Well we've lied dormant for quite sometime over here in the cloudy city that constitutes the Fogged Headquarters. What can we say, no jams of honorable release? Well, we wish, but the truth is jams have been raining down from all directions and we were only able to grasp two in our mouth as the torrential rain whipped past. The two we just so happened to be able to hold onto are powerful and bold examples of the intersection of the popular, academic, and underground histories of electronic music manifesting them now in the current era.
check 'em out, and try to catch as much as they spill by you, they move fast kids, c'mon!
Vapor Gourds-Incision Objects
Vapor Gourds is the ongoing project of Western Massachusetts based percussionist, DJ, and producer Jake Meginsky. I blew it, I blew it, I gotta check my head as the honorable Beasties say, I gave away too much. Next I'll be typing some drivel about he studied with Milford Graves, plays prepared tympani, has remixed Body/Head and has collaborated with every out-there musician type New England has to offer...man, I love that one sided Nmperign collaboration LP, that's a good one. There I go again, mystique is the game, shape shifting, keeping the listener guessing, but, then again, you're not a listener, you're a potential listener, and a probable reader. Vapor Gourds "Incision Objects" likes to play with this mystery and the line you, probable reader, play between reading and listening. Leaning on conventions and musical ideas --beats, rhythms, sounds, samples-- and then stripping them down to non-essential and unused parts Megisnky crafts bare bones head-nodding remix ready, but fully realized, compositions. Not unlike killing a buffalo to methodically dissect its' body and end up only eating the tuchas, Meginsky's music as Vapor Gourds, displays an in depth knowledge of the cultural, rhythmic, and production elements of dance music but realizes it's all about the bottom end, bottom line? With the interplay of your expectations and the skill honed through making percussion music in every damn genre percussion music is welcome or not, Vapor Gourd's "Incision Objects" marks itself as a confusing mysterious shapeshifter of a record, one that can move your tuchas, you buffalo, so don't buffalo and grip this! Art by Bill Nace, to boot!
Max Eilbacher--Subtle Scatter
There are records to be chomped, jammed, ripped, even, blasted, but Derek Bailey wondered if there wasn't something less to listening. The attack guitar god wondered if listeners stopped doing the dishes when they put on a record, how could that be, did they just sit and stare? One's gotta keep the oculars occupied, tripped out record cover to look at, I guess. A music video seems to do quite nicely. Max Eilbacher makes tons of videos, he'll probably make a video for this release. Eilbacher also seems to be quite down with just sitting and starring though, maybe he doesn't have to do dishes because he has the visual in his mind's eye. Maybe the scatter is only subtle because it bunches its' individual pieces so closely together, so that the aforementioned "scatter" refracts and expands so fast, that it creates a vast visual array of sound, de-connecting and connecting with the listener as each surprising decision unfolds into the next, from computer sequences, to modular synth flappery, to deconstructed processed samples. The music itself is staring music, we get that, but why? What makes one record dish washer worthy and another so leveling that you dip into your own little world and stare at your receiver hoping it could explain what you're seeing and hearing, but it can't and neither can Max Eilbacher. A music video for the sounds would probably be helpful, but the imagination and lack of dishes in your hand are your best bet. Art by Eilbacher and Kodi Fabricant. Catch Max in Horse Lords, Matmos, and formerly in Teeth Mountain and Needle Gun, dude STAYS busy, his previous release is on Spectrum Spools, to boot!
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