Dissonant Plane

Jesse Paul Miller brought it to my attention that ProTape NW has closed its doors after 21 years.  For those that don’t know they were the primarily local outlet for blank tapes & CDRs as well as other things you might need to make your small run release.   It got me to reflecting how many little businesses have closed in recent years.  It’s something that has been on my mind lately anyhow, as the number of vacancies and for lease signs in Ballard seems to be increasing a lot lately.  Epilogue Books will soon be closing their doors, and while not my favorite book store, I have bought a few things from them over the years and lament the further loss of choice in this town.  When I think back to recent years, I realize that a lot of small book and record shops have closed up and weren’t replaced by new ones.  I think it’s toughest for the book stores with the presence of Barnes & Noble, Borders and Half Price Books leaving little room for the little guys.  In terms of record stores, we are lucky in that the closest thing we have to big chains are Everyday Music, Silver Platters, Sonic Boom and Easy Street.  The most commonly brought up closure here is Electric Heavyland, which a lot of our customers previously shopped at, but there are plenty of other little shops in Lake City Way, Greenwood, Roosevelt, Wallingford and even right next to where Heavyland ended up that have since evaporated.  So given the whole situation, we here at Dissonant Plane would like to extend our thanks to everyone who has supported us in this new venture.  We hope to be around for many years to come and greatly appreciate your business as do our friends at Wall of Sound on Capital Hill.

FREE IN STORE PERFORMANCE
SUMMON THRULL
THUNDER GREY PILGRIM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 1st, 2009
6:00 PM

http://www.myspace.com/summonthrull
http://www.myspace.com/thundergreypilgrim

I think a good year in the making, Ong Ong #5 is finally out.  The product of Lucy Morehouse (part time employee at Wall of Sound) and Scott Davis (Jive Time Records), this is their biggest issue yet comprising of two separate booklets, plus the usual CDR.  It’s a real friendly fanzine style affair with lots of artwork and poetry among with the interviews with Eric Isaacson of Mississippi Records, Scott Colburn and Yann Novak.  They sum up the other tidbit thus: “Bunnies, friendship bracelets, field hippies, piles of textiles, Czech new wave, alternate realities, tree tops, Hotel art installation, advice, mental institutions, instrument selection, rings of history, people holding hands in a circle, Scott Davis at 17, pure purr energy, tree tops, lotuses, relationships, perception, floating skulls, tripped out line quality, Halley’s comet, fire damage, father figures, show reviews, AFCGT caricatured, snow, ladies with long hair carrying stars, Rumi… coalescence!”  A lot of things are very home paste up looking, with Eric Isaacson even handwritting his replies to typewritten interview question.  A very DIY effort, the whole is contained in a screen printed cover and tied together with string.  The bonus CDR culls 19 tracks from obscure vinyl releases, mostly private press items.  The only names you are likely to have heard of before are Bruce Haack and Lightnin’ Hopkins as the rest heads into little known folk and children’s records with a few nice cosmic and prog numbers from Europe through into the middle.

Get ‘em while they are hot - another free local CDR.  “Frequencies in Formed Concrete” is by Ruby Von Monster and consists of 13 untitled tracks mixing weird electronics and guitar with some strange rhythms.  A numbered edition of 30 copies, Dissonant Plane was given 10 of them to give away freely to customers.  So come down and pick one up next time you buy something.

Well, we missed the first batch, but we are on track with the second batch of releases from Gift Tapes.  Run by Jason Anderson of Brother Raven, this Seattle label is putting out quality electronic music in limited numbers on cassette only.  All three new titles come in double-sided full color covers with nice labels and are C20s.  First up is the new Brother Raven entitled “A Sound Like Wailing Winter Winds Is Heard“.  If you read this blog, you’ve find a recent reference to a concert they played alongside Magneticring, Pete Swanson and Zaïmph.  On that night, the duo  had their analog gear out and brought back memories of the numerous releases of electronic music on Sky Records from back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.  For those of you who didn’t grow up with those around, I should explain that they put out LPs of gentle, melodic synthesizer music with experimental flourishes.  The best known examples from their catalog would be Cluster and the first four albums by Asmus Tietchens.  The emphasis here is drifting off into soundworlds, not the sequencer driven drivel of post-Krautrock Tangerine Dream.  It is an area that seems to be getting explored more lately by the likes of James Ferraro from The Skaters and others.  Brother Raven really nails the cosmic aspects of this stuff though.  It seems to the big release in this batch, as “A Sound Like Wailing Winter Winds Is Heard” is limited to 80 copies (and comes with a bonus, gift-wrapped microcassette), while the other two are in editions of only 50 copies.  Not that this should suggest these other two are any lesser.  “Early To Rise” by Jeremiah Walker carries on in a similar vein albeit with longer tracks that are more of carpet of dreamy sound similar to early Popol Vuh.  Really meditative and mystical, perhaps my favorite of the trio. The final new release is by Million Mists and is called “Spaeship” (not “Spaceship”).  The most experimental in this set, this tape features a more aleatoric atmosphere on “Crab Pulser” mixing sounds evocative of radio transmissions from distant stellar bodies with the long slow synth sounds you might expect from a sci-fi movie about those regions.  It is an interesting contrast as Million Mists is the solo project of Jamie Potter, half of Brother Raven and a former member of Bonus.  All in all not a bad moment over the course of three release and the style of music makes the 10 minutes of each side stretch onto infinity in the good way.

