Friends of Histamine Tapes will undoubtedly know by now that ambient guitar drones over field recordings are some of my favorite things. I have attempted over the years to not be pigeonholed as an ambient label, but try as I might that stuff is my bread and butter. You all come out in droves to listen when these types of albums drop and HT and I am appreciative if a little disappointed that I can’t get as many folks into the noisier or more improvisational work that I release.
When Robert Eggplant reached out to me I was a crossroads of realizing this. Realizing that I maybe needed to back to my roots a little bit, before I made the HT sound a little too broad. I certainly won’t be limiting my self exclusively to the ambient banner, but definitely want to have a lot more of that on the label going forward. This tape is an excellent example of what the HT sound is.
While certainly improv based that are familiar refrains in this fog of deeply effected guitar jams. Robert Eggplant is surely no stranger to reverb and delay, and perhaps that’s a Chase Bliss Mood I hear in there at some moments, or at least a good approximation of those warbley tape effects we all know and love. He then layers these over dence field recordings of national forests from Arizona, Utah and Oregon. I can feel myself returning to these places in my mind. What a road trip! The American West is truly reimagined and decontextualized in a way maybe only fans of Jean Baudrillard would understand. This make me want to go to these places.
Its funny I dubbed these in winter and felt then were an excellent accompaniment to the desolation of snow covered corn field and cattle pasture, but now that the heat has come on as I am releasing this I feel this music is equally fitting.
Come take a trip with me and maybe grab a tape while your there:
https://histaminetapes.bandcamp.com/album/prairie-dogs-ht088
Next up for HT:
If I get up the gumption there will be something new for Drone Day.
Next tape is from the Berlin based U.S. Expat Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt and Austrian noise artist Brii Bauer, for there collaboration Afghanistan Mon Amour. Inspired by the issues ongoing in Afghanistan this piece is the spiritual opposite of Robert Eggplants album. Very raw in your face noise meets looped samples of those tragic voices affected by the long drawn out western occupation of their lands. Releases June 23rd.
Here a taste of that one:
https://histaminetapes.bandcamp.com/track/malala-song?action=download
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