Body/Head

Creative alchemy doesn’t just happen in the studio or in the practice space; so much of it is the product of solo time with one’s instrument, learning how body and wood and electronics fuse, and of subconscious processes as one lives one’s daily life—picking up the ambient noise of the world outside, listening to others’ work, talking through ideas with friends.  For  Kim  Gordon  and  Bill  Nace,  time  together  these  days  is  limited  to  live performances and recording, so they’ve gotto bring all their magic to every encounter. Lucky for us, these are two experimental sorcerers of significant renown.

Their debut album together as Body/Head, Coming Apart, from 2013, was more of a rock record—heavy, emotional, cathartic, spellwork in shades of black and grey. The Switchis their second studio full-length, and it finds the duo working with a more subtle palette, refining their ideas and identity. Some of it was sketched out live (if you’ve not had the fortune  of  seeing  them  in  that  natural  environment  yet,  see  2016’s improvisational document No  Waves),  but  much  of  it  happened  purely  in  the  moment.  Working  in  the same studio and with the same producer as Coming Apart, here Body/Head stretch out, making  spacious  pieces  that  build  shivering  drones,  dissonant  interplay,  Gordon’s manipulated  vocals,  and  scraping,  haunting  textures  into  something  that  feels  both delicate  and  dangerous.  Less  discrete  songs  than  one  composition  broken  up  into thematic movements, a slow-moving narrative that requires as much attention and care from the listener as it did from everyone involved in its creation, it is a record that sticks around after it’s done playing. 

Blood Stereo

As a duo, the pair mercilessly deploy feral, hissing & rumbling tape-loops, field recordings, electronics & sometimes objects. Through this they establish a perfect high-concept/low art convergence, an intense and disorienting swirl which wreaths the synapses like the coiling, blackened, wordless squalls of our deep anxieties and desires oozing through bare, cracked windows, out of wardrobes and from beneath beds to flood and freeze the mind in the middle of the night. primitively gorgeous field-noise electro-acoustic muck.

“Murky woont, fractured lost-life howls, and tiny screechlets define the slow-mo suffocation of an audience of easily spooked walruses who can create a stampede of fat with the slightest provocation.” – Seymour Glass (Bananafish magazine)

The Bohman Brothers

Now that UFOs have been proved conclusively to exist, The Bohman Brothers have chosen to celebrate with a suite of apposite compositions: a threnody for wineglasses, a karate weaving song and a berceuse to Quality Control.

https://thebohmanbrothers.bandcamp.com

Wild Rani

Rebecca Mahay b. 1984, Birmingham, UK, is an audiovisual artist and performer. Her audiovisual project MIRROR II RORRIM is with husband, Heath Moerland (aka Sick Llama). Cassette releases by MIRROR II RORRIM are through Fag Tapes and All Gone (Chris Durham/Church Shuttle).

“the sounds on this tape[...]a more anxiety ridden uncertainty, jet lagged & cold, cold like sleeping on a couch during a winter night with out a blanket. A vocal ritualistic atmosphere is created by Becky Mahay bringing to mind Vox Populi "half dead ganja music" or the earliest coil live outings. Heath brings the brain fart electronics that cut thru like COUM Transmissions & the outcome seems impossible like melting at the bottom of a Icelandic ocean.” - Chris Durham

More recently Rebecca has been performing solo as Wild Rani creating psychedelic vocal noise soundscapes featuring vocals, synth, percussion, and field recordings. She recently performed at Colour Out of Space festival in Brighton.

wildrani.bandcamp.com
fagtapes.bandcamp.com