untitled c20
[2009, i just live here]

this is an interesting tape from ren, not so much because of the sounds (which are great), but because of how little info there is about it. i'm led to believe that it's from this year, since it's not listed under god willing's personal inventory of his releases, which was updated early december of last year. unlike his other stuff on ijlh, there's no catalog number or anything else to be found on this, making it difficult to track down... and to further complicate matters it appears that i just live here's site no longer exists... hrm. i see this is sold out over at tomentosa, but other than that, i can't find the cassette anywhere. i got it from rrrecords, but it's not there anymore, either.

sound-wise, i'm finding some common ground between this and the last gw tape i reviewed, the split with leslie keffer, as both centered around tonal bliss, but this time ren has a little more time to expand upon that, and he'll make the most of it.

the first side starts out with low and high droning that's joined by a periodic stuttering sound, separate from the main layers, which serves as a rad rhythmic device, and also takes your focus away from the static drones. after a minute or so, schofield adds a new, occasionally undulating loop. a little while later the track becomes increasingly louder, and the rhythm will get somewhat lost amongst the ascending density. it won't disappear completely, but now every instance causes a rippling affect, with its low waves breaking up the drones and steady pulsations. near the midway point, once the distorted noise begins to take over, i can still hear ren's main oscillations and appreciate the low rhythmic throbbing that's clashing with the higher drone, which is trying to free itself from the grip of distortion that's grounding it. with just over a minute left, the track shifts as the thickness of it is replaced by swift-moving shrill noise and feedback, which is thrust upon a calm wave of humming drone (as well as the faint recurrence of the stuttering rhythm), which, pretty much brings the track around full circle, just swap out the other drone for the terrific noise upgrade.
side b opens with low droning and electronic chirps, though the latter will soon devolve into a choked up mess of noisy utterances. the initial drone will also change into muffled rumbling... sounds like the highs are too much so, and same goes for the lows. the strangulated noise will soon recede for deep, tonally fluctuating droning which is aided, in spots, by a bit of distortion. this has a potential for melody, but ren keeps it varied; changing up the pattern, tweaking it a little, but it's still nice to hear the same tones repeating themselves, though just not in the correct order, or with a strict sense of timing. after four minutes the drones will get chopped up and further distorted, ultimately turning into fast-paced stammering, that actually manages to provide a nice rhythm. a few minutes later and everything will have calmed back down to the earlier tonal play, but ren doesn't stop there, continuing to gradually revert until he's reincorporated the strangled squawks and ceiling scraping low-end. the noise that was tacked on to the last part of side a will also close out this side, making for a doubly satisfying conclusion.

sick tape. the more god willing that i'm hearing, the more i'm liking. his guitar tone / drone shit is the most appealing, to me, and this is probably my favorite so far. if i ever get a turntable again, i'll let you know how i feel about the privy seals split...

God Willing - Untitled c20 [2009, I Just Live Here]

God Willing in St. Louis
(noisier than this cassette and killin' it)

i would've emailed you but you don't have a contact address... you say...
"after a minute or so, schofield adds a new, occasionally undulating loop. a little while later the track becomes increasingly louder"
is it an adding of a new drone and do you erm have any advice on trying to work out what's going on in a track?
er, thanks.

yeah, i used to have my email address listed but now my account is full of spam, so i nixed that. to answer your question, i have vague notions, really. here's some ways to layer: you use a multi-track recorder, start off with one droning track, and then keep adding other complimentary (or not) layers. if you wanted to do it live, you'd want a mixer (which you should probably have anyway). a loop pedal would come in handy, too. there's also the possibility of using pre-recorded drones (via cassettes or a laptop) and then building off of those. there's lots of ways. as far as the increasingly louder part, a mixer could achieve that effect. hope that helps!

Hi,
I've been reading your blog for a while, really good job! I'm doing a Russian Tsarlag split 7" that should be out next week, and I wanted to send you a copy for review. Can you email me your address to do so? Thanks!

thanks a lot man! i definitely appreciate it. i'm on a bit of an unenjoyable vacation right now, but i should get back into things next month. anyways, i'll go email you right now. i'm always stoked to hear more of carlos's stuff!