SOME REVIEWS

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YOUR OWN SHADOW BLOCKS THE LIGHT compilation tape
"This is a wild and diffuse compilation of bands who flop over a lot of genres,
most of them abrasive, caustic and brilliant. As diverse as this is, it can also be
seen as a greasy tribute to lo-fi guitar, the moredistorted the better. Culver and
XXIII are two bands that deliver the most muddy pop, thoughDestroy all tie
fighters makes the most of plain old feedback. Mosaic antenna uses loops to sicken
the stew, and the yuriyuri increase the decibel level to a slightly painful degree.
All the bands on this comp inhabit a late night auto-body shop, where the sit in the
greasiest bay and brood. "Your Own Shadow Blocks The Light" is a quick set
by like-minded bands, whose sonic assaults are gleefully deranged and grimy.
This is music to play at the barbeque that gets rained out, to help make squirrels,
ants and relatives just go away and leave you to drink alone. 8/10"
- Mike Wood / FOXY DIGITALIS (10 June, 2009)

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PLEASURES AND DAYS: live
"Helsinkilainen Pleasures and Days on naita musakomboja, joita kuullessa
tulee mieleen "miksi en ole kuullut nailta mitaan aiemmin?" Live (Hyster, 2008,
KAS) sisaltaa riemukkaita keikkaaanityksia vuosien takaa.
Mätkimispainoitteista synapoppia ja huudantaa, villia meininkia. Depeche
Moden ja Alien Sex Fiendin äpärälapsi on loytanyt isoisansa vanhat
natsivermeet ja luulee, että Vangelis oli punkkari."
- HUUHKAJA PÄIVÄNVALOSSA /Thursday, June 12, 2008

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GREY PARK: 2 X Live at Koko Theatrere
YOUR OWN SHADOW BLOCKS THE LIGHT compilation tape
"It’s always been a pleasure to review anything by Finland’s outstanding
Grey Park and this release proves to be no exception.
Sitting either side of a recycled cassette come two live sets of the finest industrial
ambient experimental shortwave analogue lo-fi drone work compositions its been
my pleasure to sit and listen through for many a moon. This really is up there with
the best of the genre [what ever that is] and the fact that it lies in obscurity on a recycled
cassette available for a measly one and a half euros only enhances its genius.
Since 1998 all Grey Park releases have come on ridiculously limited cassette or CDR
runs and every one that’s been through these hands has been soaked up with the
appreciation of a connoisseur. It wasnt until 2007 that they appeared on vinyl
and then a limited run single platter.
How this has come to pass when theres garbage getting money thrown at it like confetti
at a wedding is one of the injustices of the time. But don’t just take my word for it.
Use that email and disappear into a world of slave ship beats, low hertz tones, radio static,
industrial emptyness, dialogue samples, drainage pumps, the shipping forecast, helicopter
landings, steel works ... all of it a seamless fit of grand design. Releases like this make zine
writing a pleasure.
Grey Park also appear on the Hyster comp "Your Own Shadow Blocks The Light"
along with other Idwal favourites Culver plus a few others. Regular readers will know that
Culver can do no wrong and here again the drone quotient of buzzing guitars hits the spot.
XXIII hit things found in a school music room for 12 minutes whilst Kytö & Suihkonen
carry on in an eerily scraping way. Destroy All Fighters piece of ghostly vocal drenched in
some seriously destroyed guitar is worth buying this for alone. Mosaic Antenna and Yuri
Yuri complete the line up with some equally fine bouts of earthquake like rumbly noise and
high pitched whine. All round magnificence.
Hyster tapes are one of those labels that consistently release sounds of outstanding quality
and direction and for which, in return, they seek no publicity or reward.
Releasing quality merchandise on recycled cassette seems oxymoronic in an age when all
thing digital hold sway. All the more reason for you to track these nuggets down then."
- IDWAL FISHER /Monday, 5 May 2008

