Why tapes? They’re cheap, for one. And they’re analog. And they’re awkward. The flat platter of an LP has grace to it, and a CD too, on a smaller scale. A tape is clunky and weird and boxy and as ill-fitting as your 15-year-old self and did I mention cheap? The first albums I ever bought were on tape, and in a way, I feel as in-between generations as a tape must, having been sandwiched in format succession by records and compact discs.

Plus, with some (as with records), you don’t even know where one song is supposed to end and another to begin. So yeah, tapes. And if you’ve ever read anything Chris “Woody” MacDermott has written for this site, or had any interaction with him of any kind, the name “Duuude, Tapes!” for this new feature should make perfect sense.

We start with a couple sent over by Prairie Fire Tapes, an imprint based in Winnipeg that specializes in obscure-type limited whathaveyou from a variety of styles. The sister label to Dub Ditch Picnic, they recently shot over two tapes for me to check out. Oak‘s Silent Spring, which is released on the label, and the 2012 self-titled debut from local sludge devils, Scab Smoker.

Scab Smoker, Scab Smoker

It’s a rough, blown-out, cave-echoing morass of noisy sludge. At times, Scab Smoker‘s Scab Smoker rages with punk animosity — a glued-on and peeling label on the plain cassette itself only enhances that atmosphere — and then the Winnipeg-local three-piece slam on the breaks and effect a huge, fucked-up lurch. The six-song outing — it moves quickly and I’d call it an EP — was self-produced and self-released, and here and there are moments of discernible bass, drums and guitar, particularly in their more Sabbathian moments, and maybe even some burgeoning melodies, but for the most part it’s a rough, demo-sounding barrage of noise, buzzsaw guitar, heavy-reverb vocals and compressed-cymbal lumber. I dig it, but it’s not an easy listen. Still, the sense of worship runs strong throughout and the tones are flat-out mean. “Death by Natural Causes” and “Call of the First Aethyr” make for a sound closing duo, and I’d wager their attack is no less deranged-sounding in a moldy basement than it is coming through the speakers of my tape player. They’re all but absent on the interwebs — no word on whether that’s ideology or they just haven’t gotten around to it — but there’s an old Scab Smoker MySpace page with a demo of “Black Queen” you can check out.

Oak, Silent Spring

An official Prarie Fire release with a pro-printed liner and the label logo screened onto the orange translucent tape itself, Oak‘s Silent Spring harkens to ethereal Sleep worship in its rhythms and vocals and finds the Swedish four-piece with a well-conceived execution of post-stoner ideologies. The riffs that begin opener “The Obligation to Endure” are thick and seem set to climb a holy mountain, but Oak are also relatively quick to play off those ideas by shifting into meandering post-rock jams, making Silent Spring atmospheric in its less brash moments and enhancing the overall listen. The sound is clear and not blown-out, but still rough enough to give the six-track full-length a natural vibe to go with its strong track-to-track flow, and while its groove isn’t built solely on massiveness of tone, Silent Spring satisfies on that level as well, thick reverberations sustaining from hard-hit guitars even as post-metallic flourishes of effects play out alongside. “Tribal”-type percussion feels overly familiar, and they take their time getting where they’re headed, but Oak do a lot to distinguish themselves throughout these tracks, and their efforts aren’t wasted. Hit them up on Thee Facebooks or the Prairie Fire Tapes website for more info, or listen to the 13-minute “The Obligation to Endure” at the Oak Bandcamp.

This is the second interview I’ve done with Ryan Settee, who is the sole driving force behind everything High Watt Electrocutions writes and records. Last time, the occasion was the self-released sophomore full-length, Desert Opuses, which wholeheartedly took on the sandy aesthetic with which lovers of heavy atmospherics should be well familiar by now. As the Winnipeg native was no less brave in tackling instrumental studio experimentalism and hypnotic droning on his third album, The Bermuda Triangle, a follow-up conversation seemed the least I could do.

Though I think there are ideas on The Bermuda Triangle that could have been fleshed out further, there’s something about the solitary nature of the album I really like. High Watt Electrocutions is just Settee. There’s no filter of other opinions and nothing for him to fall back on. The entire mission of the band rests on his creative will, and on The Bermuda Triangle, just as on the moody debut, Night Songs, he proves that will can lead him anywhere at any time.

The album is comprised of smaller instrumental pieces — blips, some of them — that bleed and fade together and gradually emerge as an engulfing and hypnotic whole. It’s not an album you can skip through (literally or figuratively), but Settee‘s indulgences are the gain of those who would be as adventurous in their listening as he would in his writing. High Watt Electrocutions challenges drone and conventional definitions of “heavy” while also developing an identity all its own as a project. It winds up being as admirable in its mission as in its execution.

We covered generalities last time, so for this discussion, I wanted to get deeper into Settee‘s process as regards The Bermuda Triangle and see what in particular inspired him musically and conceptually for the album. He was forthcoming to say the least. If you consider yourself passionate about music on either end, just take a look at how much what Settee does obviously means to him. It bleeds into his every answer.

Full Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.

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By all accounts, Winnipeg native Ryan Settee, aka High Watt Electrocutions, is a man who writes albums based on a concept. High Watt Electrocutions’ first record, Night Songs (2007) was a collection of precisely that, and the follow-up, Desert Opuses (2009), also delivered on its titular premise. Now with a third full-length (released as the first two were on Settee’s own Introspection Records imprint), The Bermuda Triangle, Settee leaves behind both the desert and the night and works within a different sonic context entirely. If there’s a mission, a concept or a theme to The Bermuda Triangle, it’s daytime, sunshine, wandering, and maybe even getting lost on the way.

