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.

Sea Moss - Bidet Dreaming (Crash Symbols / Feeding Tube, 2019)

Oh, it’s been too long, people.  Our apologies, but the summer plays tricks with all its sun and heat and fun and such.  But we’re back over here at Nine Chainz HQ, albeit briefly before another adventure looms when we head to Lake Erie to wrestle with water flora and sand and flotsam.  But we’re here now, so let’s dive into this beast of a record by Portland duo Sea Moss.  These cats are wonky in a post-punk meets post-cyborg meets post-noise meets post-shriek meets post-electrons sort of way.  And it’s a delightful wonk that they purvey, a crafty zaniness that is nearly indescribable.

Snazzy drumming reigns supreme, courtesy of skin pounder Zach D’Agostino, who also lays down some ‘tronics.  Noa Ver is they of the Kazu Makino meets Deerhoof meets Caroliner vocals-as-telephony trip and this individual also won’t let us forget that they are wrangling electrons too.  Describing the sound that this pair emanates is particularly difficult, as they defy comparison and stretch beyond genre boundaries.  There are definitely songs here, but they’re wrapped in modem squeals, fuzzy time signatures, ray gun gurgles, and the hypnotically high-pitched voice of Noa Ver.  I smell Lightning Bolt at times, but there’s way more funk involved.  The aforementioned Deerhoof or Caroliner?  Maybe a dollop.

Forget it.  Just sit back and listen up, kiddos.  Bidet Dreaming is where it’s at.  There are no duds here, as all songs are rocketry incarnate, incendiary in execution and energy.  Take “Knock Knock Joke” for example.  It starts off all coy and sparse but ends up coming to a boil in no time – a screaming across the sky, as Thomas Pynchon might put it.  This track is the decoder ring from which all remaining songs can be deciphered – it contains all of Sea Moss’ many moods in one tight package.  And there’s a lot to love: the thunderous drums paired sommelier-style with Noa Ver’s shrill siren call; a DIY electronics aesthetic that takes its time sliding into top gear; a cantankerous rhythm that hangs together precariously.

It’s not enough for us to describe the mayhem of Sea Moss, you must experience it.  So sidle over to either the Crash Symbols Bandcamp or the Feeding Tube Records website and become wrapped in the warped sensibility of this dynamic duo.

Aghnie & Seqta - House of Spleen (Crash Symbols, 2019)

Hey, it’s March and I’ve finally cleared out the pile of 2018 releases that I had on my desk.  Hooray for me!  What better way to dive into 2019 than with a perennial favorite of mine, the Crash Symbols label??  I’m a huge fan of the imprint’s split tapes, and this one’s a real jammer for sure.  Both of the artists featured hail from the Eurasian country of Georgia: Aghnie (real name Ika Jojua) is based in Tbilisi, while Seqta (aka Beska Kapchelashvili) now lives in Berlin.

Each of these producers approaches electronic music on a unique trajectory.  Aghnie embraces a sort of electro-techno hybrid, which finds him relishing synths and loops.  There’s a lo-fi edge to the music – a dusting of tape hiss, a slight fuzziness to the beats – but this lends a sense of warmth and familiarity to the proceedings.  “Stitches,” the lengthiest of the tracks offered here features gorgeously interwoven female vocals that hang in the air like languidly wafting trails of smoke.  On the other hand, we have “Wounds,” a beat-driven piece with a quirky yet highly engaging rhythm.  It’s got laser chirps and an infectious ringing sound that will invade your dreams if – like me – you listen to it frequently.  Near the end, it shifts gears and a series of eerie moans leads us toward the dance floor.

Seqta rolls in on a jungle tip, with a breakbeat-heavy sound that’s snappy and sample-ridden.  With track titles like “Gnostic Riddim” and “Ashanti in K-Hole”, you know what he’s all about.  There’s a ghostly murk and some violent imagery at play, which evokes a sense of danger that isn’t present on Aghnie’s tracks.  There might even be a sample from Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks score hidden in “Hood iz 4ever”, but I can’t be completely sure that I’m not merely imagining it.  I do know that Ashanti’s hook from “Always on Time” is there on “Ashanti in K-Hole”, and it’s blown out among haunting synth pads that make it sound downright sinister.  These are some ace tracks right here!

There are still a handful of these tapes left over at the Crash Symbols Bandcamp, so don’t hesitate – snap one up pronto!

Isness - Isness (Crash Symbols, 2018)

The West Virginian cassette tape gurus over at Crash Symbols continue their unrelenting cadence of adventurous releases, showing no signs of slowing down.  The label’s been offering up about a tape every month since around April of this year, and each one is a pleasure to behold in both the visual and the aural realms.  Even cooler, some of their tapes are accompanied by an artwork-matching button that you can proudly wear on your favourite jacket now that Autumn is here and the icy weather is brewing.

The latest spool of goodness to hail from the Crash Symbols camp is a delicious slice of harmonious improvisation from Isness, the duo project of Montreal’s Catherine Debard (YlangYlang) and Oakland-based composer Matt Robidoux (Curse Purse with Ted Lee of Feeding Tube Records, ex-Speedy Ortiz).  Robidoux is actually a west coast transplant, originally hailing from Massachusetts, inhabiting the zany orbit that folks like Sunburned Hand of the Man also abide.  He and Debard crossed paths via a web of touring and other opportune moments of translocation, synergistically creating the isness of… …well, Isness.

A third member graces the A side of this delicious tape, violinist Jenifer Gelineau of Sunburned Hand of the Man.  This material was recorded in summer 2017 when the three musicians convened in Ontario, Canada, and is very much dream-like in execution.  A soft drone permeates the proceedings over which violin, percussion, flute, what sounds like banjo, and the ocean’s roar are all interwoven across the first three tracks.  The side closes with “Beach Pizza”, its clangorous strings and feedback serving as the jarring wake up call that abruptly terminates the mesmerizing hallucination it succeeds.

On the flip, we have the pair of Debard and Robidoux on their own, sprouting a growing delusion of amorphous room tones, string scrapes, samples, percussion, and other less discernable sounds.  Their poetry grows ever musical as the side unfolds, abstract aural phenomena coalescing into crystalline patterns which then splinter apart such that the resulting sonics are at times mellifluous and at others certifiably strange.

You can peer into the spellbinding mindshare that is Isness by pointing your browser to the Crash Symbols Bandcamp; there are still physical copies available.