And so to Gnod wherein there’s been a hive of activity of late not least with the release of two sets – one a repackaged collection of hard to find archive materials and the other a tasty something from the trensmat imprint. But before all that a quick word advising you to get yourself an earful of strange groove courtesy of the teals tapes imprint. Now if we’ve got our information right this imprint serves as an outlet for all the various members and acquaintances of the extended Gnod network family. To date there’s been a smattering of releases all coming in ultra limited issue – 4 last count though I could be wrong – first of which is by raikes parade. According to the blurb when he’s not sorting out the Gnod sound, raikes can often be found skulking off to partake in some extra curricula activities with herbal sessions and dub smugglers. Limited to just 50 cassettes and entitle ’crossing paths to find new footprints’ this release features – what can best be described – as seriously smoked out head massages of super cooled cosmic dubtronics, the lead out cut – imaginatively titled ’side a’ sounds to these ears like some huge pulsating head trip presided over by a convening studio alliance comprised of the Orb, Depth Charge, Bill Laswell and Steve Hillage types and sounding not unlike the kind of stuff once upon a time slipping the shackles from out of the metal postcard imprint. Best of the collection to date in our much humbled opinion is Negra Branca’s two track limited to just 50 copies self titled cassette. Now no one’s going to budge me from the belief that this really is something else, ’duro’ / ’beira beira’ the main event is a hypno chilled astral projecting slice of transcendental trippiness replete with meditative finger bell chimes and celestial chorals that all converge to slipstream into something deliriously woozy and airless whilst navigating to the nether regions of the minds inner eye aboard a psychotropic drift wind. Six minutes in and the mood shimmers and shifts no doubt with the onset of the ’beira beira’ sequence of the set, here the melodies are equipped in a near waking from dream state fogginess wherein the senses an shapes are in a state of disorientation and flux, the sounds assuming a floaty arabesque vibe to recall as were a mind probing muslim gauze dinked by the Dadaist playfulness of takako minewaka. We here want a copy urgently. Dwelling provide the other half of the Gnod bass machine, again limited to just 50 cassettes ’don’t say nothing’ is the more subterranic species of the Gnod network, ’frame speed’ in particular subtly aligning itself to the mainframe of a youthful boards of Canada albeit as though immersed in the ever deepening and darkening voids of techno and appreciably taking the guiding hand of truth about frank along for the ride, best filed under post apocalyptic drone. Druss are / is the circle forming ying to dwellings yang, this is heavy and intense stuff, loosely recalling to mind bass communion and again for the second time this review alone Muslim Gauze as if found head tripping with wagon christ and concocting shape shifting ethnic patternia in an attempt to rewire your neuron receptors. Recommended for closer inspection. http://www.teslatapes.bandcamp.com
**originally written a few months ago – there’s a teals tapes update later this missive wherein dwellings among the many are mentioned to fuller detail.
And so to trensmat records, now we here are a little heavy of heart of late, our prised trensmat collection is sadly wallowing and missing a few friends what with the missing copies of cloudland canyon and AM outings, the former going astray at the hands of those hapless hamsat royal mail. To this end a sizeable and seemingly worrying looking gap is now emerging in what was once a flawless run of works of art. The concern is only heightened by the fact that this next one is already – we believe – sold at source and in the prepping for a limited repress. Just 400 of these pressed up on 12 inches of heavy duty gold coloured wax all housed in black and white sleeves all coming replete with download links of the cuts pressed upon the grooves within. ’Gnod presentsa Dwellings and Druss’ is a bit of a misnomer – though I’m convinced I have this completely right – as those of you who bothered to cast an eye over the collectives Tesla imprint mention will no doubt realise, its not Gnod though then again it is Gnod if you loosely get my drift, not the collective stoned out psyche charge of the unit as a whle but selective elements of the hive – like say Wire and all their various extra curricula off shoots. Two cuts from the Dwellings side of the hive mind and one from Druss with – per the download bundle – what we gather is a mammoth 50 minute face off featuring a live mix set recorded last November. Dwellings kicks off proceedings with ’revelation 9’ – a solid state sub electroid psyche immersion, murmuring pulsars usher and utter to asubterranic tongue, the melodic mainframe coded in binary blips tap out a galactic calling card into the darkening voids, like some silver skinned minimalist variant of wagon christ there lurks here an ever so subtle subtronic funk detailing crafted and cooled in darkly remote hyper-real techno. Druss take up the baton with ’20 sides a minute’ again scratched in a sparsely minimalist flavouring and grounded in dubbed out psychotropic techno drone., amid its sub 9 minute voyage its deceptive skin shedding form busies itself cloaking its sound craft in intricate textures showered in solar rays and terra-formic pulsars to preside over a head phonic effect that’s akin to having the contents of your head dissolving to its hypnotic brainwashing cycles. Best of the groove gouged trio is Dwellings ’defeatism’ – a 16 minute orbiting opus awash and lonesome drifting the vast oceanic cosmic voids majestically inscribed in lushly hollowed forlorn backdrops as though fading distress calls from a long dead galactic outpost and courting towards its final gasp an oblique ’terminator’ esque collage retooled as were by John Carpenter. As said subscribers to the vinyl edition get download codes which aside including the three aforementioned tracks for digital drop also feature a mammoth live mix. Titled ’in orbit’ it’s a hulking motorik head trip aboard the hyper galactic Gnod super cruiser for a non returning guaranteed voyage into space dub techno’s black hole.
Time and space, not to mention the small but necessary detail that at present we can’t put our hand to our copy, we’ll just briefly make you aware that there’s a limited gathering of Gnod recordings collected upon ’chaudelande’ via rocket recordings. A slab of badness that features recordings found stumbling into the sunlight for a short brief period via tamed on two separate vinyl volumes now handily work into one jaw dropping platter featuring 6 monolithic slabs of fucked up and wasted primordial groove with added mind altering psychotropic white out sequences. Consider yourselves fair warned.
the sunday experience 