The album is available in a limited CD pressing of 500 with hand-painted covers. The songs — or parts, anyway — are presented as one long track topping out at just under 39 minutes. I listened through the album several times, ripped it to see the wav form, and came up with a list of 14 different parts. Settee, as I’d later see on the High Watt Electrocutions website, notes 16, and if you look at the file names for the audio samples there-listed, you can see he gives the parts titles such as “Optimism,” “Inevitability,” and “Washed Out to Sea.” The progression of titles and their occasional interrelation makes it seem likely Settee is forming some narrative that plays out musically on The Bermuda Triangle, but as the track is instrumental save for a small section of non-verbal vocalizing and there’s nothing about it anywhere either on the packaging or the website, that’s merely an assumption on my part. If you want to put a story to it, certainly the music Settee provides on acoustic and electric guitar, synths and swirls is plenty open to interpretation.

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As the follow-up EP to their Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep debut Relapse full-length, Culted’s four-track excursion Of Death and Ritual is nothing if not aptly named. In the three originals – the closer is a cover of Swans’ “Whore” – the word “dead” or some variation thereof makes no fewer than 11 appearances. Interestingly, “ritual” only shows up once. I wonder if that’s why they ordered them thusly in the title. Otherwise, Of Ritual and Death would have worked just as well.

Much like they did on the full-length, on Of Death and Ritual Culted dwell in the bleak, dreary realms of blackened doom, like Khanate with a noise fetish. With the instrumental portion of the band located in Winnipeg, Canada, and vocalist Daniel Jansson in Gothenburg, Sweden, you might think there’d be some discrepancy or lack of cohesion in the execution of the material, but really it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. I don’t think “Spirituosa,” “Black Cough, Black Coffin” and “Dissent” would be any better off had Jansson been in the room while guitarists/bassists Michael Klassen and Matthew Friesen and percussionist Kevin Stevenson were developing the instrumental basis for the songs and adding sundry noises and percussions. The trio, who also operate as the black metal band Of Human Bondage, seem to have a pretty good handle on what they’re doing, and I doubt the files had to do much back and forth before the songs were finished.

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Written last night under the guidance of wine and early-morning swelter.

It’s August in the valley, and aside from the haze that blocks out the blueness of the daytime sky, the unbearable heat and the moths seeking refuge in my office/den, I can tell because the wood of my bedroom door has swollen to the point that I need to throw my shoulder into it to force it open. The air conditioner is a constant electric hum — I can’t sleep without it by now. I sweat for no reason. This is my least favorite time of the year, and thus far, where July was over before I could realize how miserable it was, August seems to be lagging like stale desert air. Living in it is a confrontation I keep losing, and there’s only so far one can retreat.

My usual methods for maintaining livable temperatures — chewing ice, going pantsless, fans, spray cans of water, immobility, etc. — have all abandoned me. I idle my car against the advice of the back of the inspection sticker that says, “Breathe easy, no idling.” I survive on iced tea and contempt. It’s summer. And even though I know better logically and would rather spend my time in nihilistic freon ecstasy, occasionally I need to leave the house.

Such was the instance the other night; a drive out and a drive back a few hours later by myself. I made the trip with the handy typewriter case in which I keep CDs I may need on the go and, on the return journey, the inspiration struck to break out the copy of High Watt Electrocutions‘ Night Songs that band founder/lone member Ryan Settee was kind enough to send me following our interview. I was speeding along Rt. 80 leaning forward toward the windshield to see in a sudden downpour, and it was just the right combination of circumstances to make for what I supposed to be the ideal listen to the record, which I hadn’t yet heard.

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By way of a confession, I?ll admit that before I listened to Culted?s Relapse Records debut, Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep, I first checked out the self-titled three-song EP from Howl in a kind of, ?Who?s that doom band on Relapse again?? brain fart. After hearing the two side by side, there?s pretty much no question. Howl complement their Ginsbergian name with Lamb of God-style riffing and Culted viciously bite off pieces of Khanate atmospherics while popping pills of half-speed Nachtmystium psychedelia. No real question which is the doom band.

But if there was one to start with, it?s only because Culted — a four-piece with three members in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and only vocalist Daniel Jansson in the correspondingly northern climes of Sweden — are so frickin? new. Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep is Culted?s debut, as in, no EPs, nothing. Just one self-released demo and this. Information apart from a narrative of mutual appreciation leading to collaboration on the part of Jansson and multi-instrumentalist Michael Klassen (credited with guitar, bass, percussion and noise) is sparse as to when they actually got together and made the record happen, and for the most part, the six mostly extended tracks are left to speak for themselves.

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Since High Watt Electrocutions main man Ryan Settee prescribed a headphone listen in the liner notes, I broke out my dusty old pair and went for it as directed. Yes, I do everything liner notes tell me. It?s not a bad way to go through life. Beats religion, anyhow.

Sure enough, as Settee promised, a listen to Desert Opuses (Introspection Records) — the second release from the Winnipeg songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer under the High Watt Electrocutions moniker following 2007?s Night Songs — through even the dingiest of headphones proved that the tonal richness and layered density is best experienced at close range and ridiculous volume. The ringing guitars of ?Slow March? that follow the distinctly Middle Eastern tones of ?Ode to Snakecharming? feel like they could eat your head whole and launch you on some psychedelic journey into the rainbow colored belly of a giant lizard. Like a scene out of some acid cartoon. Like Queens of the Stone Age gone spiritual.

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