Jagath are the team of marginal experimenters from Russia who take their work outside the recording studio and conventional venue, and do it in abandoned or deserted industrial sites. On today’s record Svapna (COLD SPRING RECORDS CSR304CD), they took their instruments and their flambeaux to a disused swamp drain in the suburbs of Perm; the site happens to date from the Soviet era, and a less inviting locale you couldn’t imagine…there are full-colour photos of it across all six panels of the digipak, and at first glance I thought the entire ground surface was covered in an evil industrial chemical by-product rich in toxins, but now I reassure myself it’s just a blanket of snow. Jagath insist that their work is a “ritual”, and each track here presents a distinct stage in their invented ceremonial practice. I seem to recall that Devalaya, their previous release, was more pessimistic than this one, which somehow manages to contain more air and space, and the sounds don’t carry the same threat of violence. There’s no “digital synthesis” here, and not much electricity by the looks of things; Jagath get their results using natural acoustics, their own voices, and found objects, plus a collective effort in generating and sustaining the ritualistic approach. Sympathy towards the Ukraine is strongly implied in the dedication of the album to “the victims of totalitarian regimes”. (24/10/2022)
New cassette from the American trio Euphotic, comprising Cheryl E. Leonard, Bryan Day, and Tom Djll. We heard their previous cassette Isopleths thanks to Jacob Heule, who sent us a copy. Today’s Conjugate Regions (IKASUS-117) is on the Finnish tape label Ikuisuus with nifty Brian Wetjen cover art. Again, the ploy is to create sound using very non-conventional sources – trumpeter Djll might be the only one playing an actual instrument, unless you include Day’s invented devices. Leonard is one who’s more at home on the Californian seaside picking up whatever flots may pass her way, such as driftwood, seaweed, shells, rocks, bones, feathers and sand, and using these bounties from nature as her own personal orchestra – perhaps a little like Jeph Jerman, friend to many a cactus and hollow log. Conjugate Regions does tend towards the long-form and the friendly sprawl, but it’s much less scrabbly than many Public Eyesore / Bryan Day items, and the trio purport to “traverse time and space” in these “drone-focused tracks”. There’s this constant tension between the familiar and the strange. While Cheryl Leonard is busy cultivating her connection with nature, the crazed electronics of Djll and the peculiar instrumentation of Day is pulling in other directions. A title such as ‘Jovian Whistlers’ does much to implant the suggestion of a science-fiction paperback cover or story set on planet Jupiter, very fitting for the alien sounds herein. Yet there are no shocks or noisy jolts; the trio conduct themselves in a restrained and subtle manner, constantly working away at their benign rattles and drones, like ancient Cretans diligently weaving on a loom. (26/10/2022)