BUFFET OF LOATHSOME IS MOVING OUT

A hearty 'sup' to thems still readin. Buffet of Loathsome has relocated to the land of porn GIFs, anime fanfic, and teenage poetry. No, not livejournal. Tumblr.


You can find us here; follow if ya like or whatever the lingo is. Ask the nearest 14-year-old.


http://buffetofloathsome.tumblr.com


Mgmt

SNARE INTO THE VOID: Oklo Audio

Oklo Audio
s/t cassette
Ydlmier 051 2015

Takes a lot to divide a roomful of ostensibly open minds, but this Oklo Sound fella chalked a mean chasm at the release show for this tape. Granted it weren't nothin like the bits on his Soundcloud nor the contents of this release, so maybe some of the crowd only had hairline cracks in their gourds. It's not often my verbiage locks up, but the only note i managed to make during that performance was "anti-dj set SUPREME YO". Seems weird to unquiver this ol arrow, but "experimental music" isn't supposed to be always be a rollicking extravaganza of purdy lights and quick changes. Sometimes it's gotta leave you furrowed and uneasy or it ain't doin its duty.

Despite the major disparity between the aforementioned disco-dysplasia and this assemblage of perturbed drum programming and dragged chair legs, I remain convinced Oklo Audio has a spiritual home in the Breakdance the Dawn compound. It's so anti it faceplants on pro. Even his equipment's got the quake of fear, right down to its tender diodes. Dance music that keeps getting called out of the room to run errands. Gooder than grits, if'n you bring yer own butter.

CHINA CAT EXPELLER PRESSED SUNFLOWER OIL SLICK: Grayfolded Reissue

John Oswald/Grateful Dead
Grayfolded 3LP on black, clear red or clear blue vinyl
Important Records 2014

Let's cut this dirt tracker short. Q: Do you need to hear and possibly purchase Grayfolded, a career-spanning yarn-wad of "Dark Star" takes assembled by Mr. Plunderphonic? A: Surely. Conditional Q: Must it be off six sides of wax? A: Nah. Ask me, which I spose you did, Grayfolded was built with long-playing media in mind. I never did take much liking to the look of the compact disc, but they sound perfectly fine. Tapes tie into all manner of wistful reflection for me, but historically they truly freed recordings artists to compose without fear of [much] compression. Both formats freed the listener from the armchair. Sure, this big beast'll look purdy on a shelf. Even comes with "six 'time maps' which chart the source concerts" for the 105 versions so's you can feel more like a real Head for yer beanie-wearin' copilots. But I reckon if ya'll's in the state of mind that might inspire throwing this on, y'all probably ain't up for babysitting more than the aliens what just landed in yer laps. (Not to mention there's a map in the OG double-CD set, too. And one coulda fit nicely in a tape box...say, to be released on the tape imprint Important just restarted?) So why didn't they make this set stackable so you ain't gotta flip 57 times? Probably because younger folks don't know that's an option so it'd just confuse or worry em. So here we are.

If you ain't heard it yet, of course do so before you drop the asking ducats. Yer ears are in for a harrowing couple hours. Shit veers all over the Spacetime Hwy, from cascading ribbons of dusty night light; to krauty choogle; to stereo-panned MIDI dronemares; to stuff you could easy slide into one of them Youtube "shred" videos, no lie. They were, after all, the Sonic Youth of their day: your spoonful of outland comes with a heaping bowl of grueling. So maybe this is the right format after all: you gotta suffer to get your sanook.

ONE TUQUE OVER THE LINE: Jacob's Reunion

Jacob's Reunion

s/t LP 1975

Chelsea House Records

Ain't seen much circulated bout this Vermont private folkie. Ain't much to gander at neither. Then again, VT ain't famous for its PR. Sure, they'll pass you a joint and a big hoppy beer the moment your big toe's over line, but you gotta put it there yer damn self. And if'n you didn't know that were gonna happen, why would ya? VT's got half the mystique or grandeur of Maine and twice as much smack as Western Mass. But it did have a wind harp once, and an LP to prove it. And it still has Greg Davis, NNA Tapes, and the Weisman bros, among others. (And those first two Mary McCaslin LPs ain't a bit hateful!) But goddamn yo, the back blurb sounds straight off a flyer for the loneliest county fair:

"original music created under the influence of Gaelic, Easter European, and Classical traditions; Jazz and Swing; and North American dance tunes and songwriting"

