nightside / shadeup c26
[2008, peasant magik]

the first thing that struck me about this tape was.. damn, it looks really monorail trespass-y.. and, sure enough, (mt label head (and good noise-maker)) jon borges supplied the photography for it. i'm glad that i wasn't just imagining things. the audio was handled by oakland's william hutson (who's also recorded under his given name and as necklacing, a duo with matthew sullivan (earn, privy seals, vague apology, black chastity, deep jew, protein den, genius females). oh, and fun fact: a rale is a short series of rapid loud sounds, most commonly used when referring to abnormalities in the chest cavity, specifically the lungs.

the discord of banged piano keys will set in motion a series of drones which open up nightside. i dig the interplay between these constant, vibrating and undulating layers. william's got his bases covered nicely, here, and the result of that effort is a picture-perfect lull. it gets even more memorable once all of the layers begin to roll over and under each other, crafting beautiful billows of sound. a short while after that, rale will incorporate a light, bottom-dwelling, distorted crunch, but as more time passes, a noisier drone will start to rise up in static-rich swells, amidst the serene lull, which begins to ebb as the distortion gradually gains in strength, washing over everything with its choppy waves. by the time a high-pitched quivering drone joins nightside's maelstrom, the two principle drones will hardly be noticeable anymore.

shadeup starts out with a high, hollow, wavering drone, a thin, persistent crackle of distortion and another hollow drone beneath the other one. there's also some darker drones that will occasionally creep up in amplitude, only to fall back into the shadows. after a few minutes those will spawn continual low vibrations, which provide a counterbalance to the multi-layered howling... though, as the track gains in minutes, there will be less distinction between these layers.

as was the case on side a, a noisy drone will ascend from out of nowhere, this one sounds like the roar of distant jet engines. it's nice that it won't muscle the other layers out of the way; it's focal, but cohabitual. eventually, everything will be stripped away, leaving just the roaring drone and old vinyl-esque crack and pops, but only the latter will come to close out (the final two minutes of) the tape, transforming into odd sputtering noises by the end.
i'm digging this tape quite a bit. it's a quality droner that doesn't rest its weight so much on melodic devices as much as it does on the interaction between these rather standard-fare drones, taking those and turning them into something captivating and worth listening to. ultimately, though, i feel that it was rale's incorporation of noisier elements (which never overbore) that tipped the scales in his favor.
i thought, when i was doing the hater of life review, that there were still copies of this, but, happily, it is oop. well, good for peasant magik (and hutson), bad for procrastinators who didn't act fast enough, but fret not, i've got you covered.

Rale - Nightside / Shadeup c26 [2008, Peasant Magik]

Rale @ Pocket Sandwich; Portland, OR 11/02/08
(special thanks to the people of portland for seemingly videotapping every show and adding it to youtube)