Polarity Review From Musique Machine

Review from Musique Machine

Jason Zeh - Polarity [Handmade Birds - 2012]
A simple but professional package, here, from Handmade Birds: a neatly printed inlay card, with introductory notes from Zeh; and a red cassette with on-body printing. The tape contains one long track on each side, both based around recordings of the electromagnetic fields produced by tape machines. Zeh picks up these fields using telephone coil mics, which convert them into audio signals. My small experience of using these mics, has normally resulted in pretty static, crackling drones and hums; so I'd wager that Zeh is achieving his sounds from mixing and layering his multiple tape machines' fields, as well as eq-ing.
Side A is a very static, strong drone; recorded live in October 2011. Constructed out of several layers of tones and hums, it pursues a straight line more-or-less until its end. Zeh tweaks his materials very subtly, with his main techniques pulling them in two quite different directions. The first of these is towards beating tones and throbbing pulses; the piece begins with a gently throbbing low end, and throughout the track these modulations rise and fall - though never with any overwhelming strength (thus maintaining the tension of the drone). The second direction goes the opposite way entirely: rather then playing layers against each other, Zeh somehow coaxes singing tones from them. Thus, tibetan bowl-like drones emerge from the main body of sound; before diminishing, and returning. The piece ends with the sounds of tape reels, amplified by contact mics; these rather decrepit rhythms carry the track to its close, with Zeh creating a nice stereo-bouncing effect.
The second side of the tape, according to Zeh's inlay notes, was created by subjecting recordings of electromagnetic fields to a "variety of tape-based processes of manipulation." The track begins, perhaps unpromisingly, with the sound of slurring tape - and then Zeh brilliantly grinds this sound into the ground. He doubles it, layers it; makes it resonate and reverberate - it really is a masterful piece of work. In terms of what's actually occurring, you might imagine (at the most basic level) someone manipulating a loop; but perhaps a more helpful notion is someone like John Butcher constantly producing a very short passage on the sax (trilling, even), with equally constant variations of tone, timbre and melody. There's a relentless, vigorous exploration of the initial slurring sound - in fact, Evan Parker would be the more obvious saxophone parallel, given his spiralling repetitions. Zeh teases out all kinds of colour, making the track growl and vibrate; building it into buzzing maelstrom with malevolent traces, before it decays down into a warbling drone. After this, Zeh breaks it further; till the listener is left with scratchy, hesitant whines and murky rumbles, slowly playing out in an ocean of tape hiss. Its quite mesmeric.
Whilst the first side of Polarity is undeniably competent and enjoyable, it's the reverse offering that truly makes a name for Jason Zeh. There are a few projects that properly explore the use of tapes and tape machines - rather then simply using recorded sounds on tape as source material - and it's sometimes an area that produces rather austere works, given the limitations of the "instruments." Polarity, though, shows Zeh to be capable of creating great colour, from the barest of sounds. I'm loathe to saddle him with the burden of "the acousmatic Evan Parker," but in case his future reveals that: you heard it here first.

from Aquarius Records.
ZEH, JASON "A Vacant Lot To Be In"
"The resurgence of the cassette as a viable media may provide an additional context for the work of Jason Zeh, as his gritty drone-noise constructions are entirely based on the contact points between magnetic tape and the tape heads that read / translate that magnetic information into sound. His approach to sound often deals with the dis...location of this contact point, which is akin to the way that Christian Marclay, Gum, or Phillip Jeck approach the turntable. Zeh might wield sandpaper to abrade the tape itself, magnetized razor blades to slice the tapes, leaving irradiated coronas of electrical hum near the edit, and even smearing globs of dirt into the gears and mechanics of the tape deck. All of these very tactile methods impart very tactile results, and as such, A Vacant Lot To Be In is much more akin to Chop Shop's obliterated tape saturation than the somber self-immolation found on William Basinski's Disintegration Loops. Both tracks on this vinyl only release rise through scabrous crumplings into a steady arcing mass of high-voltage dronework whose phase shifting patterns give the impression of an electrified sea of ferric oxide churning through tidal forces. One of the sides builds towards an intense crescendo of turbulent, boiling, junked noise, while the flip eerily navigates an insectoid minimalism. Zeh's work is very strong and deserves as much acclaim as we can muster, especially given his relatively low profile. Highly recommended for fans Joe Colley, Hive Mind, Mike Shiflet, and the more industrially slanted aspects of contemporary sound art. Oh yeah, limited to just 300 copies."

