Matthew Akers - Bayern

This jams so hard. Slinky retro futurist VHS hallucinations from Matthew Akers with Bayern on Musica Originale. Somewhere between the soundtrack to Halloween and Streets of Rage 2, you've got 30 minutes of mid tempo synth jams just ripping with thick malicious timbre. Fat rumbling baselines that sound straight out of the cabinet of a 32 bit Neo Geo arcade machine. The whole thing is beautifully paced, balancing ambient passages with up tempo pieces, making each single side long track feel satisfyingly structured and diverse. There are a ton more Akers releases on Bandcamp of which I will now listen/purchase/obsess.

Edition of 100 on blue shells, with a double sided single panel jcard. Stream in full and purchase the physical at the artist Bandcamp.

Not A Top Ten List 2014 (Freebies!)

In lieu of the traditional Best Of/Year End/Top Ten list, here are ten excellent releases from ten excellent labels, all offered up for grabs no strings attached on a first come first serve basis. A way to say thank you to everyone who spent a moment of their time this year reading about what I've listened to. I've broken them into groups of two to help maintain my sanity a bit.

If you have interest drop me an email at guidemelittletape at gmail dot com. I'll try to update as quickly as I can which ones are gone. Feel free to list a few in order of preference if that's your jam. And for goodness sake, if you see/hear something awesome, use the links and go support these artists and labels.

Group #1 Gone to Bruce from Austin, TX as of 12/24. Enjoy!
Dura Silver/Lawns - Wounded Knife
Topdown Dialectic ​/\​\​02 - Aught

Group #2 Gone to Adam from Santa Fe, NM as of 12/24. Enjoy!
Final Cop Lieutenant John Pike - Jehu & Chinaman
Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson Sun Of Late Afternoon - Hanson Records

Group #3 Gone to Matthew as of 12/26. Enjoy!
Dark Half Moon Through Dark Trees - Third Kind Records
Sound Out Light Ornamental Skies - Sacred Phrases

Group #4 Gone to Aaron from Rochester, NY as of 12/24. Enjoy!
Mister Matthews 10 Cuba Libres - 905 Tapes
Social Drag New Age Healer - Stunned Records

Group #5 Gone to Dylan from Iowa City, IA as of 12/24. Enjoy!
Esther Chlorine Penumbra - Of Plants
Foodman Drum Desu - Noumenal Loom

Witchbeam - Tales of the Ghede Zodiac

Foreboding oscillation from Witchbeam with Tales Of The Ghede Zodiac on 905 Tapes. Waves of sickeningly thick synth, ripping around in circles. Drum patterns on hypnotic delay, reverberating recitation of what sounds like S&M experiences or some kind of documentary of ritual torture. Evil and playful, like your torturer enjoying himself. Five tracks of raw sound split over two sides, quite minimal in their construction but imbued with a sense of narrative. Ugly, disgusting, and for a post industrial freak, altogether quite awesome. Blindfold me and I'd have pegged this for the Posh Isolation or Hospital Productions catalogues. I think this might be my favorite tape of the year.

Full color double sided inserts. Even though in the photo the shell may look blank, there's a large dark imprint on clear purple. Looks like Tomentosa is still stocking at least one copy, or stream in full and purchase digitally at the 905 Bandcamp.

Strategy - Cerebral Hut AKA Off the Grid

Interwoven metallic soundscapes from Strategy with Cerebral Hut AKA Off the Grid on Field Hymns. A live, one take performance from 2014, and a relatively dramatic departure from the LP release Pressure Wassure, which you may recall I enjoyed. Whereas that release thumps and skitters around your headphone space, this 4 track c-30 wags around thick noisy slabs, supplanting melody with intrigue. A mysterious mechanical, almost metallic world of the unexpected. Whirring, whirling, clicking, growling. Sounds like a planetarium being sucked into a black hole and reconstructed in a parallel universe.

Edition of 75 hand numbered pro dubbed and imprinted copies on red. Digital copy included. Grab direct from Field Hymns.

Black Mountain Transmitter - Deathdream! Live In Edinburgh

Nightmarish meditations from Black Mountain Transmitter with Deathdream! Live In Edinburgh on Lysergic Earwax. Two side long tracks recorded (as you would imagine), live at The Outer Church on 11/25/13 in Edinburgh. Walls of hugely echoing guitar and fuzz, swirling in a suffocating haze. Incredibly dense, powerfully thick. Dark ambience, drone, noise, not exactly sure what sub sub sub genre to suggest this within, so I'll say all of them. As with previous BMS releases, heavy elements perfectly manifest the ominous, noise elements the horrific, ambient elements to emotional. And of course all of it together, well, a single terrifying whole. Killer stuff.

Hand numbered edition of 25 hand made copies. Beautiful silkscreened double slipcase packaging. The physical appears to be sold out, but can be streamed in full and purchased digitally at the Lysergic Earwax Bandcamp.

Mooninite - Soda

Mooninite creates the kind of concept album that requires full commitment, both from the artist, and the listener. Soda on Hel Audio is exactly what the name implies, a tape about Soda. Soda samples, soda song titles, soda sounds. The smoothest, crispest mid tempo beats and arpeggiated melodies, laced with the percussion of ice in a glass, the hiss of bubbles, and vocal snippets of people discussing soda. It all might sound a bit gimmicky except for the fact that the musical quality is absolutely top notch. It's an intersection of silliness and skill that just absolutely works. Nine tracks that will have you laid back nodding your head and feeling thirsty. I can't help but wonder if a variant was considered for for us folks in Michigan called "pop".

Punctuating the concept, physical copies are available in nine flavors (mine is Cherry). Purchase direct from Hel, or stream in full and grab via Bandcamp along with (appropriately) a can koozie sharing the album artwork.

Jan - Let It Ride

Emotive post rock ambience from Jan with Let It Ride on Rok Lok Records. There's something I find so engaging about music played over found sounds, old recordings, people talking. It just kills me. Emotionally it just pulls my heart out. I still remember the first time I heard Spirit Ditch from Sparklehorses' Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot. When the voice message kicks in at the end, combined with that rusty guitar timbre, oh man. Jan is working all around that type of feeling here. Big washes of ambient guitar shimmer, subtly mixed electronic elements, and snippets of voice. Everything congeals into a mass of sound that feel narrative and thoughtful. Seven beautiful tracks.

Edition of 40 hand numbered copies home dubbed in real time. Stream in full and grab the physical over at the Rok Lok Bandcamp page.