Ooof. Don't that smart worse than that Indian rub you got that runny-nosed girl in the 2nd grade? But somebody what knows a thing or three about regional weirdness up here told me this was in the Michael Hurley spectrum, so I signed up. I wouldn't continue the Hurley meme myself. I reckon there's more of a Fraser & Debolt/Allegra's Music from the Heartlands vibe. These young farts at play ain't as out as the former (if only) nor as desanguinated as the latter (thumbs up for that), but they all share the same creaky floor. If I tell ya the pianist and fiddler get downright proggy (and even, gulp...modal?) at times, would you throw yer boot at me? Cuz I mean it kindly. Ain't no smartenin' up old timey music here; just some folks gettin proper weird with it, like sharin' a bowl with yer great aunt. A few of the more trad cuts made my tone arm bay like a lonesome pup, but their spooked-out, searching take on "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" more than compensates. It frankly turns the OG version into a smear of sepia grain. "Mexico" and the latter half of "Give The Fiddler a Dram" are also plenty worthy. So give the awkwardest state in New England a gander now and again. Go holler down a gorge or get yerself a Creemee or something.

THE LANTRIFIED GENTRY: Stefan Jaworzyn on Kye

Stefan Jaworzyn

The Annihilating Light LP

Kye Records KYE 28

2014

Mostly in-situ synth affair from Ascension/Descension/Skullflower and [recently reheated] Shock label figurehead Stefan Jaworzyn. My relation to the man began when I was a middle school outlier, unwrappin' a copy of Sauter/Dietrich/Moore's Barefoot In the Head on his aforementioned label and puzzlin' bout (in the way we use-ta in the pre-Internet era) why it was so hard to find anythang else on that imprint (read: as a 13-year-old pro-loner in a know-nuthin' town). Apparently, I wasn't alone in my wonderings and disappoint, cuz Shock releases ran cold as the streams offa Blood Mountain but moments after hittin' pavement for most of the label's salad days. Later on, a crew of leather'd longhairs with manually-enlarged earlobes chucked Form Destroyer by Skullflower in my general direction and lo a whole scope of scuzzy possibilities appeared--not the least of which was the wealth that is the Broken Flag imprint. And then I learnt he was all up in Whitehouse, too. (Hell, Stefan even "gave away" the bride at the Lambkin-Hoyos wedding, according to a recent interview I read offa my scribblin' screen.)

Then time passed and somehow I got him confused with Stephan Mathieu from Main et al. for a minute, which'll, to all y'all, either make a weird kinda sense or cast light on how much my brain resembles the moth-bitten basement with a French drain (i.e. a channel for the ass-end runoff of a river kept alive cuz some Confederate general watered his horse in it--long enough ago that there was such a beast as a Confederate general ta begin with and, yeah, in that part of These United...) that once propped up an ol' "house" of mine. 

I disambiguated alla that when I found out Mathieu had released a record of e-Bow'd autoharps or some such wad of keech years back and realized it couldn't be the same dude. So...

"Oasis of Filth" (aka Side A) is a squalid onsen of looped 1/4" adapter bumps and roof drizzle. Much as I am reminded of Moon's Milk-era Coil (speakin-on the Shock label...) throughout this record, there is something of the latter-day tendency [in longform noise-lineage musics] toward cycle/repetition w/o rhythm in this spring-reverb'd bongwater spill that puts me at least a lil in mind of the Richard Youngs aesthetic. The humidity and all-'round menace to the simmers herein continue to steam my living room on repeated listens.

Side B, on the other hand, I'm at odds with. Much as I think it would pair well with Tietchens's "Teilmenge 33A" in its manic itchiness, I don't think it holds its own without, as ol William Carlos Williams woulda said, another track lighting it.

Still, an intriguing chapter in Jaworzyn's career. If'n you need a refresher course in the depth and breadth of the music of his youth, the Kino series of heretofor-unreleased Skullflower on his Shock label shit'll get ya right and sorted.