A Vacant Lot To Be In Reviewed in The Wire

Jason Zeh
A Vacant Lot To Be In
Crippled Intellect Productions LP

Those who grew up with the cassette as the principle means for portable listening and file exchange find its resurgence a bit puzzling. How many beloved tapes died from the tape snapping or getting melting in the sun from leaving it on the car dashboard or the physical mechanism itself jamming? For Jason Zeh, those failings are exactly what he seeks to extract through his visceral collages from discarded tape machines and malfunctioning cassettes. While many of his previous recordings have employed the mangled sounds of crumpled and even burnt tape, A Vacant Lot To Be In focuses on the electro-magnetic properties of the tape machine, as Zeh shoves magnetic pieces of metal into the mechanism to interfere with the signal flow. The result is ominously insectoid humming and scabrous noises that increase in density and velocity over both pieces of this vinyl, collapsing into a exhausted smolder of corroded drone and hiss.

Review of Hammer Anvil Stirrup

Read it here.

"The sounds created aren’t always musical. One of the key sonic components of Jason Zeh’s '3 Examples of Extended Tape' is tape hiss along with other noises and hums created by three cassette players run through a mixing board."

A Vacant Lot To Be In Review On Vital Weekly

JASON ZEH - A VACANT LOT TO BE IN (LP by CIP)

The other new record on CIP is by Jason Zeh, of whom I first heard on the same label, and whose work since then has my interest. Zeh is one of the few people I know who uses extensively cassette tapes, processed in extreme conditions, to create some excellent musique concrete from a very lo-fi point of view. Tape is treated with paint, dirt, needles, sand papers, but also tape recorders are subject to similar modifications, and all of these processed recordings are put together with some great effect. Two pieces, one per side and each is described on the cover, such as 'all sounds derived from cassette loops of varying lengths stretched between modified tape decks. Magnets, splicing tape, sand paper and magnetized knife blades have been used to slowly dismantle the recorded source material' and that's what happens over the twenty minutes of 'Cycles Of Doubt'. That piece is throughout quite a drone like affair, whereas 'A Vacant Lot To Be In' is a slow growing animal, reaching it's forceful peak at one point, buzzing loudly with tons of hiss, in a might crescendo ending the piece. Excellent stuff, carved into an analogue medium for optimum playback. (FdW)
Address: http://cipsite.net http://misanthrophicagenda.com

I Have Achieved KC "Metal Local" Status.

From The Pitch

"One spin through last year's double album The Clearing/The Final Epoch, by Chicago drone duo Locrian, puts you in a dark place. It's full of proper apocalyptic noise driven by doom and disaster — breathtaking black-metal-influenced tunes with the power to raise evil spirits and drop testicles. This bill, which also includes metal locals Boreas and Jason Zeh, is the first UFO Show, a new series at Davey's curated by local experimental music sage Pat Hopewell. "Booking shows that other venues are too chickenshit to attempt" is the promise that Hopewell shot us when he announced the series, and it looks like he's on his way to making good on it."

CWNM Write-up

The following is quoted from Jesse Goin's write-up of our upcoming show in the CWNM 2013 concert series.

crow with no mouth is pleased to announce its inaugural concert of the 2013 season – Hong Chulki (Seoul), in his first visit to the U.S., and the return of Jason Zeh (Kansas City, Missouri), who performed in the cwnm 2011 series.

I first became aware of Hong’s music in 2008, when a generous package of Seoul-based noise and improvised music, documented mainly on the Balloon & Needle, Manual and Celdon labels (also Seoul-based) arrived in the mail from my friend William Ashline, a professor at Yonsei University, and long-time listener of improvised music. A small crew of collaborative musicians, performing in an improbably tiny venue, Dotolim, were beginning to generate some positive chatter among experimental music listeners  around the world. This core collective – Choi Joonyong, Ryu Hankil. Jin Sangtae, Lee Hangjun, Park Seung Jun, two U.S. ex-pats who adopted Seoul as their home town, Joe Foster and Kevin Parks, and our special guest Hong Chulki – were making authentically risky music, often boisterous, subversive, even compellingly ugly.