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CULVER: they killed suzie carter
RE-CLIP: notes 99-09
"..back to Hysters monochrome vision and recycled cassettes. Culver fit in to the
monochrome ideal well seeing as how Culvers main home is Matching Head,
another tape label with a black and white philosophy. Culver fans wont be disappointed
with these two tracks; one a murky trudge round an underwater cement factory,
the other an ohm drone, a burbling range of notes that if stretched across a hundred years
would be worthy of Cage.
Re-Clips Notes is a 16 track comp spanning the last ten years of their existence. Its a
slightly trippy slip and slide mix of hypnotic broken analogue beats, field recordings and
spacey ambience thats hardly original but still listenable. Im not averse to such working
but on recycled cassette the finished product is lost in a midden of muddy mid range.
All the above are cheap, welcome and come in editions of 50.
- IDWAL FISHER blog /Saturday, 21 November 2009

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PLEASURES AND DAYS: live
YOUR OWN SHADOW BLOCKS THE LIGHT compilation tape
"This is a tape, on which are collected various live tracks by Pleasures and Days,
from the years 2002-2004. They have the definite feel of genuine old-school
industrial - beats, simple backgrounds, Lauri Luhta's angry, blurry vocals.
The sound quality is rough, with audience noise and other distractions, but that too
just seems appropriate. Particularly No More is a really catchy tune, which benefits
from being captured from the stage.
For me, it shows exactly why the old timers of industrial managed to be so impressive
with even crude rhythmic expressions. On the other hand, when one listens to this
tape several times, it becomes noticeable that there aren't that many elements in the
music, and it could just as well be fully playback as it could be intensely live-made.
Then again, when one compares it to the same tracks which are on the Peak Age
album, one has to but appreciate the extra edge they have gained here. And in any
case, Absolute Othereness is a damn fine song.
Pleasures and Days is clearly a band that needs live circumstances in order to really
reach its full potential. On this tape, that has been done. If you're into slightly melodic,
strongly rhythmic retro-industrial, do pick this up and give it an active listen."

"This collection of tracks by apparently Finnish experimental artists contains both the
easily anticipated basic things as well as surprising genius. Most of the songs are
unfortunately from the first category, offering guitar-minimalism, just-generic-minimalism,
or develop nowhere.
Luckily the other side is represented too: Grey Park's Asian Driver is all its simple
monumentalism one of the bands best tracks ever, a short wave of sound that says
all that needs to be said.
On the same level is also Mosaic Antenna, who with rough, simple sounds dig into the
deep recesses of the listener's soul. In general, this tape leaves a bland feel - far too much
of the contents just grinds in place, going nowhere.
There is no change or development, nor do the repetitions give any reason to seek hypnosis in them
A couple of good tracks and a lot of secondary fillings.
Does not really inspire further listening."
- KUOLLEEN MUSIIKIN YHDISTYS / 11.03.2010

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PLESURES AN DAYS: live
"Aanitteita vuosien 2002 ja 06 valilta. Viisi kappaletta koneilla ja ties minkalaisilla
instrumenteilla. Heti alkuun taytyy sanoa etta nauhoite tai nauha on ihan paska,
aani patkii ja heiluu, ettei siina mielessa ihan oivallinen arviointikappale.
Ehkei tama ihan paska sinansa muutoin olisi, aika vinksahtanutta meininkia. Valilla taustoista
paatellen voisi kuvitella kuulevansa Sylvia tai jotain nopeampaa ja hamyisempaa versiota
Depeche Modesta. Vokaalit ovat senverran hautautuneet ettei niista saa oikein taytta selkoa,
mutta melko lupaavaa huutelua tuntuisi olevan.
Ei ainakaan mitaan hittimaakimista. Harmittaa hiukan kun tata olisi mielenkiinnosta voinut
kuunnella hiukan paremmallakin soundilla ja minahan en tosiaan mikaan hifisti ole.
Muunkinlaisia julkaisuja tuntuvat pistaneen pihalle ainakin myspacen perusteella, en tie
sitten onko aanen taso tata samaa. Tai hei, ehka se onkin juuri se idea.
- TOINEN VAIHTOEHTO nr.222 (6/2009)

