By which I really just mean Ames’s Matt Dake, he whom is also You Are Home, a drummer in The Jerkles, and former drummer of Longshadowmen, among his many activities. This new digital single from You Are Home just popped up the other day, a greatly enjoyable trancey, grooving, high-energy, polyrhythmic, eight minutes. Check out that gnarly Yes-y bass tone, too!

Matt reports to be be hard at work on the next YAH full-length too. In the meantime, he has other cool things up his sleeve, as he, Bryon Dudley, Tom Russell, are Stratum — a kind of supergroup, really — and have just debuted with this EP of very cool shamanic percussion-and-drone, reminding me of perhaps a more technical Big Drum In The Sky Religion, or Battles floating in outer space. I’m drawing the Thou Art connection just on the assumption that Matt probably recorded it, but I don’t know this for sure.

UPDATE: Matt informs us the Stratum EP was collaboratively recorded at Byron’s studio The Spacement, and there are definite plans for more recordings and live shows (yes!)

Matthew Dake’s one-man recording project You Are Home is known for hyperactive instrumental compositions built around bass guitar and drums that at their most accessible moments sound a bit like some kind of mathy Krautrock version of Lightning Bolt. Depending on who you ask, the results are either amazing, confusing, or maddening.

“…” is the first You Are Home album to be recorded in Dake’s shiny new basement studio setup. It revels in a richer color palette than most previous You Are Home material by incorporating a wider range of instruments. Where earlier You Are Home releases would tend to go for relentlessly bludgeoning, “…” is more likely to aim for a groove or mood you can really get wrapped up in.

“Idiot Police” starts off with a floor-tom roll that sounds like the beginning of The Stooges’ “Dirt”, then launches into a free-jazz explosion of drums, delayed Casio keyboards, and the crumbliest distortion imaginable. After this intro burst, the track alternates between a more guitar-heavy version of the well-established You Are Home sound, and what sounds like a distorted acoustic guitar, possibly recorded though a broken microphone, without ever losing hold of its furious 7/8 riff. The keyboards and junky acoustic guitar introduce one recurring theme I find intriguing in You Are Home releases, that of bringing lo-fi sonic elements into a relatively polished production. Next “Live At The Sands” keeps up the quick tempo and adds a ringing piano. It actually sounds like its title, like Neu or Kraftwerk performing in an exotic outdoor location.

Some tracks on “…” bear the mark of, or may just be borrowing the feel of, looper-based music, a hypnotic, rather mechanical repetition with instruments joining in one at a time. Helping to keep things interesting is a cross-fading of things into each other, such as the way “Dummy” fades into the ambient synths and organ that comprise the first half of “…”, sounding like something that Can might have done on either Ege Bamyasi or Tago Mago (“Peking O” maybe?), which then gradually cross-fades with a 6-beat funk riff that sounds like an intro in search of something to introduce, which then cuts off abruptly just a little after I start to lose my patience with it.

After being treated to a dense glob of noise backed by an intense Neu-ish groove called “somebodyupthereHATESme” and a very nice slow-build drone piece called “My Dirt Makes Your Mud”, we get to “Airborne,” which is the real masterpiece of this album, even though it is technically like another series of scenes fading into one another the way “Dummy” and “…” are put together. There’s a menacing one-note guitar chug forming the rhythmic basis behind a jazzy meandering clarinet and a piercing synth-piano note at regular intervals that evokes the seat belt sign chime on an airplane. It’s then joined by a descending horror-movie piano melody — in fact the whole track sounds like good horror-movie soundtrack stuff. A wide variety of different sounds fade in and out at different times, keeping the scene constantly shifting — there’s Eastern-ish percussion, an upright bass, and some watery synthesizer bloops, organ, and Claire Kreusel doing the kind of ethereal “human theremin” vocals she’s known for in Longshadowmen. By the end only Claire and one long organ chord are left standing, and then even Claire disappears leaving the organ and a distant wind sound to fade slowly out. It’s an intricate, highly layered, carefully constructed piece, particularly given its being constructed from repetitive elements, and is really something pretty special and profound.

