(Already Dead Tapes, 2017)
It’s awfully lonely out here in space with no one to keep me company except this computer bank of barely human AI programming. I mean, I’m a chemically fused circuit away from a full-blown malfunction that’ll have this HAL9000 wannabe trying to pop me through an airlock as soon as it gets the chance. So with the constant stress of wondering when my number’s gonna be up weighing on me like it was on a planet with an atmospheric pressure of Earth times ten, I need something to take my mind off my demise, something soothing, something reminding me of the beauty of the vastness of space that I can glimpse through my cockpit’s transparent shielding … something synthy.
That’s how it starts, anyway, with this whole Ichtyor Tides release, a calm, vaporous stasis chamber called “Holgaze,” maybe a state of being, maybe the advent of a new musical genre, who knows. What I do know is that it doesn’t last, as various technological permutations and static manifest as music through the progression of “EN-BRUNSIA.” Even when a rhythmic element appears, as one does on “Stroir,” there’s still enough background noise to remind you that this is an ambient record, and that microscopic machinations beyond my immediate attention are proceeding apace. Of course, this allows the idea to enter my brain that my STUPID COMPUTER SYSTEM (I know it’s listening or watching or monitoring, whatever it does – it knows how I feel about it) would switch off the life support. You think I’m worried about giving it ideas? It’s been able to extrapolate every possible scenario of this whole trip from the moment we embarked – I’m not worried about taunting it at this point. If it’s cranky, it’s cranky. Or … Kranky? Yeah, back to Ichtyor Tides, the label, the inimitable Already Dead Tapes, mentions Kranky in the liners, something about Stars of the Lid or some such nonsense. You hear that you STUPID COMUPTER SYSTEM? A RECORD LABEL gets what you’re up to! You think you’re so cool, so smart.
Well I’m just gonna let “EN-BRUNSIA,” with its references to asteroids and its alien-language track titles, wash over me like a narcotic wave, an ocean wave, filled with narcotics, that I bathe in while visiting my mind-beach, becoming narcotized by the “EN-BRUNSIA”-ic waters as they lap my body, half-submerged, reclining, shades on, blissed-out, not worrying about whether air is reaching my lungs or not. I am not lonely in the presence of “EN-BRUNSIA.” Wait, is air reaching my lungs or not? Pft, I wouldn’t be surprised if this STUPID COMPUTER is slowly reducing the amount of oxygen in the cabin, putting me to sleep gently so I don’t try to fix whatever problem it’s causing. Ah well – it’s in control now. In control and in cahoots with Ichtyor Tides to hasten my undoing.
Don’t be scared. Be thrifty! Buy tapes, and buy one of these sweet C55s, released in a batch of 60. I have number 28.
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