Ah the blossoming Seattle noise scene…  Phase Locked Loop brought in their self-released C30 and it is the first time I have heard of them.  The tape opens up with a nice swell of noise on “Subtract” and then going through the other three mathematical operations explore a few other techniques keeping the cassette from being too homogeneous.  The second side is made up of the piece “Pillar Of Smoke/Casual Laces” which plays with quieter noises with a nice record skipping kind of pulse in the background.  Nice stuff and limited to 25 numbered copies in a j-card which keeps folding out.

We’ve rounded out our selection of privately published CDRs by Jesse Paul Miller.  Actually one of the three titles we just got is a DVD-R titled “Ambient Thailand and Laos” which he describes as “static one-perspective videos (”pillow shot” style) made in 19 locations thailand and laos january / february 2005“.  Beautiful scenes of South East Asia and what better way to compliment that than with “Luk Thung & Molam LP Archive Vol. 1“?  A selection of tracks from Thai vinyl picked up on his travels, this CDR is a fantastic collection of pop music unknown to western ears.  What makes it even better is the cover collage featuring many album covers in miniature.  This disc sounds great and keeps all the vinyl noise intact.  And if you like vinyl noise, definitely check out “Taemgip Mahkram and Eilrahc Rekrap“.  This is a slightly older JPM title packaged in a fantastic sleeve that apes the classic Folkway LP design.  Here the sounds are thick with scratches and pops making the backwards music sound even more ancient.  As before, these are all numbered editions of either 30 or 40 copies, so don’t hestitate to snap these up.  The previous batch certainly found its fan and has people excited about these discs (which is why we are sold out of several earlier titles).

Matt Shoemaker grew up over on Mercer Island and has lived in the Seattle area his entire life.  That’s all about to change as his better half is going to grad school in San Francisco and they are moving in August.  I’ve known Matt for a long time as he used to be a regular customer at the Anomalous Records shop on Capital Hill back in the mid-1990’s.  We’ve become good friends and played music together many times.  In his free time, Matt has devoted himself to creation of beautiful sound worlds.  First released on bernhard günter’s trente oiseaux label in the early part of this decade, Matt’s solo works have found a steadily building fan base leading to more releases around the world.  Matt has brought us a few of these latest releases for the shop.  The oldest is 2008’s “Mutable Depth“, a 3″ CD released on the French label Ferns.  Using only ice as source material Matt created a 20 minute work exploring aural textures.  Following this have come two full length releases in rapid succession.  In May, the Belgian CDR label Mystery Sea released “The Sunken Plethora Consumes All“.  Limited to only 120 copies in full color package, this disc blends field recordings with rich ambient sounds.  In June this was followed by “Erosion of the Analogous Eye” on Jim Haynes’ Helen Scarsdale Agency label.  Here the sounds play out more delicately.  “Sunken Plethora” has deep washes of sound whereas “Erosion” strikes me as more of a composed work with highs and lows.  Though in a slightly larger edition, “Erosion” is limited to only 300 copies due to the unique artwork on each cover.  Matt has been one of Seattle’s silent masters, playing out rarely.  He will be playing at least one last show at the Chapel Performance Space on July 18th.  And of course there will be more releases, such as the limited edition picture disc coming from Elevator Bath.

Thunder Grey Pilgrim makes heavy doom laden sounds.  It will fit in the dark atmosphere as Sunn0))), but unlike that group Thunder Grey Pilgrim seems to stay away from rock instrumentation.  “Demogorgon” is the name of the brand new CDR on Debacle Records that showcases this sound.  The two times I’ve played it in the store so far, its gotten attention.  Three long track of thick and ominous atmosphere slowly dredge the air.  Of course Sam of Debacle is thrilled about the release, and that is one thing that makes this label so good - Sam loves the stuff he works with.  This is another chapter in his documentation of Seattle noise artists, and like the others is limited to 100 copies.

While getting this new disc, we also got copies of the recent Summon Thrull title.  This self-titled release is the creation of Dustin Kochel of Physical Demon (you might remember them for their recent set opening for Wolf Eyes and Black Dice).  This one has all kinds of crazy electronic noises which are in constant motion.  There are some harsh moments here, but the majority of the disc is more in the strange territory.  As above, this one is limited to 100 numbered copies.

- Eric

That’s the name of Demian Johnston’s new tape.  He brought some by last week and they fresh, really fresh. The cassette shells are spray painted and it had been done recently enough that we were getting a little bit of head rush from them.  And that kind of soft focus matches the music on the tape as well.  Demian has pulled back even further from the previous releases making the sounds even quieter.  The five tracks here rumble along and make an excellent companion for the Crystal Hell Pool CDR.  I bring this up as it turns out both artists grew up together in Bothell and both releases make lovely sounds to sink into.  Demian’s latest is limited to 30 copies and dubbed onto a 90 minute cassette with same music on both sides (saves rewinding).