I talked with Zachary Corsa last week to say that I would get a review out about a new album by his project Nonconnah. Nonconnah is a duo of Zachary and his wife Denny. I booked a related project of their's, Lost Trail, a few years ago. I remember that show going well but not many details of it, and Lost Trails golden drones made me lose sense of reality, for moments entering an other world of Faerie or something similar. While I looked at this album, Dead Roses, Digged Up Zombies, Broken Pieces Of Diamonds, Live Cats, I felt small compared to its vastness. "I got scared; I put my phone back in place." After some deliberation and resolve, I have decided to face such a dawn as this. Here we go into the void.


Oh yeah, wait, I still have to talk about the album cover. The cover art for Dead Roses, Digged Up Zombies, Broken Pieces Of Diamonds, Live Cats was created by Zachary's mother, E.M. Corsa, which is pretty cool. It is a nice, neutral cardboard color. I usually don't like this, but it works well here with what I see as a friendly dog creature in a soft environment. Perhaps it is a spirit fox of Japanese myth levitating above a bed instead. That's kind of scary; I might start hiding again. How about those cute dogs and comfy beds?

 The album starts with "Rainbow Over Pegasus Field" which has a nice rising tone, a glitchy sunrise that slowly evolves over three minutes into bells and bats and the soft calls of night. "This Faded Glow Of Ours" is soft with post-rock strings creeping in through the static rivers of phonographic noise. "To Pass Through The Walls And Vanish" has some warbling ghost voices, coughing campfire rattles and chokes, and a tittering snare. "Path Of Tonality/Rapture Drugs" raises the noise levels into a harsh realm. Creatures howl as others moan and chant and the world dissolves. On the fifth track, I learned that "The Light Of A Dead Star Is Not Something To Fuck Around With" as a choir comes thru nearly overwhelming static-stics like nine-year-old me watching anime on the Sci-Fi channel through multicolored snow. The radio sounds at the end were pleasant. "All Those Days, As If Spent In A Fugue State" is eerie and off-putting, a cold slab in a morgue. Strings circle around, flies and gnats drowsy and drifting, drooping after downing dried fermented honey. Or perhaps, this is the view from the corner in the room as seen from those who are between worlds, the scene of the NDE. "Treading Unhallowed Ground" doesn't sound like it would be so bad at first. It sounds kind of dreamy here, but the odd voices that warble at the edges of the sonic landscape seem foreboding of something unwell though not altogether sinister.

"Hill Country Harbinger" is calming after all of the oddness in the last few tracks. I enjoyed the sound like stepping through a thin veil of water. Some people celebrate at the end. "Ceremonial Magic & Wicked Wires" sounds like what that celebration may turn into with the joyful fair reverberating thru alleys and townhouses. "Ego Death At Houston Levee" goes back to cold air eerieness. I have to say that even when Nonconnah sounds kind of creepy, there's something calming about it. Many of these tracks have a relaxed and religious tone to their sound. The end of "Ego Death At Houston Levee" has an interesting little tune too. "Ceiling To Ceiling Transmission Antenna" is another calm piece with another buzzing insect flitting about. The listener pushes through majestic clouds, guided by clarinet and a faucet of pure noise. "Flickering At The Borders Of The Frame" is a scary name for a similarly grim tone. Countless somethings writhe in a black somewhere overtaking the slight synth sounds that cross the air. Eventually, everything kind of coalesces into one and the new sound creator seems like they might be getting used to their condition, but it is hard for me to say. "When You Begin To Blur" is some swamp sound Bad Moon Rising interlude. It's another haunted track. I swear that an orb appeared while I was listening to it and possessed me to write this word. That's some heavy stuff. Speaking of heavy, "We Love Our Rotting Industrial Dystopia" is a heavy name, and I wonder if this one is partially serious and partially satirical. I know that Zachary Corsa takes a lot of pfotos of destroyed buildings and the like, but the name also comes off as a message about America's misguided goals and dreams.

