It's been six weeks, but Sonic Masala (the blog) is back! We have plenty to speak about, shit on about, brag about and listen to. We haven't been idle - the sixth entry into the Sonic Masala Records stable, Dollar Bar's third LP Hot Ones, is now out and smokin' hot; the second annual (that's right - watch out 2016!) Sonic Masala Fest kicked arse in Brisbane, Australia; and just last Saturday we had our first live showcase right here in London, featuring Giant Swan, Yaws, mnttab and TOOMS - officially an international concern!
So I thought the best way to come back into the written form is with a bang - so here is the premiere of 'Post Meridiem Construction', the new track of Andrew Tuttle's second proper release Slowcation, out on Room40 cassette imprint A Guide To Saints. Featuring Matmos' MC Schmidt, it is a soft melt, the drip filter of whiteout afternoons, where the sun is out but colour drains from the canvas. A netherland of overt emotion, it provides the perfect platform for reflection, rumination and regrowth.
The album itself perfectly encapsulates the fervent yet awestruck fever one gets when in the presence of a positive energy that Tuttle embeds in all of his work. The A side was created while Tuttle toured the States, taking in such diverse outsider fare as the Goldrush Festival in Denver and hanging out with Matmos and Dan Deacon; while the B side was created back on home soil, with the vacation turbines still winding down. Starting with that familiar warm cut up tone of Tuttle's trusty banjo, 'Vernon City Limits' glistens with an eternal shimmer, like solar flares on a slowed-down Super 8 video of a car journey through an innocent past (with the aid of Christopher Fleeger). There is always a percolating sense of innocence and hope in Tuttle's work (dating back to the early days of his Anonymeye guise), yet on Slowcation there is a innate confidence in his efforts to splice and reorder sonic structures entwined with a subversive joy in overlaying bucolic whimsy and happenstance over synthetic currents that sets this above and beyond what he has put to tape in the past. Even the pinging fray that opens 'Wave Triplet' explodes into cascading colour, aural sparks of kaleidoscopic wonder. Tuttle has become an artist in displaying the computer as a expansive palette, a conduit to further realms for more organic instrumentation, and Slowcation is further proof, if any was needed, that programming and hard edits can provide transcendental epiphany.
Slowcation comes out at the end of the month - pre-order it here. Tuttle has a series of shows coming up to showcase the release, so make sure you get along to one of the below and say g'day - he will definitely say g'day back and have a beer and talk cricket if you are into that sort of thing:
• 23.04.2015: The Bearded Lady, Brisbane. with No Magic + Feeding Fauna + Blank Realm x Monopoly Child Star Searchers DJs. 138 Boundary St, West End. $10, 8pm.
• 03.05.2015: Pretty Gritty @ 107 Projects, Sydney. with AFXJIM + Monica Brooks + CORIN + Samuel James. 5:30pm-9pm, $10/8. 107 Redfern Street, Redfern.
• 04.05.2015: Mundane Mondays @ The Old Bar, Melbourne. with Carolyn Connors + Brite Fight. 8pm, $5. 74 Johnston St, Fitzroy.
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