is:is c30
[2008, gods of tundra]

ah, there's a black veil of intrigue surrounding this one. for starters, absolutely no one has talked about this tape. outside of having previously been in a few people's distro lists... not a fucking word. secondly, mudboy (providence's raphael lyon) doesn't list this on the discography section of his website. third, whoever added this tape to discogs didn't add it under raphael's mudboy page (creating an entirely new entity). seeing how there's no info available, this actually makes sense, but i'm fairly certain that it's lyon (two experimental mudboys?! doubtful)... but you never know. anyway, is:is is (is) waaaay too good to have slipped past everyone's collective radar. update! talked with raphael and he confirmed that it's his release (he also fixed the discogs weirdness). so then, that's that.
supposedly, this is part of mudboy's "impossible duets" series (which, appropriately enough, there's no info about), and as such, both tracks feature collaborators whose names should ring familiar to a good deal of you. side a's the martian timeslip has carlos gonzales (russian tsarlag) andrkd (who?) (the writing looks a hell of a lot like rkd, but it's pkd, as in the author.. which would make a lot more sense). it starts off with a phenomenal loop of slow, panning synthetic percussion and beautifully drifting electronic ambiance. after two minutes we get carlos' reading of an excerpt from philip k. dick's the martian time-slip. what i'm most impressed with is how good his vocals sound. russian tsarcasm / tsarlag relies a lot on his odd nasally vocal delivery (and interesting lyrics), but here, that's not the case. it's also worth mentioning how great it is that it's also not as unabashedly lo-fi as his tapes. while that works (great) for what he does, i'm floored by how terrific everything sounds on tms. i really love the panned multi-tracking of his vocals, too... and the deliberate pace of the reading, coupled with the lengthy absences of vocals and, of course, the incredible words of philip dick.. ugh, i could rave about this all day. when carlos gets to "i love mozart... i'll put this tape on" there's an outburst of noisy synth droning "a hideous racket screeches and shrieks issued from the speakers like the convuuuullllsssionsss..." from there his vocals adopt an occasional drawn out characteristic, lingering on certain words to glorious effect. once the track calms back down, the beat remains in a more forceful state than it previously was. i dig that every time gonzales gets to "i love mozart!" there's a surge in noise, "a great raaarrriiittty from the gooooolden age of recordingssss"... this is so fuckin' good. i'm placing the majority of my enthusiasm with carlos's performance, but, truly, the music is every bit as integral as his (inspired) reading is; killer beat, great synth droning, awesome, unexpected noise... pure brilliance all around.
i dunno about impossible, but side b's breakaway religion does, at least, feature an unlikely combination of collaborators in demons' steve kenney (also of hatred, galen, isis & werewolves) and rodger stella (most notably of macronympha and hollow bush). the unlikeliest aspect of this is how sedated it is. i never thought that i'd use the word gorgeous in connection with anything concerning stella, but, i was wrong! this is lovely and revolves around dreamy dynamic synth lines, subtle rhythmic undertones, catchy loops and blissful droning. even at the midway point, when a layer of distortion (which turns into a noisy rumble) briefly comes through, it can't knock religion off of its heavenly perch, though it will signal a change in the track, as it comes to shed all of its layers in favor of low end rhythmic pulses and synthesizer fuckery / wavy droning, with a renewed vigor for looping in the final minutes.

incredible tape. i still get can't over the fact that i'm the only person pointing out how awesome it is... whatever... physical copies of it appear to be long gone, so those who cared to know, clearly knew.

Mudboy - Is:Is c30 [2008, Gods of Tundra]

Demons (Nate Young & Steve Kenney) w/ Rodger Stella @ No Fun Fest; NYC 2008
(crap visuals (of the performers), but perfect audio)