"Half-Built Future Homes" is more droney celestialisms, an organ-esque sound on a sea of light. "Last And Languid Waves" is not the last track, but does sound like the closing track to a film. It's an interstellar drum pileup. "Sorrow Mountain And Assorted Haunting" continues a bit where the last track tapered off but in a spookier way. Instead of a heavenly celebration, it's more like poltergeist activity. The drums beat around in the magnetic resonance of ghosts. Perhaps the "Void Heirlooms Beneath The Floorboards" created the assorted haunting. It's another windy world, this time with a long monologue of lost words. "A Shimmering Veil Pulled Taut Against The Sky" is more warbly wind. "Erasing Spells/Magnet Dragged Over VHS" sounds pretty cool, but these last tracks seem a bit extraneous to me. However, I am not one of the creators of Dead Roses, Digged Up Zombies, Broken Pieces Of Diamonds, Live Cats. The last track is good for sure: "Black Construction Paper Ghosts With Red Glitter Eyes" brings more melody and charm to the album to close it out. "Can we have the lights dimmed to black?"

Dead Roses, Digged Up Zombies, Broken Pieces Of Diamonds, Live Cats is a long journey through the sound of light and the things found along the starlit path. I enjoyed the album overall, but it feels quite long for something of this type. Many of these tracks are formless windy meanderings; the lack of pop structure is both a positive and negative. I felt a bit overwhelmed and lost, though the album also presents something alien to most people making it particularly unique. The odd sounds, guest stars, and care given across the album are what sets this above, even if it could be a little shorter. I will definitely listen more to Dead Roses, Digged Up Zombies, Broken Pieces Of Diamonds, Live Cats and see what cosmic knowledge can be gained from such things. I hope that you will at least give it a chance.

Dead Roses, Digged Up Zombies, Broken Pieces Of Diamonds, Live Cats receives a Good.

I've mentioned this previously, but the last month and a little earlier was a mess for me. I was covered by a veil embroidered with anxiety about death and the fate of the world. In my despair and confusion, the soundtrack full of lofi hip-hop beats from YouTube, I read about an artist called SPELLLING and her own dreams of alien life and other words. Her new album is called Mazy Fly, named after a seemingly gentle spirit of the air. The album resonates with my recent feelings. Let me tell you about it.


The cover art shows SPELLLING glowing amongst an audience of curious cattle, seemingly referencing the correlation between alien visitations and livestock. Her glow gives her an otherworldly quality that the cattle are picking up on. There's also a contrast to The Beach Boys famous Pet Sounds akin to The Clash's London Calling contrasting with Elvis' self-titled album. There's the same kind of text formatting and song list, but while The Beach Boys were standing up feeding the animals, SPELLLING is on the floor amongst them while simultaneously also wearing a cowboy hat. Does technological progress make us the cowboy or put us out to pasture?

The first track, "Red" starts out warbling, vinyl grain, before transferring into a psychedelic, hypnotic Bowie/Yoko Ono pseudo-R&B murmuring. "Haunted Water" comes in with a fantasy journey of synthesizers and drum machines, a song of the Lady of the Lake. The rhythm of the vocals reminds me of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon & Garfunkel, though that's just a shadow on the surface of something that runs deeper. The various instrumental layers create something that comes from one side of the night, somewhere under the stairs or in a dark closet, something that you hear through walls covered in static. On "Hard to Please" I hear the haunting voices of sirens in a cavern that is mostly submerged. That beat that runs across the surface has a nice solid 'thump' to it. "Golden Numbers" is beautiful, swooning, off-kilter post-war pop. "Melted Wings" is eerie stuff, synthesizer wind painted on by dark strings. "Under the Sun" finishes Side A with a vision of the future in spacy ambiance and near-electro. SPELLLING's techno-prayer inspires me with confidence against my own fears of cosmic voids.

