Jason Lescalleet's Due Process - 'Combines XIX, XX' (We Break More)

It appears that Due Process was previously a trio or quartet featuring not just Mr. Lescalleet but also Ron Lessard of RRR/Emil Beaulieu fame and some other collaborators. This is billed as being led by Lescalleet so I've always filed it under L next to his others. But while the first moments of 'Combine XIX' suggest the ringing, haunting resonance of Electronic Music is going to be the vibe here, it quickly combusts into a grab bag of layers and intentionally conflicting ideas, containing some vocalisations even which give it a nice throwback 80s industrial feel. The name of this group draws attention to their working and editing methodology, though I guess almost all music is just 'processing' now, and maybe it always was. The middle drops back to breathe, and it really does, gaining some wind through a chilling, distant echo that started to bring in ringing ghost echoes. It's not a long side, and the short runtime is probably partially responsible for it sounding so good - this is experimental electronic music (you can call it 'noise' even, if you insist) that really has a great mastering job. 'Combine XX' opens the B-side with a wavering, uncentered continuation of the previous side's feel. I'm not sure what the material comes from –– if the processing in question sticks to strict source material, or if it's incorporating the work of other artists, or if it lacks the formally defined rules. But the palette is stark, carefully chosen, for this is the deep listening part of the record. Static is there as on Electronic Music, not so much a foreground element here as a mood, a colouring. About halfway through it fades into a more demonic movement, with an Ash Ra ambience, a pulse that slowly becomes relentless, and disembodied, unarticulated voices that combine with mysterious higher frequencies to resemble a malfunctioning shortwave radio. This is night music, all the way, and the explosive bursts, French accents, and squealing pitches recall the greatest mysteries of the evening sky, transcribed into sound and funnelled through a vision of these Northeastern guys. I tend to overlook this record as it's filed between two bigger 'statements' by Lescalleet, but it's a pretty well-structured and complete work of its own that was really nice to revisit here. 

James Twig Harper - 'Intuitive American Esoteric volume 1' (Audiobot/Heresee/Ignivomous/No Sides/White Tapes)

It somehow took five labels to get together to release this LP, in an edition of 555 so each label got 111 copies (I assume), and I'm not sure of which respective stash mine came from. It's funny to be served this immediately after Blake Hargreaves (as the alphabetical decrees) since it was in Baltimore, in the same room as Mr. Harper, that I saw Dreamcatcher/Hargreaves. Though I didn't get this LP until a bit later (I think). Hazy memories of those central Bush years, you know, but some great LPs came out of them, such as Intuitive American Esoteric Volume 1. This is an amazing document of outsider music, one that is worthy of it's slightly ambitious title. I'm not going to make a judgement on whether or not it is intuitive, but American and esoteric for sure, and this is a record where the physicality of the vinyl is inseparable from the music. Harper's approach to 'esoterica' is crafty, and the two untitled side-long pieces could be small symphonies of electronic assemblage. Buzzing, hissing and dissonance are welcome here - a high pitched squeal is present throughout so much of this record that it becomes unnoticeable, and most sounds are electronic/tape-manipulated in origin. But it moves fluidly, opening with a very well composed piece (even if it was composed through the improvisation + editing technique) which suggests a music box gone awry. As the record progresses it never loses momentum, and most of the energy is in small gestural sounds though it gets pretty 'noisy' (meaning, distortion, hiss, errant sinewave tones, etc.). Tapes are the real currency here, with the speed-up/slow-down of the motors and reels bouncing around like skeleton bones carried by a rickety train. When clearly audible bits of other recordings are present, they only leap out for a moment before accelerating or decelerating into something more maddening. Yet despite all of this movement, it never becomes tiresome to listen to. Side two is mastered through a tin can (really!) which isn't a gimmick - it limits the dynamic range of the music somewhat, but gives it a nice antediluvian sheen, and the physical grooves on the record itself are lovely. Speaking of grooves, this side is full of locked ones, mixed all throughout - sneaking up on you like a frustrating video game boss and requiring the stylus to be manually bumped ahead. Even though you can't fall asleep to it, the whole thing works as a complete piece of its own, developing mountains and valleys of madness
throughout. 

Akita/Azuma/Haswell/Sakaibara - 'Ich Schnitt Mich In Den Finger' (Mego)

Source: I got this from Gil on 22 May 2003 as part of a complicated trade.

Played at 33rpm. In the years since this record was produced, the, er, innovative packaging has shrunk a bit and made it really difficult to get this record out of the sleeve without gripping the surface of the vinyl in a way that I was schooled to never do. But this is a record of aberrations anyway so a little finger oil can't make things worse. Despite four names being listed everyone is restrained enough so it actually could just be a duo. Side one has its share of squiggles and blips but Azuma's ascending theremin is behind everything to play anchorman. It's a bit like a pinata, with more pieces breaking off as it goes along and all kinds of surprises inside. Tetsuo Sakaibara is rocking the jews harp though I'm not sure where to hear it. Gotta love the credits: Masami Akita on DD1100 and "Devices"; Russell Haswell on SU 10 and "stuff". Quite a lot of the records in my collection are made of nothing but Devices and stuff but this one is wise enough to accentuate them with DD1100 and SU 10. Side two fires it up again (with more gurgling sounds) but these shorter tracks all end in (silent) locked grooves, so it's like you're still hitting the pinata from side 1, but every time you smack it you feel the pinata stick hitting you in the back of the head. It's really Azuma who rules this thing but maybe I'm just saying that cause he's the only one who I can pick out. This record does manage to tick both the "sounds like a Mego release" and "sounds like a Merzbow release" boxes, while being quite distinct on its own.