Serving as a sonic antithesis to much of the reduced, micro-minimal sounds issuing from the Seoul group’s occasional collaborators from Tokyo, Vienna, and elsewhere, e.g., Sachiko  M, Klaus Filip, and Jason Kahn, Hong and his compatriots create a sui generis ruckus by means of hacked, gutted and otherwise repurposed junk. Typewriters, clockworks, cartridge-less turntables, CD player entrails – all are investigated for their sound possibilities. I have written twice about this music coming out of Seoul over the past several years, saying in June 2011 …[this music] is made of nearly every ugly sonic byproduct you can imagine issuing from the mechanized, throw-away toys of our time, with meticulous attention to the piece’s overall shape, sound placement and the player’s conjoining of elements.

This is Hong Chulki’s first visit to the United States, and a rare opportunity to hear a musician engaged in an area of improvisation I hear as … neither simply going for your throat, nor studied and airless enough to be regarded as academic; they love that ugly produce, so much so they set aside the lap-tops and guitars they’ve all been associated with to bring the roughness, the rudeness and the ruckus.

I first heard Jason Zeh in 2006, at a poorly-attended show in a record store in Minneapolis slated for foreclosure. On an evening consisting of 5 or 6 sets played to largely listless attendees seated on forensically-stained shag carpeting between rows of rock & roll vinyl bins, Zeh delivered a brief improvised collage, manically manipulating at least seven cassette players of varying vintages; it was brilliant, and I returned home to search the internet for pointers to his music. Finding nothing, I was excited, five years hence, when Zeh agreed to come to Minneapolis to perform on a mini-tour with Jason Kahn and Mike Shiflet. In his second appearance in a crow with no mouth concert, Zeh will offer a solo set, and a duo with Hong, whom he will meet for the first time when he arrives.

In November 2011, I wrote: I want to get after you all a little to look into the music of a tape composer from Bowling Green, Ohio; Jason Zeh has been focused for some years on making intimate, meticulously crafted sound works by every means possible within the medium of cassettes. Zeh shares aspects of an overlapping sensibility with Jason Lescalleet and, specifically in his predilection for nearly entombing rich sonic details in tape-murk, Graham Lambkin.
It is my great pleasure to present Hong Chulki and Jason Zeh together on February 15,  an auspicious opening for the 2013 series.

The three-year anniversary of my blog, crow with no mouth, is also in that week of February, so we will celebrate this music with a few special treats.

studio z
8:00 p.m.
$10
byob

How To Not Do It

So, the more I listen to Jason Lescalleet's How To Not Do It cassette, the more I realize that it is really incredible. I decided that I am going to need to write about it, but first, I needed to check out some reviews of it. As I was reading them, I began to notice that a lot of reviewers seem to be missing some really important aspects of what Lescalleet is doing on this tape. So, here are the links to those reviews until I get a chance to write my own.

Tiny Mix Tapes
Cassette Gods
Driving Guitars
Put The Blog In Its Coffin

"better than I expected."

Here is a review of Polarity.

I will let you decide if the guy liked it or not.

Band: Jason Zeh
Country: Bowling Green, Ohio
Style: Drone/Noise
Label: Handmade Birds

Of all the releases I've covered from Handmade Birds, it may come as a surprise that I actually wasn't all that excited about this one. For some reason this one just didn't strike me as being one of the label's more definable releases, but Mr. R. Loren himself has actually done quite a fine job at sort of building up some hype for this cassette through a mixtape he made and in a brief interview he did. So, regardless of what I may have expected it to be I tried to come into this with an open mind ready for anything. I did watch a video of Zeh performing live (to which I heard were good enough that they should be filmed for a DVD - something I don't really get) and that didn't really inspire much confidence in this release; but when I actually listened to this tape I was actually quite surprised with it. It's not amazing or mind altering, but it is better than I expected. Both tracks feature some really interesting, minimalistic drones that are actually quite captivating for how minimal their structure(?) is. Both track feature very little in the way of variation, with a central drone essentially carrying the track from beginning to end with very, very subtle shifts occurring in the space between. Obviously, because this is only two tracks and both do top the twenty minute mark, it can be a pretty tough listen, and I won't make any defense for it be a difficult tape to get into, but it is actually quite an impressive little release that surpassed my expectations (if that means anything).
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Side A

Woah!