A damp wah-soaked guitar drips down my sight as "Real Fun" starts. This one is explicitly about aliens, musical organs rising up to signal the new age as the air stirs and kids cry out. The song elevates into a dramatic Stooges crescendo before turning in to something like The X-Files. "Hard to Please (Reprise)" opens with a Prince-ish pseudo-pop cheer, a call to the aliens to take her with them (like when the purple one himself sang "Take Me With U" to Apollonia). Prince himself sang about the afterlife on "Let's Go Crazy", and the next song is about just that. This one has more of the Stooges melodrama with saxophones and droning guitars. This song speaks to me after all of the reading I've been doing about metaphysics, religion, and quantum mechanics. "The cavities in my brain are growing a garden," has so many meanings after all of my studying. "Afterlife" is airy, spacey, and mixed with heavenly vocals.

I think "Afterlife" would have made a good ending, but the album keeps going, as we do. "Dirty Desert Dreams" has a more melodic Nico and maybe a bit of Nancy Sinatra. SPELLLING's vocals cross the skies before the song erupts into a funk jam that fades out. The calm "Secret Thread" goes more into the afterlife visions of "the sky at night" and speaks about the "Mazy Fly" who lives up in the clouds. This is what ties the whole thing together, soft chambers to distorted strings and more. And at the end, "Falling Asleep" combines heavy club beats with childhood chimes. Are we butterflies dreaming of being humans?

Mazy Fly is a truly experimental album combining funk, 60s pop, electro, ambient, and New Age in the spirit of Prince or David Bowie. The stories told here about aliens, technology, and the search for lands beyond, both metaphorical and physical and maybe even metaphysical, are as old as time, but SPELLLING has brought new meaning and life to them on Mazy Fly.

Mazy Fly receives a Good.

On February 23rd, Kim Phuc was set to play at The Funhouse at Mr. Smalls. I've mentioned this place before; it's a smaller, cozier, and overall cooler venue than the huge former church that is the main building. I like going to shows here, and Kaiti and I were excited to go to this one.

We missed the first band like true lame-os because we left the house late. Autoreplicant sounded okay from downstairs. I'm sure I'll see them some other time


We did see Limousine Beach, a band that I had heard of before but never seen. They reminded me of Carousel, having the same frontman and a similar cheesy rock sound. Limousine Beach is playing up this kind of Kung Fury 80s neon aesthetic, at least from what I can tell, but sort of in a 70s hard rock, Kiss way. Some of the songs had the inane comedy of stuff like The Replacements' "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out". It was fun, and it made a lot of sense to watch them play under the little points of light of the back, black wall at The Funhouse.


The second band for goobers that missed the first band (but the third band overall) was Microwaves. It was really loud for that space, that pulsing energy of Flying Lutenbachers/Melvins/Devo/Voivod elements that I have come to know. There is not much I can say about it that hasn't already been said. It's mathy noise rock, and it is good.


Kim Phuc was last, and they seemed in top form. I hadn't seen this band for at least five years, though they did play Skull Fest last year and maybe some other shows. Again, they were pretty loud for what really makes sense for that room, but it was heavy and wild, a camera roll of Iggy Pop in motion. The guitars had an excellent wobbling slashy sound from start to finish. The audience wanted an encore at the end, but there was none.

It was good to see Kim Phuc thrash out again. I was okay with the crowd not trying to kill me and each other too, though some might see that as boring. I think Rob, the frontman, supplied enough writhing for the whole building.
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I discovered Wahono, an electronic producer from Jakarta, Indonesia, only recently. He's been releasing music for a few years now with his own label DIVISI 62 and thru Brooklyn label, Madjazz. I just heard  this new single earlier today.


The cover art to the single shows what looks like almost like an eye in maroon on a brown paper background. Various subtle designs are incorporated throughout the image. There's not much to look at here, but the colors make me think of the sounds contained within these files.

"Prambanan" opens with clicking and a gong. The song features various percussive elements in a discordant eerieness. I feel like I am being chased through the dark of the Other World. The layers of ghostly voices, bells, and drums creates a new reality for the listener.

