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AST120 - TSAP - FLICKERING LYGHTE IN CAMPSITE 12” LP
After a 2019 tape on Total Black and another, titled Eating A Tree, earlier this year on AST Newcastle / Sydney duo Tsap finally spawn-forth this long-gestating LP. So far the duo, made up of Chris Colla (Orion, The No, early Low Life, etc) and Cooper Bowman (Altered States Tapes), have played two shows - one in a Sydney bowling club and another inside a former Go-Lo in Newcastle’s mostly-abandoned mall. This goes some way to illuminating what you can expect on Flickering Lyghte In Campsite.
As with their previous output, there is no fencing keeping the two captive and beholden to fickle generic convention. There are bleak, low-BPM techno creepers ‘Operating In The Dark’ and ‘Raising The Carnyx’, approaches to the furthest edges of the minimal-wave continuum in ‘Two Eyes Right’ and ‘Staircase Wit’ and iterations of Pagan House in ‘Faith In Stone’, ‘Indefinite Ancients’ and ‘Gorseddau’.
Altho’ the term is frequently bandied, this is one for the ‘trew heads’. I’m not sure even I completely understand it myself and I make up 50% of the hands that turned these knobs. In a time where much (techno or otherwise) barely reaches beyond the surface level, I can’t think of a better zone to occupy.
The album features cover art by Nick Blinko (reproduced with kind permission of Henry Boxer Gallery). Blinko is one of our favourite ‘outsider’ operators and a member of legendary anarcho agitators, Rudimentary Peni and The Magits.
The album’s back cover and insert images were chiselled by Sydney’s Yuta Matsumura, who we equally respect the output of, whether behind the posca or as an Oily Boy / Low Life / Oreo.
From Yellow Green Red:
"Sorry to disappoint, acid-folksters, but the album title is a little misleading. This Australian duo is comprised of Chris Nailer (of Low Life) and Cooper Bowman (of quite a number of Altered States-related projects), and they set up shop in the mustiest corner of their basement for some groggy post-industrial electronics. While utilizing synths and rhythms, these tracks veer pretty far from any sort of organized techno music, mostly finding themselves in murkier territory that’s more about conjuring a mood than moving one’s feet. I’m reminded of recent-ish solo efforts by both Ron Morelli and Richard H. Kirk in the way that electronic pulses and lo-fi noise combine to provide the nocturnal outline of an unkempt metropolitan zone. There’s something about the way these sounds are delivered (with cavernous reverb and seemingly on-the-fly) that feels looser and more exploratory than others pursuing post-techno dread, somewhere between noisy industrial and industrial-techno (never has there been a thinner line). “Faith In Stone” might be my favorite cut of the bunch, strongly reminiscent of Morphosis, whose space-station beats and fractured synths always leave me satisfied. And yes, that’s original Nick Blinko art on the cover, sure to trick at least one stubborn punk into accidentally listening to electronic music for the first time."
credits
released July 26, 2020
Mastered by Mikey Young.
Artwork by Nick Blinko (c/o Henry Boxer Gallery) and Yuta Matsumura.
We ackowledge and respect the traditional past, present and future custodians of the land on which this album was recorded, the Eora and Awabakal peoples.
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