DECAYCAST Reviews: Mark Tester “Tumbleweeds” (Unifactor)

https://unifactor.bandcamp.com/album/tumbleweed

Mark Tester’s previous band Burnt Ones was unknown to me before hearing this tape, or any of the other projects he’s involved with now, Unifacitor a label I’ve heard about a lot but not gotten any physical releases until now. I like the uniform aesthetic of this batch of tapes very much, a series of brush stroke images.

Warm, limitless spaces with soft textures constantly receding into the background, great use of negative space and silence to create compositional intrigue and feel like live takes simultaneously. There is a balance of light and shadow on this tape that shines through the reverse  four track elements lurking behind soft patches and occasionally slowly pacing drum beats. 

Tester doesn’t shy from melody or other traditional forms while keeping the experiments, whether they be post production edits that push the material into psychedelic dub territories or phrasing interactions of the synthetic elements that begins to echo “Discrete Music” in some melodic passages from n the first side of the tape.  Tester works with ambient melodic guitar(?) and synth processing that moves around too much too be considered ambient the way I think of it, but damn if there aren’t some beautiful moments of bliss on this slab of oxide as I listen to this tape for the second time after an 11 hour shift.  

  There’s some uniquely compelling textures in this tape that make it a repeat listener for me. It feels like an album over flowing with ideas, but executing the right amount of curatorial succinct approach that keeps the playing techniques moving in different directions.

https://unifactor.bandcamp.com/album/tumbleweed

Worth your listening time. 

-Jacob DeRaadt

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DECAYCAST Premieres: Ezra Feinberg “Castle and Sand” & John Kolodij “Beyond the Fragile” streaming now! (Whited Sepulchre Records, 2020)

Ezra Feinberg & John Kolodij share the first two tracks off of new LP on Whited Sepulchre Records. , 

The preorder is live now and the LP comes out August 28, 2020.

 

Ezra Feinberg shares “Castle and Sand”, A beautiful, warm, introduction to a slowly shifting, bending, humming soundscape, unfolding inside the ear, setting off a trigger of washed out humming strings, a caucophanous silence, a briightly lit star millions of miles away, these. tones escape the source and paint a distant hum that grows brighter, and quieter. John Kolodij’s “Beyond the Fragile” escalates the listener to fever pitch psychedelic hums of bending light across a plush, dimly lit, mist cloaked forest.

On his side Feinberg compliments Kolodij perfectly with warm strings resonating and shaking across a barren sea. drenched in reverb, archaic strums pluck broightly across a sea of glass. Friction like a creaking ice tray about to crack Feinberg’s music is relaxing bt holds an intensity that could erupt at any moment but never quite does, leaving us on the edge of bliss and loneliness.

from the label:

“Bless whatever cosmic winds brought together this split between NYC guitarist and composer Ezra Feinberg and multi-instrumentalist John Kolodij. Traveling deep blue highways of the mind, their split LP opens up the stunning vistas that link these two artists in sound and texture.”

Preorder the LP HERE,  scope out W S R  vast and eclectic discography  HERE

DECAYCAST Premieres: Peaer ” left​/​felt pt. 2″ (Citrus City, 2019)

DECAYCAST Premieres: Peaer ” left​/​felt pt. 2″ (Citrus City, 2019)

 

Taking a stroll outside of our normal “experimental” zone a bit to share a premiere from Citrus City Records artist Peaer ahead of a reissue due for release March 18th of this year. Citrus City hosts a diverse myraid of artists and has been popping up in all corners of the internet for some time, and taking a look at their eclectig bandcamp page linked below offers a diverse sonic array. Here we have Peaer’s  track “left/felt pt 2.” , which opens with a slow twanged guitar pluck with a minimalist beat and softly spoken words, however things don’t remain the same for too long as things begin to open up and expand and voice articulates fuller and louder presentations each phrase. The track slowly and steadily becomes a  much heavier, fuller, yet dissonant  form of itself blending thick drums, as the break drops we’re thrusted into a full on post rock composition, strummed waves of  chord distortions,  decaying riffs and arching waves of tone poem high register guitar work, dynamic and interesting throughout.  Take  a listen below and preorder the cassette today!

 

Peaer states, “‘the eyes sink into the skull’ was a phrase I lifted from a random webpage when I was reading about the stages of decomposition of a human body. The image conjured, although gruesome, captured the introspective nature of the album. This version has been slightly remixed and completely remastered by our beloved Jeremy Kinney. “the hands and feet turn blue” is another line from that same writing found here. This recording includes a re-recorded version of the song “left/felt” that includes a brand new portion of music, one that was written virtually one year after the original song was written and recorded. Released for the first time here. Also on the collection are two live tracks, from our first official tour as a band in 2016. The two remixes are included as well, a remix of the song “mouther” made by our friend Andrew Schuyler (aka morningstar), and a remix of the song “the dark spot” made by good friend Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie, both originally made in 2015 and have been patiently awaiting release. Finally on the new recordings are two previously unreleased demos that I have made since. Those two songs “happy birthday to me” and “the entire day feels like morning” were recorded on Ableton before being fed into a handheld tape recorder to characterize and color the recording.

Peaer reissues their debut album, the eyes sink into the skull, now remastered & reissued on tape for the first time alongside special remix & live sessions album, the hands and feet turn blue, via Virginia/Brooklyn based label Citrus City Records. Available digitally and physically March 18, 2019.

DECAYCAST Reviews: Blaine Todd & Andrew Weathers (Houdini Mansions, 2018)

DECAYCAST  Reviews: Blaine Todd & Andrew Weathers (Houdini Mansions, 2018)

This split begins with Andrew Weathers on the A side offering three experimental guitar and synth offerings, beginning with the track “Llano” which offers spacious, minimalist guitar work complemented through warm buzzing, swelling synthesizers. The synths and guitars play wonderfully off each other in a barren, pulsing, slightly unsettling tone poem. 

The second track, and standout of the tape “Mugwort Moon” is a huge, throbbing synth number with insect-like rattling pulses that transport the listener into a parallel universe of floating drones. Weathers synthesizes a perfect union of tone and spaces to create lush, dream-like compositions with heavy and dissonant overtones. 

The Blaine Todd Side of the split is more a take on traditional Americana psychedelia  rendered  through reverb drenched folk thrusts. Todd skates across a lush and morose pond, blending dripping, cavernous guitar strums, backed with distant unsettled, sad  vocals creating a fever dream style of psychedelic alt-pop. Gentle plucks and minimalistic events within the body of the guitar bloom into lush waves of intonation, a perfect compliment to the slightly more abstracted works of Andrew Weathers on the A side. Todd’s music is slightly more on the morose side of things where the Weathers side feels  both dissonant and uplifting at the same time, a  truly unique and dynamic pairing.

The label itself describes the offering as:

“A striking document of wide open loneliness, this split release by Andrew Weathers & Blaine Todd contains timeless works about Wobblies, the Staked Plain, etc.

Thoughtful, pensive songwriting blends with artisan-crafted dronework, and undercurrents of electronic wizardry.”

All in all, great release  from Houdini Mansions, a hybrid label, review site and radio show/ podcast. Follow them today and keep a lookout for more from this exciting collective, as well as both artists individually.