpler stripped down old school blues... Boomkat (UK): You never know what's coming next from The Tapeworm, and we certainly didn't figure for this. Tape 29 is an intimate session from Peter Hope-Evans, former member of a '70s British Blues band signed to John Peel's Dandelion label called Medicine Head. “Visitations Fetches Revenants” documents Peter and his mates Mick Mahoney and Baby Taylor playing on board Mick's canal boat “Cornwall” on a presumably drizzly afternoon in November 2010 (then again that might be tape drizzle), probably with a big pot of tea on the go and an ashtray full of scrunched roll-ups. They lay out a list of influences on the back, counting Donovan, Peggy Lee, Lotte Lenya, Sherrie Levine, Moby Grape, Uncle Dave Macon, Skip James and loads more, but ultimately this is three guys quietly singing and jamming on harmonica and guitar, and it's bloody lovely. Vibes, man. Vibes. Brainwashed (US): Out on The Tapeworm is the utterly bizarre Cast-offerings: Visitations, Fetches, Revenants by Peter Hope-Evans. Cut from the same cloth as Daniel Johnston, these songs feature Hope-Evans alone with a microphone, a guitar and a variety of instrumental miscellanea. Deconstructing classic songs into his own little worlds, his delightfully un-tuneful singing voice is both annoying and a source of strange attraction. I cannot decide whether I like this or not but it certainly sticks out as either a work of genius or a bit of a joke. Or both. Vital Weekly (NL): In the seventies he was a member of Medicine Head and as such darlings of the late John Peel, even recording for his Dandelion label, but these days he is stuck on a houseboat with his collection of jew harps, mouth organ, bells and his own voice, plus Baby Taylor occasionally on guitar. The walkman with a recording possibility is set up and Hope-Evans plays his music - I assume blues like, if I was someone who knows these sort of things (if only!) - but even more sparse, to the bare chilling bone. Hope-Evans doesn't have the right sort of voice for it, being a bit unstable but perhaps that is part of the aesthetic of this? A most curious item, one of those where you could think someone is playing a joke on the listener. Just that thought made me smile. (FdW)]]> tag:www.tapeworm.org.uk,2011://42.2930 2011-02-22T17:46:21Z 2012-01-07T19:49:30Z

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Rayna deNiord Number Crunches composed, arranged and performed by Andrew Poppy. Field recordings captured by Zeno van den Broek and Sven Schlijper. Hidden voices: Thaddeus Zupančič. Mastered by BJNilsen. Commissioned by PAUME as part of “The Tapeworm Comes Alive!”, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 28.xi.10. “Fog over Channel, continent isolated…” Reviews Brainwashed (US): Both sides of Philip Marshall's Casse-tête follow a very similar path, so much so that I had to consult the liner notes to be sure that it was not the same material repeated on both sides. Strong, clear piano playing opens both sides before giving way to atmospheric if stereotypical field recordings of accordion playing on what sounds like a Parisian street. Both sides finish off with some serious organ drone, side B's performance being particularly powerful. The transitions between the sections are edited beautifully, reminiscent of early Nurse With Wound and I must say that Casse-tête is a gem of a tape. Boomkat (UK): Further to The Tapeworm's adventures in Utrecht, follows this session from Ash International artist, Philip Marshall. Using field recordings of accordion captured by Zeno van den Broek and Sven Schlijper, together with “hidden voices” credited to Thaddeus Zupančič, Marshall siphons us from our reality to opulent surroundings fragranced with bright, clear piano, and into what may be a Parisian street scene, or outside the HSBC in Rusholme, the field recordings subtly edited for a trippy deja entendu, before melting into a final section of lustrous drone. The other side follows a similar route, as though we're following a brief segment of his day, an impression enhanced with the effortless, almost hyperreal segues between each section. Mastered by BJ Nilsen and warmly recommended. Aquarius Records (US): One of four new tapes on the Tapeworm label, a UK cassette only label that traffics in modern minimalism and all manner of outsider musical ephemera, shrouding many of their releases in mystery, leaving it up to the listener to divine the providence of these strange and wonderful releases. Not entirely sure who Philip Marshall is, although from the credits we're going to assume it's actually not a person, and instead the name of a group, made up of various composers, musicians and field recordists. Composed and performed by English pianist / composer Andrew Poppy, Casse-tête is a gorgeous elegiac bit of solo piano, brooding, and haunting, lush and melodious, but the main piano part is surrounded by various bits of audio detritus and random field recordings, from static and crunch, hiss and clatter, to snippets of conversation, the grinding metal on metal of what sounds like a commuter train, the background sounds occasionally overtaking the piano sounds themselves, a few minutes in, after what sounds like someone removing a tape from a player, we're treated to accordion and crowd sounds and what could be a busy street in Italy, the sounds getting ever more chaotic and noisy, reverbed and echo drenched, finally super distorted in a final squall of Merzbowian crunch, slipping into a strange bout of pulsating organs sliced and diced and all tangled up with more strange sonic snippets and fragments of what sounds like liturgical chorales. The B side seems to be an extrapolation of that twisted collaged Italian street field recording, thick billows of accordion buzz, the rhythmic crunch of foot steps, church organs, lots of hiss and crunch and buzz, drone and dark, fragmented and fractured, a swirling, whirling droned out soft noise field recording flecked dronescape. Cool. The Liminal (UK): The sheer range of the Tapeworm’s interests continues to confound and delight in equal measures. One thing that has been reasonably consistent is their focus on individuals who, for one reason or another, aren’t exactly household names. Recent cassettes have included those from Peter Hope-Evans, once a member of 70s British blues band Medicine Head, as well as work from the workouts of the ultra-secretive drone duo Deceh. The name of Philip Marshall may be more familiar from his design work rather than his musical endeavours, but his new release is one of my favourite Tapeworm cassettes. In a way, it feels like the label in microcosm: with someone commissioning and arranging some very different sections into a beguiling whole. Andrew Poppy features with a couple of haunting solo pieces, before the tape is changed and we’re listening to someone else’s field recordings from a Parisian street, with accordions and street chatter – that too is soon ejected in favour of some deep church organ drone. And like the label itself, the strong curatorial hand ensures that it all works, the distinct movements somehow being knitted into a fascinating and evocative whole. (Scott McMillan)]]>