GAY SHAPES

Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to try to describe the thing...just listen. Please. These sounds come from 2012, but they will impact and assist you in your Today World. I promise...and I rarely lie.

GAY SHAPES

KNÆKKEDE STEMMER

A foreboding collection of sounds from Danish aural collagist KNÆKKEDE STEMMER. Subdued industrial ominousity reduced to its most primitive form. The next thirty minutes of your life will be quiet, even temporarily peaceful, but there is nothing calm or reassuring about this release.

BETYNGET AF...

INEXTREMIS

How many more of these gems have yet to be unearthed and offered to hungry ears? From 1984, At The Point Of Death is an atmospheric death rock masterpiece - deadly plodding pieces with calculated vocals that fall back and sooth when appropriate....only to envelop you. This was new to me when Nostilevo released it a few years back....no history, only history. Superb.

AT THE POINT OF DEATH

GLOCHIDS

Beautiful and peaceful collection reinterpreting nine different GLOCHIDS tracks. Remixes by JOCK CLUB, SØREN, J.S. AURELIUS, DEEP PILL, SANDOVAL and others. Perfect listening today, for a myriad of reasons. 

REmI-X

EARN // MIRROR TO MIRROR

The rain has subsided and the light is oppressive while I type, which makes it hard to take my mind back to the first time I listened to this cassette. Making something that is instantly engaging even when quiet and deliberate is difficult...which makes it even better when it works. EARN works - patient and peaceful ambience, dark without being oppressive or negative...file alongside the things that we feel more than hear, things that are difficult to describe. A natural progression to MIRROR TO MIRROR on the other side...slightly more energy, slightly more hope. Maybe wait until it's dark. 

SYMPATHY // SOFT YEARS

OBJETO AMARELO

A hypnotic offering from long running São Paulo outfit OBJETO AMARELO...eight pieces of patient and deliberate electronics with soft, spoken vocals. Tracks like the opener "Dia Vermelho" could have easily stepped directly out of the experimental '80s brushes with the then-burgeoning new wave scene. Elements of early HUMAN LEAGUE (I'm talking "Being Boiled" era) creep in and out, while "Crepsucular" is a simple and perfect electronic/synth chill out (this is my favorite track here, if only because it breaks up the vibe ever so slightly and sets the listener up nicely for the driving and comparatively heavy "Propostas Solares" and "Amigo Nuclear" to close the tape). If you aren't careful, Dia Vermelho will play on repeat all day....but I would suggest resisting neither the sounds nor the urge to let them sink all the way into you. 

DIA VERMELHO

OBJETO AMARELO is the product of Carlos Issa, responsible for several noteworthy projects and collaborations, and a part of the TEST BIG BAND (a thing I am fucking dying to see in the flesh). Released and distributed by São Paulo's Dama Da Noite Discos. 

BERT // HORDES

The HORDES side of this split listens like an underground subway ride...dark, murky, wet...emerging from a tunnel at daybreak as the light struggles with clouds and the ominous weight that is darkness. 

One the other side, BERT deliver the kind of sounds that stop me dead in my tracks. Far from the ambient music that is sometimes relegated to the background by distraction or boredom, "DN" is brilliant in its simplicity, and I ended the 31 minutes lying on the floor bathed in emotion. The piece is about patience, about beauty, about power...and maybe The Whole Thing really is as simple as a piano calmly offering a sequence of single notes that we have all heard before. Incredible. 

GROWN LONG

FRAGMENTED

Active during the second half of the '90s, Illinois act FRAGMENTED left us with a legacy of incredibly engaging sounds. The Solemn Drain's nearly hour and a half excursion is simultaneously a throwback to primitive first wave noise/electronic purveyors, and a precursor to today's constantly growing world of knob twiddlers...but FRAGMENTED still exist on an island. The sounds are dark, introspective, they draw you in and hold you tight and, in the right mood, I barely notice that the rest of the world fades into the background. This one is important, kids...

THE SOLEMN DRAIN

JUDITH

Excellent mystery techno mix I snagged in LA a few weeks ago...chilled out, laid back and subtly psychedelic. You're down or you aren't. 

JUDITH

SICK LLAMA

2009 cassette from SICK LLAMA, one of the (many) aliases of Fag Tapes empresario Heath Moerland. It's like a digital stream of consciousness, but with a constant and underlying surge. I find Equity particularly engaging, and have for years....imagine the intersection of blips and whirrs noise and mesmerizing ambient electronics....can you imagine that? I can. So can SICK LLAMA.

EQUITY

CAGES

Buffalo duo CAGES have been wowing and confusing me for a decade. Dark and mesmerizing sounds that move from hypnotic electronics to avant-folk and then they travel to other places with a confidence that is terrifying. Describing CAGES would be nearly impossible, even for someone who talks as much as I do...but this collection of recordings is a pure motherfukkr. Listen to "If It Flies, It Dies" at maximum volume and you will never be the same. The minutes will take years off of your life, and still feed you.

