Notice #25 Talk West – ‘Canyon Lip’
Notice was immediately taken by this release from Talk West, the project of Dylan Aycock of Tulsa’s Scissor Tail Records. On Canyon Lip, he works primarily with lush pedal steel and steely synthesizers to craft drones with a remarkably physical presence. On “Finally, That River Twists,” which makes up Side A, rich and airy pedal steel loops unfold alongside light percussion touches. Side B’s “With No Regrets” introduces more tension, playing on a deep sense of struggle buried in its title. Solitude prevails against subtle intrusions of percussion that hint at missed connections, like cars passing one another on a rural road at dusk. Through minimal means, Canyon Lip achieves a visceral sense of time, evoking the imperceptible movement of the sun, barely noticed until the gloaming.
Notice #26 Seth Cluett – ‘wound of this deep blue.’
The multifaceted work of composer Seth Cluett has garnered wide praise for, among other things, its attention to detail and organic sense of order. Cluett often explores sound in its ability to create or construct a listener’s sense of place, memory and time, using such sonic detail to wring the specific and personal out of the abstract. At the same time, on wound of this deep blue., Cluett limits his own control over this process: he mixes seven tapes recorded on a cassette dictaphone from live performances between 2005 and 2013, but without adding any other processing or edits. Within this framework, the resulting two pieces unfold subtly, inviting the listener to engage deeply to penetrate them. However, far from inviting a guessing game of identifying sound sources, Cluett’s compositions pull back veils of sonic richness that are both concretely and abstractly engaging. Type II Chrome tapes. Letterpress printed by Fitzgerald Letterpress. Artwork by Michael Bullock and E. Lindorff-Ellery. Edition of 100.