ROOTIN' 'ROUND IN ALBERT'S BASEMENT: PART THIRDTH

Rob & Stefan
Manic Guitar Sessions, white cassette edition
Albert's Basement
2012

This collection of unreleased electric/fretless electric duets from the Christchurch in the early 90s took a few flips to finally catch me, but now it's unspoolin' just fine. Something clicked when I read the frets in Stefan's guitar were removed manually; threw a weird and wonderful light on things. The accountant's version of this affair (Oh, you mean the "you had to ask" segment. --Ed.) is that it's a clutch of half-in-the-bag "jams" from a coupla blokes clearly keen on D Boon, early twitchy surf instrumentals, and mid-seventies Magic Band. That's a fine enough tipple for me, and they certainly don't kowtow toward any specific longitude, but what don't quite add up is whether this bears the akimbo worldview of classic 80s Kiwi indie intentionally, by osmosis, or just cuz that aura comes free with purchase of a 4-track in those parts. Havin' no bio for either of these folks, I'm gonna assume it's just in the air, or my brain fillin' in the Mad Lib blanks my ears done carved. In the end, this is best viewed as a document of a working relationship with a set of legs I hope took 'em somewhere further than a living room and the two blocks to the nearest licka sto'. There's promise in these reels.




Moffarfarrah
Thread Bare 7" 45rpm
Albert's Basement
2012

Looped, layered 'n chanted sound poem smoke-out from who the fuck knows. Seems to have been shadowed by the same fog what drizzle-dropped on Elklink, Klyd Watkins, and those haunted/silly vocal bits on the first Fraser & Debolt. Ya can just feel the wispy white webschapstick collected at the corners of their lips. As is the case with the aforenamechecked, "terse" and "effective" be neck-to-neck. Thankfully, the format allows Moffarfarrah just enough footage to eep, wheeze, gasp, and chew the scenery to get the business did. "To everyone who has lived," may be the most inclusive dedication in art history. Really, dude? Errybody? From Pol Pot and an drunken mechanic from Des Moines to your downstairs neighbor and the rest of every phone book everywhere ever? Ain't nobody that forgiving.
Plays at 45, but a drop to 33.3 adds a moany, Halloween element I'd be remiss in leaving out. Pairs suitably well with the recent reish of Preggy Peggy's snort-n-giggle-fest, recorded in a rental car, A Short Visit to the City That Bleeds, if'n its runnin' time leaves you jonesin' mightily.

Muura
Untitled 7" 33.3rpm
Albert's Basement
2011

I do so heart a handmade sleeve and mine (which differs wonderfully from the above snap) has all the fingernail-chipped marker blots of a well-aged elementary school textbook. As for the sounds contained, Matt Earle is involved. For some that may suffice or cast light. For the rest of the world, Side A is a long walk off an amp pier; how the highway feels when my pickup truck is hungover. Side B casts a bit more light on this amiable mess, via an alternating throb with a sinus infection, a wounded cymbal and the occasional mumble evaporatin' outta the kitchen sink grit trap. Anthems for listless 4am navel lint extraction. Muura appeared on the staggeringly thorough Feral Flotsam 2xcass comp the following year and on the seminal Breakdancing the Dawn back in the CD-r epoch. Your guess is as good as gunk.

OOH-OOH, BRACK DIAMOND!: Good Area

Good Area

Cubic Zirconia/Bad Karlshafen 7"

Kye Records KYE 707

Another dislocatin' transmission from this pair of Philly loons and, again, I sprint to confess a major deficiency in comprehension regardin they mindset. And I seen 'em live, in the flesh, in a musty basement even! What I can say is, fear not: they still ekin' out (read: eek!-ing out) a courageous existence in the disused factory district of the Philippe Blanchard prefecture, shacked up somewhere between F-rants and the Durchschnittsanfall comps, and makin' din outta whatever bits layeth around that be neither garment nor utensil (and don't quote me 'bout the latter). FF-garbled recitations, busted/dusted trumpet, tin drum machine and tabletop guitar are all hoovered up in the slipstream of a garbage truck with no air-brakes. (Incidentally, do trashmen in Philly still tie, like, teddy bears to the front of their trucks? Am I makin' that memory up?) 

Look, I know what you're thinkin', lookin' at the format of this release and the answer is no. Just cuz this thang is less than half the run-time of the French Antarctica LP, don't mean shit's gotten reined in like a mule for the plow, or simplified to harvest support from the ADHD crowd. No, sir. It just means each and erry one o' dem slender grooves is double-stuffed with abandominiums fulla cracked aural notions. It's like the Swill Radio catalog compressed into black hole spaghettini.

I ain't heard much of the tape they put out last year on their Vitrine imprint (nor more'n a sip of Debris Music neither, as I blink too slow for the 21st century), but I'm inclined to believe there mightcould be some Vanilla Records/early RRRecords-type buzz-harshin' above and beyond up they sleeves, too. Either way, my ears is cocked.

Insert is a scan of the receipt for the fish used for the front and back cover, I presume. Nice touch. How this thing is still available, I could not tell you. Highly recommended.