Mike Griffin, as Parashi, is one of the most prolific noise artists in the upstate New York region, both on his own and in collaborations with others, such as John Olson (as Spykes) and Noise Nomads. Against Eugenic Massacre features him doing what he does best: a murky combination of psychedelic electronics, incidental rhythms, and mysterious ambiences that perfectly balances between harsh experimentation and complex environments.
Right from the first moments of "(No Consequence for) Glacier Burner," Griffin's artistry is obvious. Opening from a mass of ray gun pulses and crunchy fragments that vaguely imitate a rhythm, that blend of sci-fi electronics and organic textures are clearly on display. Shifting the mix to the occasional open, haunted space, erratic outbursts o what sounds like helicopters and off-kilter pitched tones add to the cavernous mystery of sound. With "Glacier Burner" covering the bulk of the A side of the tape, the brief "Klangermann" almost resembles a coda with its brevity and subtle mix of unidentifiable sounds and manipulated cassette tapes.
On the other side, "Rats in Paradise" is at first a blend of echoing loops and stuttering clicks that could almost be a woodpecker adding the foundation to which Griffin builds. Layer by layer he constructs a denser mix, adding layers over a ghostly, drifting backdrop. Fuzzy squalls and squeaks appear, but the obscurity of sounds and processing give a bit of menace to the work. With some weird buzzing and less distorted tones appearing towards the end, the mood lightens near the conclusion. For the concluding "Ingress" though, Griffin brings things back into the haunted house via random knocking and clattering sounds bathed in reverb and filtering. Static waves and swells in sound, and what almost could be a horn of some sort end the tape perfectly.
Parashi has always exceeded my expectations with every new release, and Against Eugenic Massacre is yet another example of this. Abstraction and weirdness always abounds, but there is a complexity and nuance to his work that sets it apart from being just "noise." Another great Parashi tape, and an excellent release from the newly established Half-a-Million Records, (the house label for Belltower Records in North Adams, Massachusetts and one of the top record stores in the region).
This short release captures the only performance from the trio. Recorded at Hosei University, Tokyo, on John Duncan’s first visit to Japan in 1982, it is a fascinating document both in the context of that visit but also in terms of the creativity, emotion, technique, and improvisation. The participants are meeting here for the first time, although they were familiar with each other’s work through tape exchange. Duncan is finding and processing shortwave radio signals, Tatsuo using piano, tape loops, and synth textures, and Phew vocalizing in English and Japanese. 
Three years after the mesmerizing Homage to Dick Raaijmakers, Thomas Ankersmit is back with yet another bombshell inspired by an underappreciated electronic music visionary. In this case, that visionary is Maryanne Amacher, who also happens to be the person who fatefully introduced Ankersmit to his Serge modular synth. Naturally, the Serge retains its central role from the Raaijmakers album and Ankersmit masterfully wields it again to conjure up another hallucinatory swirl of phantom sounds and strange aural phenomena. The conceptual themes are bit different this time around, however, as Ankersmit explores the ideas laid out in Amacher's "Psychoacoustic Phenomena in Musical Composition: Some Features of a Perceptual Geography" essay. Unsurprisingly, Ankersmit does a stellar job psychoacoustically mapping out his own compelling perceptual geography with this release, but his most striking bit of sorcery actually occurs off the album, as the piece was engineered to trigger otoacoustic emissions, which are "sounds emanating from inside the head, generated by the ears themselves."
Newly reissued on vinyl (and digitally) with beautiful new artwork, Paradise Lost was originally released as a cassette back in 2019. As is the norm for many Chalk releases, additional details beyond the fact that it exists are quite thin, but this one takes that to an amusing extreme, as the Discogs entry for the original cassette notes "label and artist name are not listed on the release." That said, I believe I can say with moderate certainty that these two longform pieces were recorded on an 8-track reel-to-reel between 2016 and 2018 and that Chalk primarily played a synthesizer. Also, his Ghosts on Water bandmate Naoko Suzuki contributed some very well-hidden vocals and created the artwork for the original tape. To some degree, it makes sense that this album originally surfaced as a very limited-small run tape, as it does not feel like one of Chalk's more significant opuses, but it is quite an enjoyable and interesting release nonetheless. In fact, the title piece feels like legitimately prime Andrew Chalk material to me, though I suspect many longtime fans will be more fascinated by the surprising and divergent "This Pendent World."
Minneapolis-based Magic Castles make a glorious return with their fourth release on Anton Newcombe's label, weaving together jangly hooks and minor chords and slathering it with fuzz. The release is triumphant in that it was released at all, following the band's 2016 hiatus and songwriter Jason Edmonds' near-fatal car accident in 2019, not to mention contending with a pandemic. Sun Reign is a lush and dreamy masterpiece of layered musical intensities, awash in evocative imagery and heartful melodies.
Forthcoming.