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RE-CLIP: notes
I like these moments, when I can hear something new and be completely in the shadow
as to who is making these sounds. When it comes to re-clip, Im quite sure Id know the
person by sight, but I just wouldnt know that that particular person is behind this tape.
However, it doesnt really matter. In fact, all the better. I can put on this compilation tape,
released by Hyster Tapes and recommended to me by said labels operator, and wallow
in the blissful electronics, not knowing who the man behind these lovely lo-fi beats is.
It is inevitable, that one day I will learn the identity of re-clip, but until then, Ive got this
tape and I will play it at night, while riding my bike, to friends, during the day, at work or
whereever I please.
Electronic music-aficionados probably remember how good Aphex Twins Selected
Ambient Works-compilations are. This tape sort-of continues in that vein, consisting of
selected recordings spanning ten years of re-clips existence. Low fidelity beats collide
with ambient stylings, primitive techno and minimalism. As a dabbler in the field of
electronic music, Im in no position to give grand statements, but I can humbly state,
that this is exactly my kind of electronic music. Awesome! Also, this release comes
on recycled tapes. My copy is recycled on a russian vocabulary tape. Listened to
closely, one can hear the original audio playing in the background. How exciting is that?
- ERRORKRAUT blog / 11 JUL 2010

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SECOND ONE comp. tape
...The prosaically titled ‘Second One’ though is a real winner, a far more
upbeat affair for the most part with some fine head bobbing moments and a classic
track from the ever groovy Crank Sturgeon. Five tracks on one side and a side long
outing on the other. Aiko kick things off with some sample madness and what sounds
like photocopier noises layered on to amp buzz and a gently strummed acoustic guitar refrain.
Cleavage pump out eight minutes of murky heavy duty arms out straight, jab em into the keys
Emeralds like synth throb. Crank Sturgeon provides some garbled Schimpfluch lunacy in which
un-synced hand claps and Dada verbals mix with someone trying to talk whilst drinking and having
a piss at the same time. Re-Clip meanwhile appear to have morphed into some kind of Mego
tinged slow analogue beat machine. Not bad in a swaying, meditative Midwich kind of way. Which
on side one leaves Hiss Nausea and almost four minutes worth of distorted to buggery gabba beats.
This comp would have been just about perfect had it not been for the last ten minutes of the Varropas
track ‘Moln pa Drift 1978’. A gorgeously fragile side of crumbling drone in which a small and
recurring wobbly hit string motif is pulled through a landscape of wheezing machines and outer space
burbles. Even the deterioration in tape quality at the onset adds to the all round ambience, as it continues
upon its wavering path it grows in volume until the tape runs out. If it had carried on with its miserable
start to the very end I’d have been happier but you can’t have everything can you?
- IDWAL FISHER blog / Sunday, May 22, 2011 1:08 PM

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DEAR BELOVED HENRY / ALBERT MATERIA: split
Hyster are Finnish too. I remember them for a particularly impressive live Dieter Muh release and for
the fact that all their releases arrive on recycled cassette. Who Dear Beloved Henry is I have no idea though.
Here he give us a single 24 minute track of tape spool drone, sea side organ slowed and distorted, fingers on
fast running capstans until a revelation of its source; a Casio thump beat, a two chord keyboard chug with
plenty of right hand plink to while away the dying minutes.
Albert Materia’s mainly piano built songs sound like Cecil Taylor doing a David Sylvian impression in French.
On the first track you can actually hear him approach the piano and take a drink before cracking his knuckles and
launching into a song in which each machine gun strike of the piano matches a vocal utterance.
Anyone familiar with David Sylvian’s more out there moments will feel a similarity with the eleven minute, self
explanatory ‘Lullaby’. The French [?] accent, the mournful, wobbling delivery, the minor chords, the sense
that I feel Materia is making this up as he goes along all adds to the charm of the piece. With his voice wavering
between a dithering falsetto and a stuttering fa fa fa f-f-f-f-resh-ness he manages to imbue his songs with a naivety
thats rarely found these days. His lyrics are also worth hearing:

I am the people
Where is my heart?
I am the chatter
I am the the noise, noise
I am the springtime noise

Its all rather marvelous. Somebody should give him a recording contract.
- IDWAL FISHER blog / jan 05, 2012