Going to the other side, "Mabad" opens with a loop of voices as more metallic, percussive sounds enter the world. This track features more eerie vocals, though I do not know what they are saying. Slight oscillations in the air bring about an uneasiness, while various instruments enter and exit in unusual patterns.

"Prambanan" and "Mabad" are both stellar tracks that incorporate dance, electronica, and found sounds to make something that is almost otherworldly. Just check it out. It's great.

Prambanan / Mabad receives a Good.

How are you?

I have been feeling pretty bad lately. From existential death anxiety to job contract issues to cold and rainy darkness in the weather, I have been worried about all sorts of things. I was able to resolve the anxiety overall, and the job issues and weather are clearing up. And I actually had help from an unlikely source.

I usually watch a lot of YouTube videos about video games, which led to me creating a new blog based on my old YouTube channel. During these weeks of darkness, I had trouble focusing on things that I liked. I didn't care about learning cool facts in my downtime about the Sega Genesis or completing Link's Awakening DX on my Game Boy Color, and I even had trouble practicing with my band for an out-of-town show. What was I to do?

I had no idea, to be honest. While at work, dreading all night’s terrors, I read a lot of documents about physics, metaphysics, and parapsychology. This helped me feel better, but I only got through it all with another tool: YouTube radio stations.


If you have listened to electronic musick on YouTube in the last year or so, I am sure that you have come across suggestions about "lofi hip hop beats" radio channels. I had been seeing them for some time, often top suggestions, but I was apprehensive. I wanted to watch Video Game Historian, Pat the NES Punk, Game Sack, and other channels like that. Sometimes I wanted to watch trashy 80’s anime films that were only released direct-to-video. Other times, I wanted to watch live concert footage of bands like T. Rex, Lou Reed, The Ramones, or Yellow Magic Orchestra. The radio channels of YouTube looked cool, but I didn’t feel like they was something I really wanted to spend my time with.


In the vast void, the Gray Waste of Hades, that was my mental state at the time, I didn’t want the normal stuff though; it just served to remind me of the lurking shadow that was my fear of oblivion and decay. I clicked on the link for a playlist of Japanese City Pop from the 1980s. And it was fun. That was on my TV at home. This opened the door for me, and I went on to find a streaming City Pop radio station that seems to unfortunately gone missing since. At work I listened to a lot of “lofi hip hop radio – beats for depression/anxiety” and “lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to”. I still felt like I was floating in a mental void at first, the vision of vaporwave holograms and blooming video game consoles reminding me of the end of the world, just more sunny. But I got over it. Those “lofi hip hop beats” really helped me out, particularly the ones prescribed for my condition. The sound of wind through trees, the disembodied voice of a person that sounded meaningfully inspiring, the calming rhythms and vibrations really made me feel better. And they still do. Even though I am not at the very bottom of that pit of The Nine Hells, I still get inspiration from these channels when I feel myself slipping.

From the bottom of my heart, I have to say thank you to YouTubers ChilledCow and Ambition. Thank you for all that you do, and thank you for all that you will do. It sounds kind of corny, but those "lofi hip hop beats" can be really helpful when you are feeling down. Check 'em out. Maybe they can help you too. It's always nice to turn to different avenues when you are upset: friends, family, art, science, and YouTube. Thanks again.

P.S. I don't think future funk is for me. That stuff gave me a headache.

Today, as with many other days, it is a rainy day in the city of Pittsburgh, the "Paris of Appalachia". It's rainy here pretty often despite the amazement exhibited by The Outcasts on their song about such things. This rainy day seems most appropriate for Hemlock for Socrates' barometrics, which the band describes as "an exploration of the variable humidity and dryness of certain word- and non-word sounds". I could end this paragraph with a dumb phrase like "let's get wet!", but I won't do that to you. It's just depressing.



barometrics has some cover art showing a road and overpass, seemingly here in Pittsburgh, through what seems to be a car window. The window is covered with rain. Rain is the theme here, so it all makes sense. The actual composition, the focus, and the text combined mean that the cover does not really mix together as would be hoped though.

