In like company with the brute-minimalism of Tecumseh and Rale, the ‘Coronal Mass’ C36 is aptly-titled: it is huge, luminous, and 36 minutes long. [That last bit’s not part of the title title, but it’s sure a funny way to start the review!] Steve Fors (half of The Golden Sores), as Aeronaut, recorded this over the summer. Not like it makes a difference. ‘Coronal Mass’ has no use for that knowledge, cascading, as it does, elliptically around some other axis. Without amplitude, the all-synth-etic sound is pushed to awesome swells and static like the scalar effect of dark matter “out there,” glints of “light” appearing more like less-black. Arriving in a handmade, wooden jewel box complete with stain and metal hardware, screened inserts to match the marking on the cassette and staging to hold it in place, the tape’s biggest competitor is its own container . For all its austerity, it is not a show of power but endurance, and may leave the listener searching for something deeper having entered the ‘Mass’ via this puzzle box [extra credit for doing this from Brooklyn: a box this size could probably rent for $300/month!] Like Nurse With Wound’s ‘Space Music,’ NASA’s ‘Symphonies of the Planets,’ or such similar recording-representations of an inner or outer space, the scope of movement here defies human locomotion, indexed through the ear or the rods and cones of analogy, and lends a swaying sickness that is equal parts inner-ear and insignificance at this revelation. You will see some faces, hear some voices, and ultimately drop the connection. I think Fors is trying to break your heart, and not in that good way college kids are always carrying on about. Edition of 50.
Fabrica Records cassette
$10
HERE