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HISS NAUSEA / NOLLS: split
Hyster is an interesting proposition of a label from Finland releasing tapes dubbed entirely from found cassettes,
with what looks to be a focus on Baltic and eastern European projects.
Mine is a Portugese-learning tape from 1988 (from Finland, of course), which I think would have been pretty trippy
on its own. But its new life as a split tape is more interesting thanks to Hyster.
The Hiss Nausea side (a Czech solo project) is made up of one sidelong piece. The opening section features vocal
incantations of all kinds, with plenty of heavily distorted microphone and looping. There are waves of extreme noise, but
mostly it’s steady but sparse, with barely recognizable source sounds and internal feedback creating a weird
improvisatory sequence. Eventually, some guitar finds its way into the mix, again with extremely sludgy distortion.
The piece at its midsection is a sludgy metal dirge with vocal chants and slow, atonal guitar chunking.

Nolls is a dual guitar-and-drums trio (from "Finzch", according to the label’s site) playing a set of improvised
hardcore. The power comes in waves, with occasional vocalizing, in an unbroken set of a half-dozen tunes with titles like
"Sunrape" and "Alpha Mail." Super scuzzy, disgusting recording quality. Fits the found-cassette
- FOXY DIGITALIS / jan 3, 2011

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UTON / GREY PARK: split
Uton describe their sounds as ‘experimental psychedelia’ which works OK, but I’d much prefer haunting ritualistic
missives in which Keiji Heino mutters the odd word into an egg whisk [this on Sähköhomooni]. On ‘Aquarias’ the
warbling vocalese as last heard on Hamburger Lady reappears this time with a trickling stream, restrained guitar thrash and
gently struck milk bottles for company, its as if motherly Gen was trying to sing you to sleep whilst Heino [him again] practices
downstairs with his headphones on. The rest is equally as joyous.
Grey Park’s three tracks span 1979 to 2012. I’m guessing ‘Black Keys’ is the more recent work, a looped two
note synth refrain that morphs into a seriously melancholy thrum in which the movie sampled phrase ‘black keys’ is looped
and morphed into decay. ‘Waiting Music’ is a mid Hertz hum with wheezing accordion and tapped cymbal for company
and I’m guessing that the one minute and twenty seven seconds of electric guitar scrape, bass pluck, drone and adult voice
manipulated to sound like a baby crying is the track from 1979. If so, then bravo.
- IDWAL FISHER blog / oct 28, 2012

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VARROPAS: Untitled LP (Hyster 16/Ikuisuus IKU-039)
I first listened to this LP back in September after returning from the Cleckheaton Beer Festival. It was one of those perfect
late summer days when the sun shone brilliantly and the sky was a brilliant azure, not a single cloud in sight. Arriving home
I put my feet up and put Varropas on the turntable [it had arrived that morning], within minutes I was instantly adrift, the beer
swirling around my head, the sun beaming through the window, it was one of those unforgettable moments in life when
everything seems just about perfect. And then I fell asleep.
Such is the languorous pace that Varropas proceeds at I decided that the only way to experience it and report back was by
being in a fully awake, fully alert state. I had a bit of a wait but when I found the prime conditions I played it again. And then
again. And again. And I’ve been playing it about once a week ever since. I may end up playing it over and over again for
the rest of my life.
Varropas are a Finnish duo who create loop like sounds from [lets look at the cover and guess] cassette tapes. The results aren’t
that dissimilar from what Stuart Chalmers is doing in Bristol and in his quieter moments Neil Campbell - multi layered loops of
tape tone and synth and electric guitar all mixed to form a new whole with, I dare say, the odd electronic gadget being poked at
during the right moments and perhaps a toy piano, I could of course be totally wrong. Add in some dubby sound effects and the
result is one of those extremely rare releases that begs to be played continuously.
There are two side long tracks with ‘Clipperty’ setting the pace with a Sci-fi like soundtrack where an alien nation sends
down greetings to earth via the medium of some carefully played reverbed synth keys. The Clangers exchange greetings afore
a stoned out of his head John Fahey remembers he can only remember five notes and plays them in a loop until the needle lifts.
Its a spaced out stoner classic with traces of an electric guitar bleeding through like Fripp trying to turn Eno on with some languid
rolls down the fretboard, the gentle rocking of a wooden ball in a hollow log. And thats the way its stays for the best part of a
quarter of an hour.
‘Bogdanovin Tektologiya’ picks up the baton on side two and its here that the dub effects really take effect - a wheezy
accordion lets go a repeated solitary note, a teleprinter churns out the football results, a banjo string is plucked from twenty miles away.
The pace is funeral in the extreme, like wading through syrup after ingesting to much Largactil. Its a weed burners dream where the pace
is reduced to bare life presence, a blip on the monitor, still breathing but only just.
Varropas have appeared before via Hyster, a label who release plenty of good music of a similar vein, most of it on recycled cassettes
that cost but one single euro to purchase. Its one of those labels that you envisage as being your own in a ‘no promo bar photocopies
flyers and only a very basic website’ way. Its a split with fellow Finnish troupers Ikuisuus and one of my favourite LP’s of the year.
- IDWAL FISHER blog, Thu, Nov 28, 2013