COMPLAINT AND RIOTS WE SHOULD LEAVE TO CATS

Find CAGES here....their entire recorded output is celebrated at TEHQ (though, admittedly, the celebrations are mostly on special occasions....occasions that demand introspection and emotion) and the live experience is not of this world.

AVELLAN CROSS

This one had me from play. Deep and entrancing minimal techno sounds with more than enough other worldly weirdness. Primitive techno melting into first wave ambient/industrial...I shouldn't try to describe it....I'll just hope that you enjoy it. Nostilevo never disappoints...

TECHNOISE

ALEXANDRA ATNIF

SESSION 1

KRZYCZ

It's been a few years since I pulled this one out, and Trauma is still an absolute monster. Oppressively dark and epic late '90s Polish hardcore with drawn out forays into ambient and improvisational interludes (someday, let's talk about how the horns in "Blind Love" should not work, but work so damned well, and when the vocals join the madness after the jam in the middle...the intensity is sublime) offering little respite from the power. Deadly, searing high register vocals and comparisons (flattering) to Word As Law-era NEUROSIS and '90s Per Koro metalcore are both justified and well earned, but I think that KRZYCZ hold up brilliantly on their own. As with most '90s Polish stuff, this one is pretty easy to track down on wax if you keep your eyes open...and I suggest that you do. 

TRAUMA

DISMAL LIGHT

Crazy addictive, and far more upbeat and animated than 2014's Commute, this offering from DISMAL LIGHT combines hypnotic repetition and subtly inventive beats to create a mysterious minimal techno/psych/trance hybrid. Get way deep into this one, punks...the mastery of The Simple Things is something to marvel at all times, and only emulate when appropriate. 

FERTILE SPORES

This was a part of Ascetic House's "January Program" project in 2014...would love to have the entire series if anyone's holding.

RHINOCERVS

On the ninth (of ten) self/un/titled release, the RHINOCERVS label once again leaves you breathless. Haunting and ethereal black metal, this time tempered with atonal ambient/goth and soundtracks to nonexistent films that most would never be able to watch all the way through without crying or screaming. RHINOCERVS is all encompassing, and each release managed to do something different...this one will likely appeal to listeners from well outside of the metal realm, and though I was not struck as immediately as with other tapes (numbers 02, 07 and 12, specifically), with time it has become one of my favorites. Released in 2013, not long before the collective seems to have put this project to bed. Hopefully it's just a nap. 

RH-15

ACAVERNUS

Please enter the world of ACAVERNUS from São Paulo - the vocal/sound portion of the RAKTA equation isolated and exposed. When I heard about Paula's project and its mission, I assumed it was going to be good. But I didn't imagine it was going to be like this. ACAVERNUS is something else, my friends...something you need to experience.

ACAVERNUS

Today is our birthday. I've been doing The Escape for seven years now...wild. Almost 2400 posts, and approaching two and a half million visits. Weird. I hope you've found some things here that you have enjoyed....there's more to come. 

CORUM

When I initially came across this outfit (group? band? artist/s? collective?), I was entranced....and I've only grown to love them even more with each release and incarnation that I devour. Hypnotic missives that travel effortlessly between minimal neu:industrial and tribal rituals, and it all sounds as if it could have been constructed from field recordings. Without full attention, it's easy for these sounds to slip into the background and just provide a subtle soundtrack for your day...and that's fine. But with proper volume and attention, I dare say that you will emerge on the other side of these sixty two minutes a different person. Rubbing your eyes and squinting as if there was something physical, and not spiritual, that you could do to make sense of the journey you just completed. Sometimes the only thing to do is take the trip again, children. 

TALES FROM THE VISION PIT

HARMS

Boo Boo handed me this a while ago....and I figured it would be pretty good. That dude is typically pretty good at things, and I knew that he'd been fucking with synths and electronics, so I figured he'd be pretty good at those too. I didn't know he would be this good. From TANGERINE DREAM to minimal techno to dated dance floor burners, this HARMS tape delivers from start to finish. "Run. Fucking Go And Get Out Of Here" is the absolute jam, but I think it works so much better juxtaposed against the overwhelmingly mellow backdrop of the rest of Let The Moment Wash You Away. No attempt to be weirder or more intense or more mysterious, just a blissfully successful electronic soundtrack to accompany you on your journey....whatever that journey might be. 

LET THE MOMENT WASH YOU AWAY

TIMEGHOST

TIMEGHOST either casually dropped an homage to primitive analog noise compositions, or managed to harness the originality of artists like IVO MALEC and JOHN PFEIFFER...blips, monologues, whirs, digital oddities, found sounds. From the subtle beats in "Delicate Resonances" to the gnome-esque murmurings that weave in and out of the electronics on "On Airs, Waters & Places," Cellular is a dark and deliberate offering. Released in 2014 by Load on wax and Chondritic Sound on cassette...this one is not so much a listen, but a journey.

CELLULAR