Introverted and extricated sounds from an imprint providing an aural antenna for the overlooked and unusual. Deep, delirious and definitely different.
The stream of albums coming from Further Records could only be described as relentless. The Seattle imprint has embraced the cassette tape and pioneered its revival amongst the Electronic faithful. To date, four year old Further has some fifty releases from artists like Jamal Moss, Lerosa, Ian Martin and many more lucid dreamers. But in the tradition of this admirable imprint, it is the unknown and unheard that are given the limelight for some of Further’s latest tasters.
Red Math aka Lance Dibblee released his first vinyl full length, Obsolete Systems on Further Records in 2012. “Kiss” opens, sending and receiving transmissions from orbit. Plinks, bleeps and curling sounds warp and wrap resonance. The Ambient soup thickens, Dibblee pulling the plug and sinking the listener into a undercurrents of distorted machine noise and decaying Electronics. “Space Music” echoes with the experimental prowess of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 70s synthesizer abstraction. Ghostly soundscapes are blown across deserts and mountain ranges on distant moons. “Deflector” bubbles and burbles with interference and reflected static. Re-entry comes in the form of “Cycle Static” a final piece of scientific synth music.
Hans Dens has also seen vinyl on Further, releasing A Lion Baptism under his Innercity moniker. The record is a descent, the listener falling into the noise filled abstraction of this Belgian’s sound. Fierce chords and glitch are pummeled against crashing waves and delicate strings. There is a wonderment to tracks like “The Essence of the Earth as Arch as Arc” and a claustrophobic seediness to others like “Body Cells Fortress.” Melodies are constructed but never allowed to full form, Dens turning them back onto themselves and forging fury in electric fire. Amidst some of the weightier piece are more fragile touches, as in “Her Prints Will Light the Path.” Overall, this is an album on the frontiers of the fringe. Sounds are never shattered, but they are distorted into sometimes desperate forms and sumptuous shapes.
Further Records embraces the strange, the weird and the out-there. Tape releases by the like of CHXFX and Synek lead the listener into dimensions of audio stretching and mutant imaginations. Introverted and extricated sounds from an imprint providing an aural antenna for the overlooked and unusual. Deep, delirious and definitely different.
For more info about Further Records, visit furtherrecords.org.