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FOUR LETTER WORLD comp. tape
Hyster is a Finnish label specialising in the more austere end of the no-audience underground. Artwork is from the photocopied greyness
& musty collage school. The tape releases are recycled and lovingly battered. The artists tend to be Northern European beans sweeping
round the iron-filings factory. So far it’s all pretty dope. This simple little tape opens my ears to a few unfamiliar names and presents
the ever-wonderful Yol in a new context. Here goes…
Crap sampled horn and heavy dub effects over a skronky-ass scribble open the proceedings with a piece from LEITMOTIV LIMBO.
Then there’s a gap…and then the slum-horn strikes up again. It’s all over in under 3 minutes and I love the off-handedness of this.
There’s a serious ‘I don’t give a fuck’ to the way it’s shaped and presented. Like the slouching teenager outside the off-license...
he doesn’t even want you to go in and buy some Special Brew for him…he just wants to see you squirm like a middle-class liberal.
GREY PARK are a perfectly named project for this kind of gristle. There’s a bone-freezing dawn mist outside. But, pulling on warm socks
and boots, you crunch through the most beautiful field of silver-frosted grass; each blade a perfect pewter shard. Looking back you see your own
heavy footprints creating rhythmic dark patches like rough stitching on a blanket.
Breeze block rumble and the cough-glotty howls from cattle baron YOL opens side two. This ‘disappointing human-head pulled out’
kinetic-poetry and furious violent honks are artfully tempered with some real subtle tin-tapping, stone grumble and an almost hissing scat coda
from our man from Hull. Six minutes long and over in a flash.
The mid-1980s synth tone mumble over record-player-run-out-groove ‘schhhhlip, schhhhlip’ and recorded babble make %20 come across
like Tangerine Dream got a bonk on the head. Recorded live in Chomsky Bar, Riga it says here. I picture this played on Newcastle’s
Diamond Strip at closing time. Tottering heels and big-armed boys slow the dance from which all dances come, the hen-night quietens to silence
and all take stock of bitter lives lived. No one returns on Saturday.
- RADIO FREE MIDWICH blog / March 19 2014 9:26 am