This is a fantastic review of the new Shiflet LPs. "There is no overt passion of any sort in Shiflet’s extreme close-ups of harsh textures, no drama in the churning, processed strings, no sentiment in the long pans over softer-textured aural surfaces, just as there is no emotion in the beautifully rendered close-ups of somebody’s palms on the front and back sleeves." Awesome!

Pitchfork Review

Here is a new review of Shiflet's new records on Type. I am honored to have been a part of these releases.

New Startless Reviews

The new Vital Weekly features reviews of the two new Startless releases.

Overall, Frans doesn't seem to like them that much, but does refer to them as "intelligent noise matter." I appreciate the sentiment. Given that he doesn't completely bash them, I think that his evaluation is based on personal taste rather than anything else. So, I will take the criticism with a grain of salt. He knows what he likes and he doesn't like it when music moves into more harsh or chaotic territory.

New "Dots" Review.

This is a really nice review from Richard Pinell. An excerpt follows, but you should check out the whole thing at his Watchful Ear Blog.

"The really nice elements of this music are the qualities of the individual sounds. From the opening scratches and scribbles to the deep, dry, gradually building roar that lights up the central section of the disc, there is a really nice feel to all of the sounds here, not just a throwaway electronic screech or a bit of static, but sounds discovered on the surface of tape, full of detail, history and a sense of natural texture."

Crow With No Mouth

The always astute and eloquent Jesse Goin has posted a nice essay about the Startless release Circulation Decay as well as my Brombron collaboration with Ben Gwilliam entitled Dots. The piece can be found at Goin's Crow With No Mouth blog.

Below is a taste, but be sure to check out the rest of the blog for specifics about the two releases mentioned above. Also, be sure to browse through Goin's other writing. His blog exhibits consistently high quality analysis of both recorded work and live performance. Additionally, through his Crow With No Mouth Productions, Goin curates a really top notch performance series.

"Jason Zeh has been focused for some years on making intimate, meticulously crafted sound works by every means possible within the medium of cassettes. He has looped, posted, manipulated, burned, frozen and punctured magnetic tape in compositions that, should you give them your close attention, reveal hermetic, muted worlds of endless, super-saturated detail and activity. Zeh's skeins and spools of sound almost always play out around a hushed, submerged column of smokey droneage, Zeh bending, warping and mangling the details as they appear and float away.

Magnetic tape has conveyed musical content for so long, the lineage of musicians who have turned their sights and manipulative hands on the medium itself are really few and far between [Zeh's contemporaries, limiting the field to instrumentation, are most notably Howard Stelzer and Stephen Clover, a.k.a. Seht]. Zeh shares aspects of an overlapping sensibility with Jason Lescalleet and, specifically in his predilection for nearly entombing rich sonic details in tape-murk, Graham Lambkin."

More Links Than Content

I got a couple of presents in the mail today. The first is a box of Human Quena Orchestra Lps. This is the vinyl version of the A Natural History of Failure CD that was originally released on Utech Records. This Lp version was released by Handmade Birds, a label that is going to release a cassette for me as soon as I can get it together to finish the final edits. ANHOF is a marvelous, post-industrial, doom record that I was fortunate enough to be able to contribute to along with Matthew Reis, Brandon Nickell, Renata Castagna, David Graham, and Ryan Unks. I have 5 copies. If you want one, let me know.

Pictured with those records is the new Joe Panzner CD, Clearing, Polluted, on Copy For Your Records. You can find a write-up by the very eloquent Jesse Goin at the Crow With No Mouth blog.

Milwaukee Noise Fest Write-up

Here is a write-up of the recent Milwaukee Noise Fest. I think that it is a nice introduction to the broad spectrum of aesthetic choices that are often lumped under the "noise" label. One stand-out quote for me describes it as "a music scene that strikes a balance between the deliberate and the unhinged while allowing individual performers to tip that balance toward either extreme."

Mike Shiflet has just posted a writeup of the Show in Minneapolis a couple of weekends ago over on his blog. Among other things, he had this to say about my set.

"Zeh’s set has taken a unique turn, discarding the cassettes and focusing on the sounds of the decks themselves. Dense layers of mechanical drone and electric hum swirl around the room for twenty minutes or so and it is absolutely enthralling."