Finally there’s “Ditchweed Blues,” a slide-guitar blues goof so raw and trashy sounding that I wonder whether it’s actually Pink Villa. Coming at the tail end of the album following “Airborne” it feels extraneous and a bit jokey but if Dake wanted to end the album on a not-too-serious note, which seems like him, then it works.

Matt Dake’s ADD approach to composition isn’t always easy to follow, and lives at a kind of nebulous gray area between “experimental” rock and the avant-garde. If you already are a fan of weird stuff, you’ll find “…” easy to get comfortable in, very enjoyable but not “difficult” listening. On the other hand, if you’ve found You Are Home dense and difficult before (delightfully so, in this writer’s opinion), “…” is a good opportunity to give it another try. It wins either way.

Around this time last year when I saw Druids selling their excellent Pray For Water EP on cassette at the Gross Domestic Product festival, I still thought the touted “comeback” of the cassette format was just kind of a gimmick. And it is, I suppose. But there being no dominant physical format these days, it does seem like there is certain music that cassette just seems right for. And not only have I found myself digging up some obscure gems from my vast cassette collection lately, I’ve also found that I’m acquiring a startling amount of new music on cassette as well. Here are a few:

The aforementioned Druids- Pray For Water (Ea, Lord Of The Tapes). I think this can also be found on download and CD-R and I think I heard some whisperings about a vinyl version being in the works once. This Iowa doom metal duo sounds epic even on the short fast songs (three of the seven tracks are under two minutes, although one of them is the first of a two-part suite). The longest, “Noise Forest: Ablaze” turns out to be an instrumental built around a Rhodes keyboard or maybe a Wurlitzer, that alternates between post-rock sounding sections and louder heavy parts. I probably can’t do justice in words to how heavy and awesome these guys are and this tape leaves me wanting more every time. They’re playing at Vaudeville Mews the early show this Saturday with In The Face Of War and some other hardcore stuff; Omens, another band with Druids guitarist/vocalist Luke Rauch in it, plays there in the early show March 25 with The Great Sabatini as the headliner and Fetal Pig (which I play bass in, for any of you that are new here) opening. Both are all-ages and get rolling about 5pm.

Pony Time – Pony Time Can Drink 100 Wine Coolers (Dont Stop Believin’ Records). Here’s another two-piece band, but this one from Seattle and doing a kind of sunny-yet-skewed indie pop. My old friend and former Exit Drills / Page 5 Girl bandmate Stacy Peck plays the drums and another guy named Luke (Beetham) plays a chunky-twangy overdriven bass guitar and sings. The vocals have a high-pitched chorusing on them that adds to the weird factor and makes the lyrics hard to make out at times, but the tunes are infectious. Two Billy Childish covers close out the album, and I wouldn’t even have known they weren’t originals if I hadn’t checked the liner notes, because they fit right in to their style. Download code included with tape.

You Are Home – Glacier Grains and Cage (Workerbee Records). Released both at the same time, and I ordered them both at the same time, entries 01 and 03 in Matthew Dake’s noisy, experimental, instrumental solo project’s so-named “Electronic EP Series” (I guess 02 isn’t out yet?). It seems odd to release music this synthesizer-driven on cassette. With both you get intriguing assemblages of loopy mechanized bleepy-bloopy sounds. Reminds me a bit of the early Cabaret Voltaire stuff like what’s on 1974-76.

One of my favorite things in the format is lo-fi cassette compilations. Several have found their way to me lately and I’ve heard some wonderful stuff on them. I’m beginning to think the lo-fi cassette compilation is really an indie/experimental analogue to the hip-hop mixtape.

One was included by Workerbee in the package when my order of the You Are Home tapes arrived, and seems to be an intriguing concept, the “split compilation” — one side from Workerbee and the other from Series Two Records. Series Two’s side is packed with lo-fi pop, folky and shoegazing sounds, while Workerbee’s covers those areas plus some experimental noises and some really great 60s-inspired trashy garage rock. Especially memorable tracks for me come from And Oh So Slowly He Turned, Electric Needle Room (the biographical “James Madison,” almost a lost Schoolhouse Rock song), Flannel, Mike Downey, Shannon and the Clams (awesome spooky-chick 60s rock!), Setting Sun, BAMBRA, Murzik, and The Skeptics.