The first track on barometrics is “across your neck”, a song laden with gothic imagery and weather metaphors. The guitars reflect of shining background synths and a danceable rhythm section. The storm dies down on “stilled wind”, an operatic, minimalist piece of eerie dissonance that reminds me heavily of Nico’s The Marble Index. The instrumentation is dramatic, springing from sparse whispers into a rise of activity and back again. Track three, “fresh tape”, is a little more rock-ish though still damp. I don’t love the way the two singers interact here, but the big amoeboid synth helps balance it out. I started to notice an element of late-era Bowie as I got close to the end of this song. “hurt you this way” is sort of a fairy tale opera. It’s a little overdramatic, though the end wraps the track up in a nice, circular way.

Side two starts with “come and gone”. It’s another dance-rhythm-driven track. These kinds of songs make me think of a more subdued Cactus Gamarra, a band that I reviewed last year. This track springs to life in the middle with some awkward synth horns. I am not a fan overall. “the forecast” presumably will include precipitation. This song gets all the parts right, vocals interacting with an unusual beat and shadowy, erupting guitar. Next is the “inclement weather” that was predicted. The showtune structure is corny. There’s more dynamic musical interludes, but the bombast has been done so many times on barometrics earlier. The metallic guitar is pretty cool, playing off of a buzzy synth and driving drums, so the song is not a total loss. “bite your tongue” is the last song with more of the lounge/goth drama. After so many tracks with these kinds of vocals, it’s really a downer. I like the synth/cymbal sound going on here, and the starry guitar and boxy drums make a nice sound together. As a whole, it’s a little too overcast, neither here nor there, for my liking though.

barometrics is a quite a gothic, cabaret, production. It's a rainy theatre show that is too mired in the downpour for my ears. The songs are decent, but they churn and churn in the drain to a depressing level. It becomes a task to listen to this album all the way through, at least for me. I think the vocals are too much, too theatrical. The instrumentation is well done and well produced, but with the mire of the mix and the vocals going for the smokey room of a burlesque show, the songs do not reach the heights that they could and should. barometrics gets a Neutral.
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Recently, I came across a strange album on the amazing website known as Bandcamp that had me intrigued. The title was KCollab.06 and the artist was Ken Clinger & Friends. I was curious of the basic art and odd name that indicated a series, so I clicked on it. It seems that Ken Clinger is a legendary musician of cassette culture, and this is a collaboration he did with many other artists. The album met my expectations as a very cool, experimental (for real) album of strange sounds, reminding me of an album I put out called January. While KCollab.06 came out in 1991, and my album came out in 2015, this Winter of 2019, I want everyone to hear the odd instrumentations of Ken Clinger & Friends.
 

The cover art of KCollab.06 is not that great. It's a very basic, MS Paint style image with plain text, simple shapes, and bright colors. I like the composition, and the small images that resemble instruments or staircases give it an air of mystery. Still, the actual quality of the cover art holds it back.


The first track on KCollab.06 is "Sandra" by Don Campau & KC. I can only assume that the KC stands for Ken Clinger, but I will retain the way it is spelled on these tracks in the rest of the review. Anyway, this first track has a somewhat creepy tone, about how someone is "Sandra's tonight". Is Sandra a murderer? There's a synth buzzing around (maybe a stylophone), a droning back rhythm section, and some other kind of piano or something. The hypnotic musick drives the eeriness home.

Next Beeg Srahka & KC present "Fever Dream". This is a weird track of atonal tones and warped rhythms. It's exactly what it seems like it would be. The almost-vocal sound makes me feel particularly unnerved.

Then there's "John M Bennet" by DanKitti & KC. This track is all about a John M Bennet; it's sort of like a Mad-Libs thing, and the way the words are spoken remind me of the infamous Wesley Willis. There are some little chime-y things happening all around too.