"Another project born of the will of Frans de Waard and of his Bronbron. Encountering this time in the extrapool studios in Nijmegen, Holland, is the thirtieth prodigy of sound sculpture Ben Gwillam and the master of the art of ...tape recording Jason Zeh. Coaxing sounds from old magnetic tape cassettes is the sound source utilized by two musicians for their improvisations. After five minutes of mechanical noise and silence, a wretched drone takes over and proceeds intermittently creating for a short moment the effect of an incoming storm. Then, still more events: the needle of a turntable; the sound of dust; and other microearthquakes amplified as needed." Translated by Nathan Crook.

Dots Review

Ben Gwilliam/Jason Zeh - Brombron 16: Dots (Korm Plastics)

For Dots, part of the collaborative Brombron project, tape composer Jason Zeh and sound artist Ben Gwilliam used sounds from prepared tape, machinery and 'other magnetic sourcing including posting, freezing, and puncturing tape.' Over 45 minutes there is a lot of silence, punctuated by clicks, scrapes and hiss, all muffled and opaque. A bass drone flickers and is disrupted by static, warbles and collapses. At one point a choir holds a note, becoming a gorgeous angelic 'Ahh', and mixes with an industrial cicada-like whine. They conclude with a dense, grey drone, like Thomas Koner or Francisco Lopez. There are moments of attractiveness amid these scenes but little to make sense of, and why they've been put together like this is anyone's guess.

Joshua Meggitt

Respect

I had a strange experience last night. A Swiss man named Reto Mader played in Toledo OH, about 30 minutes from my home. A few Months ago I was contacted by someone at Ramalama records in Toledo about playing this show. After determining that I was able to do the show, I looked into Mader's work and became really interested. I got excited about the show and was really interested in playing at Ramalama because it is part of a dying breed of independent record stores. However, i was a bit skeptical. In general, I have had bad experiences with the owner of the store and, more generally, I have had bad experiences playing shows set up by people who do not specialize in noise, EAI, or other out sounds. I was willing to give it a shot.

I felt good about my set. I was able to try out some new stuff in a relatively low risk situation and it turned out well.

Reto Mader, aka RM74, was kind, gracious, and enthusiastic. This was the last stop on a brief, 6 day tour in The States. He originally came out here from Switzerland to play the Utech Records Festival put on by the phenomenal Utech Records label. His set was really strong. It was a sophisticated combination of dark drone metal and high brow improvisation using a bass, kalimba, other devices, and loop pedals. There were three basic kinds of pieces that he played each of which resembled songs in their fairly clear use of a beginning, middle, and end. He began with an interesting percussive piece gently pounding out and looping rhythmic passages using a mallet on the body of the bass. He then layered in some drones and bass riffs on top. In the middle there was a mind bending, multi-layered, polyrhythmic, Kalimba piece that was incredible. The rest of the "songs" were looped and layered bass riffs that sometimes included pre-recorded sounds and/or synthesizer drones. These were really atmospheric, somewhat dark, and very powerful. However, after a while, they became a bit repetitive as each one followed much the same format. Overall, I was really pleased with his set and was very thankful to have been able to see it.

We chatted, traded music, and had a good time.

The only problem is that there were roughly 5 people in attendance including myself and my partner, the woman who was touring with him, and two other friends of mine. The person who had set up the show did not even put up a flyer at the record store, nor did he stick around to see the show. In fact, the amp he brought for Mader to use did not work. Reto thought the promoter had gone to get another amp, but several hours later we began to suspect that he had simply gone home. Luckily Gabe Beam, one of the audience members agreed to bring his amp.

I was really frustrated by the lack of respect that the promoter showed for our guest. I explained to the guys at the shop that, theoretically, we are all on the same team. We are all trying to make life in the area less shitty for ourselves and for others. We do ourselves a disservice when we prove to people that their preconceived notions about the Midwest are accurate.

The promoter called to yell at me. It was a lot of silly drama, but I think I realize now that it is rarely a good idea to contact people who are not musicians to set up a show. A friend, Blake Edwards, has been talking about putting a simple primer on how to set up shows properly and I think we need to do it. Here are my brief guidelines.

If you are setting up a show, at MINIMUM, you owe out of town bands the following.

1) A simple meal.
2) A place to stay, even just a spot on your floor.
3) Promotion including online posts and a flyer.
4) Gas money.
5) The consideration to show up and pay attention.
6) Adequate equipment that meets the performer's needs.

Keep this in mind people. Lets all be friends and help each other out.