riley walker - the evidence of things unseen - plus tapes - cass - 6$
The story of American Primitivism is well documented. We know John Fahey and his Takoma Records. We know Rabbie Basho and his acoustic steel string guitar. We know that early Leo Kottke album with the armadillo on the cover. You may also know the revival of the avant-garde neo-classical country-blues-ragas by the likes of Steffen Basho-Junghans, Sir Richard Bishop, James Blackshaw and the late, great Jack Rose.
To think that a similarly youthful and equally adept guitarist could be strumming here in Chicago seems silly… But give a listen to Ryley Walker’s latest release, The Evidence of Things Unseen, and tell us we’re wrong.
Fahey was 19 when he made his first recordings, Basho too. Kottke was 21, and Rose was 22. Walker is right on track at 21; if recordings like the brooding “Sturgeon Bay Drifter” or more lighthearted “Louisa My Sunshine” are any indication, his future is as secure as the legacies of his predecessors.
sarah weis - musik & plus - plus tapes - cass - 6$
From theater to cinema to TV jingles to ambiguous experimental performance, Chicagoan Sarah Weis has been to the edge of new media and back. You’ll find no more clearly defined document of her unique ambition than what might be the first cassette ever that you can like on Facebook using a QR-code reader: That’s right, it’s our latest release here at Plustapes, Musik & Plus. Each of Sarah’s 25 tracks is powered by synthesizers, modest studio tweaks, innovative foley work (such as recording pop-rocks with a waterproof contact mic in coca cola on S T R E T C H) and the most powerful instrument of all: her voice. Hear the futuristic “$amba!” or the static-inflicted “Silly White Girl Inside the Electro-Magnetic Field” or the beatless brilliance of “Z-Pops.” Hear it all… Musik & Plus, in other words.
coins – recital pressures - plus tapes - cass - 6$
Occasionally we come across a release that takes the time to mine the spaces between sounds, the gaps between notes, the negative space between reverberations around your headspace or headphones or walls of rooms, down hallways, through concert venues. Coins understands this because the group was borne from these same spaces, founded upon the power of a single Kinks cover between sets for Sybris and Reds and Blue.
Since then, Angela Mullenhour and Ellen Bunch have come together full-time to conjure haunted spectres of late-night beach folk trafficking heavily in what is not said. Their ethereal tiki torching and unfussy instrumentation enables Recital Pressures to glimmer.
Fall asleep on the beach, in the waves, wherever – Coins speaks to you; Coins waits for you.