This little tape packs a lot of punch into its swift eight minutes of music.
It’s a double-handed improvised knot, a twenty-fingered salute to the art of moment, the instant, the spark of invention that flashes between us in a creative crucible. And the masterstroke Ryan and Jeff have pulled is getting this ear-mush down for prosperity.
I caught up with Jeff live from Tokyo, him enjoying a pre-dinner Scottish Cider, me slurping on a post-breakfast Yorkshire tea. Timezones innit?
You said this tape was you and Ryan going wild in the University Music Lab. Can you set the scene? Was this Evergreen?
This was all recorded at the Digital Music Lab at Lewis and Clark University in Portland, Oregon where Ryan was a student. This was when digital was a new thing (laughs)! I think I had just moved to Portland at this point, or it may have been in my last few weeks in Olympia. It was after I came back from the UK because the Neil Campbell ‘…is Not Here’ tape came out before this did. (Editor’s note: read all about Neil’s tape in the last post UP53).
The impetus for this was Ryan’s excitement about the prospect of using the digital studio because everything we usually did was, of course, on tape and lo-fi. We just wanted to see what we can do with digital.
We went in late, 10 pm or 11 pm and the studio was basically a couple of racks of synths and something to record to. We wanted it to sound really hi-fi and went totally free-jazz freakout.
I hear that free jazz intention. The first side takes me back to Art Ensemble of Chicago and the bits where everyone is jamming on small instruments; that slow group-creep.
We were listening to lots of free jazz; Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Art Ensemble, Ornette Coleman, Coltrane’s later stuff – all that chaotic free jazz stuff. We probably messed with the electronic sax sounds but they mustn’t have sounded any good. To be honest we just started fucking around but when we listened back, were like ‘hey, it’s pretty good.’
I think we recorded more than is on the tape; this must be the highlights because we were there for two or three hours.
And it’s not edited in any way is it?
I don’t think so. I’m not even sure how I would have edited it unless I dumped it onto four-track. But now I’m wondering where the rest is? I seem to remember coming home with thirty or so minutes of music. It must be kicking around at my parent’s house.
I’m not sure this was on the same evening but I have a really distinct memory of being in Ryan’s school and using the computer lab to try this new thing, the internet. And the first thing I searched? Sun Ra! I was blown away.
I had such a similar ‘first internet’ experience. It would have been Sun Ra or The Boredoms that I searched first; because it was so difficult to find anything out in the late 90’s.
It might have been mainly text but it was pretty cool. You had to be pretty intentional back then which I guess led to some fanaticism that you might not get these days.
We’ve talked in the Irving Klaw Trio interview about your listening changing over time: from something recognisably rock n’ roll to more avant-grade electro-acoustic leanings. I think this happens to every post-50’s generation. I know with my friends we moved from listening to hardcore to jazz somehow; then the next big thing seemed to be Cage and Stockhausen. We’d been listening to Minor Threat then all of a sudden it was Luc Ferrari or something, and we all had that similar journey.
I had the exact same thing happen to me. What you said… (laughs).
I think Forced Exposure started carrying lots of this stuff. The Wego label re-issued lots of avant-garde stuff in the mid-90s. I was working in a record store and was the buyer for Forced Exposure, Dutch East India and Revolver. That musique concrete, experimental composer stuff was trickling in, mainly through Forced Exposure. And then there was all the JVC releases; the world music records, lots of Indian records, Indonesian records and Gamelan was coming into my world.
But if I break it down into some sort of chronological order; in Junior High School I was skating so I was into The Exploited, Suicidal Tendencies, a little bit of Black Flag and then later in High School I discovered Hip Hop like Ice T, then New Wave stuff; Erasure and Depeche Mode.
When I started to play guitar it was Minor Threat, all the Discord everything. I was getting an understanding of local music that led me to Crackerbash and everything else at the X-ray cafe in Portland and then K records and Beat Happening in Olympia where I decided to go to college. Then I go off to school and get deeper and deeper into the Ajax catalogue, all the lo-fi stuff and the Shrimper label. Sebadoh were really important.
Pavement put out ‘Slanted and Enchanted’ in ’92 and I start working in a record store and everyone knows everything about ‘indie’ but also the 70s music that inspired all that; Chrome, Faust all the Free Jazz. Then Fahey and all the records he dug up; Mississippi John Hurt and the Rounder re-issues. I’m reading about Japanese Noise and the amazing records coming out on Stomach Ache.
Phew! Thanks for listening (laughs).
What a trip. I want that journey printed on a t-shirt!
(laughs) One last thing.When I was listening back to the tape yesterday I noticed that the side titles are totally made up. The original tape says ‘Side1’ and ‘Side 2’ but when Neil (Editors note: this is of course Neil Debnam, UK-born Tokyo resident who records as Broken Shoulder and runs the wonderfully eclectic and tasteful Kirigirisu Recordings) painstakingly chopped up all the tracks for me to put on Bandcamp I gave the sides new titles. They are all based on the Bill Cosby ‘Himself’ tape and jokes we would riff on.
So…what does this tape sound like?
The tape title ‘cassingle’ tells us something don’t it? Brevity is to be expected. This is unlikely to be some gritty c90 long-hauler.
And, for once, the title is damn right. At under five minutes, Side A’s ‘Brain Damage’ is very ‘medium-sized-band-free-improv’. I would have said there is a smearing of the Art Ensemble of Chicago but I’ve been listening to loads of Ganelin Trio recently and it has some of their lop-sided, lumpy weirdness. These are indeed knotty clusters of acoustic (or fake-acoustic) noises. Of course this kind of affair is all about the pace, the texture and the placement. And I’m pleased to say it all clots really nicely although tantalisingly itchy in parts.
I flip the tape and Side B is even shorter; a fairly racy four minutes spent with ‘Razzmatazz and the Goot-Goot.’ This side is more of an electronic composition with a nice line in granular ripping and banshee wailing. There’s an overall retro-futurist vibe, like Bebe and Louis Barron popped round for a fondue. And, like the famously awkward melting cheese dish. it’s gloopy and stretchy; sticky on the ears and likely to cause some glorious garlic-scented gas. I dream of Nigella jamming this in her sparkling copper kitchen whispering ‘mikro-wah-vey’ into my tender pink lugs.
You can download ‘cassingle’ here for a measly $1
https://unionpoletapes.bandcamp.com/album/up54-cassingle
OR…you can download the whole damn Union Pole discography of 76 tapes for $5 here. Don’t be cheap!
It won’t surprise you to learn that I often make mistakes! Please leave a comment below if you spot a mistake in the blog or have a tale to tell to drive this Union Pole story forward. Everyone is invited on this ride.
2 responses to “Ryan Poulos and Jeff Fuccillo – Cassingle (UP54)”
-
Delighted that I got a mention here! Chopping all these up was a right pain in the arse but ultimately very satisfying. Apologies to anyone if I messed up the chopping of your music, but I just couldn’t bring myself to listen to the releases as just ‘side A’ and ‘side B’ when there were obvious breaks and song titles. After chopping a few I realised that most of the releases have neither obvious breaks or song titles so I just did my best.
LikeLike
-
Hi Neil – your cutting up of the tracks has been incredibly useful for me. A huge thanks!
LikeLike
-
All my ideas are stolen 
Leave a comment