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FOUR LETTER WORLD comp. tape
side a
reminiscent of fusion jazz and transcendental psych-dance, the first song is a high octane repeating two chord progression accompanied
by crude sax wailings and accentuated with what sounds like sticks on pots and pans. It fucking rules. the second song is mysterious but
thematically similar. It could be from the same band and the saxaphone seems to open up a bit and show a larger tonal and improvisational range.
But then (?!?!?!) the cassette clicks off? Bummer! I dunno what happened, maybe a recording whoops ...
A long interval of silence occurs until a new and more intense frequency slowly rises in volume without break. Like an approaching tornado,
it sounds like wind and the wind sound gradually increases in volume. Slowly its clear that the tornado is pulsating to a specific time signature,
or beat. My brain slowly listens to the milliseconds of frequency until miniature melodies emerge from the wicked tornado. Subtly and mysteriously
through the chaos of feedback, the noise jam evolves at a turbo rate to become on the brink of a headbanger, but alas, it remains just harsh noise.
The song ends without much structural resolution; an unclear, muffled sentence is revealed, but then the cassette jets off. Pretty good.
side b
Do you watch Game of Thrones? Because the first song of side B of this cassette sounds like Calishi's husband reciting a vengeance ritual to
his tribal followers while Clanging a cow bell and sawing a jagged blade through a skullbone ... one man against the universe here. Utter desperation,
plain and simple, you don't get many songs like this, at least not in this galaxy. I can't say it's not extreme.
The second song could quite possibly be an example of Helsinki Mind Control, as it's some cool contemporary chill psych noise jams and I was mesmerized.
A keyboard chord progression is a gentle return to structured sanity after recorded verbal assault of the prior song. Although the looping vocals and skipping
record hiss cutoff is soothing, we anticipate more harsh noise, but instead we're presented a bluesy moog synthesizer... the record skip serves as a time keeper
which mimics a percussion instrument. These ingredients make something both edgy but within the boundaries of a classic 4 part looping electronic rock act.
It even starts sounding a little like Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack.
I have to take some points off for technicalities. The cassette had a lot of dead air and I don't know if the song cut off on Side A was intentional, but it was annoying.
- CASSETTE GODS / Jack Turnbull / May 20, 2014

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DEAR BELOVED HENRY / ALBERT MATERIA: split
Hyster Tapes are punk as all fuck – black and white J-card, recycled tapes, photocopied flier advertising their warez (pictured) – and I wholeheartedly approve.
Joe grokked the FOUR LETTER WORLD compilation back in March and as a result Heikki of the label kindly sent this too. Gotta keep that goodwill circulating –
keeps it fresh and vital.
The Dear Beloved Henry side of this split, one 24 minute track titled ‘Advent’, is one of the best things I’ve heard all year. It is deceptively simple in execution:
a flowing electronic drone groove with a vaguely East Asian feel – like 1970s Krautrock that has been listening to a bunch of gamelan LPs – works through the variations.
However, every so often a magnetic pull distorts it off course and adds an intriguing, complicating layer of discordance. It’s like it was mastered to VHS and someone is
now messing with the tracking. Is this an artefact of duping it to an old recycled tape or is this woosiness wholly intended? The result is magical either way.
Sadly the Albert Materia side, several tracks of fractured poetry with piano accompaniment, was not for me. Can’t win ‘em all, eh?
- RADIO FREE MIDWICH blog / October 17, 2014 at 2:26 pm

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KEIJO: Koti kaukainen LP (HYSTER19 / IKU-041 / TNT-33)
Yksi suomen parhaista blues-muusikoista julkaisee soololevyn. Laulukieli on tälläkertaa suomi ja levyn avainfraasi on "Ota mikä vaan ja ala soittaa. Tätä hetkeä
ei tule toista". Keijon musiikki tuntuu hetkessä syntyneeltä. Se on tietenkin illuusio, koska nämä ovat selvästi johonkin pisteeseen sävellettyjä kappaleita.
Keijon musiikki on täynnä rakoja ja säröjä. Se hajoilee, natisee, paukkuu, meinaa jäädä oman itsensä alle, mutta välill äsävellys on niin vankkaa tekoa
ettei se tunnu lainkaan uhatulta tai empivältä - nimibiisi on hyvä esimerkki. Se synnyttää heti halun tehdä oma versio. Koti kaukainen tuo mieleen varhaisen Will
Oldhamin, ajalta jolloin hän vielä julkaisi musiikkia nimellä Palace Music tai Palace Brothers. Blues on varsinkin tekstipuolella aina ollut vaikea lokalisoida Suomeen,
mutta tällä levyllä Keijo osuu komeasti napakymppiin kappaleessa Kuun alla. se on kuin suomalainen versio Willie Dixonin Seventh sonista. Tekstit ovat kautta linjan
uskomattoman vahvoja, mutta Joskus tuntuu täytyy nostaa erikseen esiin. "Jos sinne voi nähdä, sinne voi lähteä" on jotenkin musertavan hienosti sanottu. Ja kappale
harhailee sinne tänne epämääräisesti...
- SOUNDI, 12/2014