Rot Box (Unread Records) was of interest for me because it has Samuel Locke-Ward, Ed Gray, and Simon Joyner on it — three midwest songwriters I like a lot and think people ought to know about. Each of them have especially excellent songs on here, and have released cassette albums on this same label as well (including Sam’s legendary Boombox By Bedside) — in fact, pretty much everybody on this comp has. I’d say Sam, Simon, and Ed have probably the best stuff on here, but I could be biased. Woods is on here too, I just don’t remember much about their song right now. Just from those names you probably know to expect lo-fi folk with some experimental twists. I also particularly remember and enjoy Caleb Fraid and Franklin Bruno’s songs. Unread has a pretty extensive catalog worth reading through, you’ll probably find some stuff you want.

I Think I Might Be Autistic (Chthonic Records) also features Sam and Ed (working with Coyote Blood both here and on Rot Box). Sam’s track here has really distorted vocals and while still pretty cool, melodically a slower cousin of “For One Cigarette,” it doesn’t shine quite as brightly for me as his Rot Box track “He’s An Evil Preacher” (possibly one of his best songs ever!). The mix of styles is broader on this than on Rot Box and maybe prevents the compilation from hanging together as a mix, but it has some killer moments. Erik Sahd’s “You Gotta Keep Tryin’” is a big favorite for me on this, a delightful electro-pop tune that gets me laughing and reminds me of Devo, Gary Numan, a little bit of Wire, and The Bassturd. Joe Brook’s “Righteous Man” is a gorgeous folk/country song that I think Why Make Clocks (which I also play bass in) should cover sometime. Gladhands’s “Refrigerator Mother” has “I think I might be autistic” as a line in the lyrics, it’s a feedback-drenched casio-rock number that sounds like it has the guy from Bush on lead vocals, I like it pretty well. Ben Trickey’s “Tangle” is another really nice folk/country tune, and there are some interesting noise pieces too. This label also just put out Sam’s split 7″ EP with Toby Goodshank (The Moldy Peaches) so you know they’re cool.

Different Paths (Greentape 57). No contact info in this one, but a Google search unearthed this. I just got this the other night when I was in Decorah to play at the Elks Lodge with Igloo Martian, Talking Computron, The Ring Toss Twins (aka Moldavite aka circuit-benders Pelzwik and Dinger — check out getlofi.com) and Seeded Plain. The only artist on this I’ve ever heard of before is Office Park, and their track is a droney one rather than a songy one so you don’t get to hear any of Ember’s beautiful voice, but it’s still pretty nifty. The rest is mostly boombox folk, some with banjo, and a couple loopy noise pieces thrown in.

Oh, by the way, that Decorah show was pretty cool. I felt weird being the act that was just playing a guitar and singing songs, and I think I played my stuff much cleaner in practice, but everyone else’s sets were really enjoyable. I did have the distinction of being the set that had people dancing. The same people started doing yoga positions or something during The Ring Toss Twins. I think their set was my favorite, kind of spooky rhythmic ambient electronic circuit-bending and casio sounds that would go over big on My Castle Of Quiet. It really got me thinking about getting my ghetto noise-rig from the early Passage Of Deformed Man Supermarket days back into play (call it a Flight Attendants comeback?). Plus they sell contact mics at their merch, which is brilliant. Talking Computron made chilly electronic sounds, Igloo Martian did a joyful performance art piece, and Seeded Plain opened with their amazing invented-instrument ambient improv (check Public Eyesore Records in the links section of the sidebar). I got one of Nick/Pelzwik’s contact mics and already used it once earlier today to sample a wooden chair and a cymbal stand with a cracked china crash on it into my SK-5. Good times. Here are some pictures:

Talking Computron

Ring Toss Twins' gear

Seeded Plain

And just because it was on my phone, here’s a bonus photo of Pink Villa at the art opening at Ritual Cafe that Why Make Clocks played at last weekend: