With Great Care - With Great Care (Aural Canyon, 2020)

The Aural Canyon label is no stranger to this little blog of ours, mainly because we have much love for their delicious brand of audio bliss.  Our orbits are very aligned with theirs, and we eagerly anticipate each new release from the imprint.  This particular cassette has been rattling our ear drums for awhile, and it is a shame that we haven’t had the bandwidth to spill any ink about it in months past, because it’s so damn good!

Modular synth wizard Grainger Weston is behind the moniker With Great Care, and this is his debut.  It’s a pretty epic release, though – so well-tuned as a matter of fact that it’s hard to believe this guy hasn’t been cranking out synth-scapes for eternity.  Or maybe he has, and this is the first time that he’s dared to attach his incorporeal emanations to a physical form.  One can never be sure…

This is the kind of modular jamming we love around here: the music carefully balances a mix of ambient hues behind a melodic foreground and fractured loops that coalesce into tide pools of undifferentiated sound.  Such weirdness can create a kaleidoscopic effect, as can be heard on “Swim”, in which oblique patterns emerge and recede almost constantly as the lengthy piece unfolds.  At other times there is an unnerving, extraterrestrial vibe that takes hold.  The alien atmospheres of “Horizon” with its glitchy lexicon is exemplary of such an unearthly mode.

Unique in its execution is “Blue”, in which a sprightly – almost pachinko-esque – melody is sparsely peppered over a barely present hum.  It’s like Weston is jamming freely on his modular, really exploring the outer reaches of melody, tone and timbre.  The whole thing is thrilling.  As a matter of fact, the entire tape is a stunner from beginning to end – definitely one that we will be jamming while under quarantine, and beyond.

Aural Canyon have copies of this expansive and entrancing cassette over at their Bandcamp, so grab yourself a copy, hunker down, and drift away on clouds of synth.

Lithics - Wendy Kraemer EP

It’s mid-April and we’ve finally made it through the stacks to a 2020 release.  Finally!  FINALLY!!

So we’ve been heavily digesting social media in the absence of in person social interaction, and one thing that has been popping up frequently is the “name one record per day that has made you who you are” phenomenon, or whatever it’s called.  Over here at Nine Chains HQ, we’re pretty sure that there’d be at least one no wave record in our list, should we ever choose to participate.  And that leads us to today’s object of critical investigation, this EP reissue from Portland’s Lithics.

This four-piece minimal primitive punk ensemble ride their bikes on the edges of the no wave neighborhood.  There are the requisite angular guitars and rubbery bass involved.  And the half-spoken vocals of Aubrey Hornor smack of late 70s or early 80s avant-punk, in a good way.  This gang wear their influences on their sleeves, but there is a sense of originality that keeps them from becoming an imitation or a parody of what came before.

The Wendy Kraemer EP has an interesting genesis.  Originally self-released by the band on cassette, this is an odds and sods collection of demos, improvisational jams and practice recordings of material that at the time was yet to be released.  Ironically, the proceedings work as a package unto itself.  Sure, the fidelity of the recordings is all over the map, but that actually adds to the visceral feeling of the music.  The folks over at Moone Records must have felt the same way, because they decided to reissue it, and on wax no less.

There are no tracks listed, but discerning listeners will likely make out songs from the group’s more “professional” recordings.  That being said, we enjoy listening to the entirety as one big block of tunes that scuttle past in all their scrappy glory.

Moone still have copies of this bad boy over at their online shop, so go ahead and sidle over there and prepare to enjoy yourselves.

Endurance / PJS - Endurance / PJS (Crash Symbols, 2019)

Hey!  What better way to tide us over during the mini-pocalypse than a lovely slice of drift that is itself a triumvirate composed of our favorite music-producing organisms?  Crash Symbols, Endurance, and PJS all rank up at the top of our charts, so the idea of them combining forces is almost indescribable in its goodness.  We’re as happy as can be, all things considered.

Here we have a reel of ferrous material imbued on either side with the cosmic sounds of Canada.  Well, technically Endurance is currently located in Japan, but Josh Stefane is Canuck diaspora, so we’re widening the lasso over here in our geographic categorization.  On the A side is a pair of his compositions, while the flip side is owned by PJS, which is Jordan Christoff and Patrick Dique.

The Endurance tracks capture two unique modes of Stefane’s soundcraft.  “Outside” launches with a string of reverberating chimes that ring out with a sense of delicate beauty.  The sounds blend into a gentle, shimmering mist that just begs to be waded through.  Dreamworld, here we come!  The opposite effect is at play on “Waystation”.  In this piece, a darkness overtakes us.  We’re riding in a lonely subway car at midnight.  Our skin crawls and the hair on our arms stands on end.  An uneasiness grows within us.  We can’t think of anything but the darkness.  Eventually, a faint glow materializes through the window, the sense of dread diminishes, and we allow our internal monologue to continue.  This is a very bold piece.

PJS lay out a live synthesizer array that sways gently in an invisible breeze.  “Parellels” captures the duo channeling spirits from the cosmos and bending those phantasms to their will.  Their translucent bodies waft however Christoff and Dique command them.  A binaural fluttering evokes graceful movement, such as that of a fish darting through water or a soaring bird, and a subtle crackling emerges with a fairly regular cadence, giving rise to a slight shiver.  These are the sounds of a cloudless twilight.

Alas, physical copies of this captivating release are sold out, but it’s available in digital form via the Crash Symbols Bandcamp, so click on over there and prepare to zone out.