“The Ant Party” is a great little percussive piece (I think it is a xylophone). It’s resonant, like tones through many chambers beneath the earth. Maybe there is some great machinery in there hidden somewhere. This could be a cool track in a video game and reminds me of one called MediEvil.

Belinda Subramen & Ken Clinger have the next track – “We Are All Part Of”. This is another spoken word piece with ambient backing. It really sounds like some kind of public access thing, an alien message, but really this is more of a cynical take on New Age magick.

Furgas-Clinger is the artist for “Anomaly”, a midi-sounding free jazz tra-la-la that goes back and forth into more melodic paths. I get the image of this song as being like a really bright, MS Paint image of a meadow, and I am not too fond of that. It’s also sort of like Warhol’s Flowers.

The seventh piece of song is Ray Carmen, Mike Crooker, Ken Clinger with “Anything, Anytime, Anywhere”, a really off-beat pop/new wave track like the 80s Jackson Browne. It’s a love song with a choral keyboard and a dance beat. I like the break with computer sounds and something that reminds me of a rocket jet. The muted production makes this track a little duller than it could be.

The John M Bennet seemingly makes an appearance on “Shoe Info Boiling”, a track like the earlier one about this guy. John M Bennet & Ken Clinger have created a sort of sea-shanty about a shoe, another Mad Lib, another mystery thought-provoker.

PurrPurr & KC do the next track – “Naughahide Slash Marks”. It’s very cinematic and reminds me of a track from the video game “Swagman”. It’s all big jumps of orchestra and twinkling nurseries. One could also make a comparison to Danny Elfman’s compositions for Tim Burton’s early films.

“This Is Not A Love Poem” is a grim song by Zidbovinesick where a rhythmic loop plays behind buried noise loops and a echo-y, monotone man. The man seems pretty hyperbolicly upset, depressed, and downtrodden. He keeps talking about getting pushed to the edge. The title gets cut out, as the speaker says it towards the end, before turning vicious.

DanKitti & KC return with the enchantingly dark, "Space Cow With A Difference". The song has an interesting rhythm to its freeform playing, and I enjoy the differences in texture, at least to a degree. The song shifts synth sounds way too much at first listen; it's basically a montage of little experiments, sort of like the album as a whole in one package, and I sort of like it. I was sort of irritated at first, but the song really grew on me with its, what I see as humor. It is a little long for what it is, though.

Next, Catfish & KC create "Elephant Sounds". This is another story about a girl who plays a tuba and gets bullied by her jerky relative until she gets back at him. The "Elephant Sounds" of the title are so deep and damaged; it's pretty wild. I really enjoyed the story, and it is an interesting take on abstract art and trends.

Bovine Milkman's "Vomitoxin" is a jolly stroll through buzzing showtunes. It makes me think of, like, walking down a staircase with purple and magenta walls while dizzy and sick in the middle of the night.

Dare to Fail & Ken Clinger have "April Afternoon", a more uplifting track with a chorus-laden synth in the background. The melody is pretty cheery with the beat supplied by bells. It sort of sounds like a track from an early Final Fantasy game, ambient and in the background.

Mike Tetrault & Ken Clinger are "Burning Now & Forever". Are they in Hell or in a volcano? I hope not. This is another spoken-word-over-ambient-sound. It's another grim, love-burned story to my ears. The title actually refers to someone's eyes. When the sudden end came, it made me frightened.

The last track is AMKC's "Rising Suns", another uplifting track full of echo, a harp-type sound, and a near-Motorik beat. It really reminds me of Kraftwerk's "Europe Endless", though totally different in significant ways. The vocals float over the landscape as we go out.

KCollab.06 is a spotty album composed of many parts. There is an ongoing darkness running throughout, an undercurrent to some of the porcelain musick found in other area. That thematic connection and weird tonality of the thing gives this collaborative release a lot of appeal, and it truly makes it experimental. I'm definitely going to check out some of Ken Clinger's other musick. There's quite a bit of it. This one, KCollab.06, receives a Good.
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