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MUSTAT KALSARIT: 7" EP (HYSTER18 / JUMATSUGA / ROCK N ROLL BULLSHIT RECORSD / TNT TAPES & RECORDS SERVICES, 2014)
A punk record from Finland has, by grace of history, the potential to be a really explosive thing, or at the very least, something so weird that it stands in a class by itself. Blame
Radiopuhelimet or the Bad Vugum label or Räjäyttäjät (or even “What Does The Fox Say”) for having set my expectations so high in decades past. Mustat Kalsarit
plays pretty standard butt-rock with some guitar detonation on “Olen Pahoillani” but what really struck me is that the four labels it took to birth this thing almost perfectly
summarized my experience as a listener. “Hyster Tapes” signifies hysteria, the realm of violent possibility that this record was gonna knock me off my chair the second I
put it on. “Jumatsuga” (a word that, at press time, means nothing to me) encapsulates my wan disappointment and confusion when the music turned into … wait for it …
“Rock ‘N’ Roll Bullshit.” By the end I wanted to strap some “TNT” to it and blow it into a million pieces.
- STILL SINGLE blog 2/2015

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TIETOKONEDUOJ&J/LOST SNIVEL (HYSTER20, 2015)
Finnish label Hyster Tapes (named are the former forklift company? My dad would have been proud) use recycled tapes for their releases, 'except when not cassettes'.
They sometimes also release vinyl. Here we have two bands/projects I think are new to me. Apparently Tietokoneduo J&J is a duo doing improvisations on laptops.
Their piece lasts twenty-nine minutes and starts out in a rhythmic way, maybe a bit Pan Sonic like, but without the massive beats. Maybe a Pan Sonic light?
Throughout the twenty-nine minutes they keep feeding this little bit of rhythmic information into all sorts of effects - on their laptop, I assume, but it also sounds these
could be analogue sound effects from time to time - slowing them down. The label notes 'almost touching techno at points', but that's not something I heard in this;
it's a word that has been used wrongly I guess. This laptop duet sounds all right, nothing spectacular or earth shattering; just a decent set of improvised electronic music
with a bit of minimal rhythm. On the other side we find Lost Snivel, with a fifteen-minute piece of music that sounds recorded live, but maybe is not live at all. It's a bit
of a noise piece, which uses the output signal of a faulty DAT tape it seems, being fed through a bunch of sound effects. This is nothing that goes over the top very much,
in terms of noise that is, but it's nevertheless quite a fine piece of, that word again, decent experimentalism. Both sides are exactly the kind of thing that should be on a cassette
release, I think. The cover aesthetics is rather low, but it fits the recycled nature of the tapes I guess.
- VITAL WEEKLY #980

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L´INCORONAZIONE (HYSTER21, 2015)
Another release on Hyster Tapes, who re-use old tapes for their releases, which I believe is a great thing. Very green, if you get my drift. In this particular case it turns to be a compilation.
I recognized Debt Of Nature (the name rather than the music that much, it seems) and R.S.T. (at least, if that was the same R.S.T. that had a release on Corpus Hermeticum, ages ago) but
the other three names didn't mean anything. Oddly enough there is a sentence of information per band, so I learn that record executives can mail Dear Beloved Henry if, based on the two
excerpts they want release a 4LP set. Their first piece is a bit noise based, with loops feedback sounds and something that reminded me acoustic loops, while the other one is a very refined
drone piece; maybe it's recorded with a bunch of guitars and looper pedals in drone modus? Either way this piece sounds really good, but who has the money to release a 4LP set by a band,
which has one tape and one split tape release? Debt Of Nature, still active in 2015, has here a recording from 1983 of some hissy field recordings mixed with crudely cut tape loops on a
reel-to-reel machine. It may blend into the piece by R.S.T., but hard to tell at which point that is, as this is of collage-like nature too. Grey Park opens up the B-side with a rather short piece
of electronics, synths and such, but it's over before one knows this. Autumn Appreciation Society from Frankfurt and offer quite an intense piece of crashing feedback and noise captured in
a rehearsal space for that elementary noise-rock sound. This is a highly enjoyable compilation with some excellent pieces, and the whole thing oozing that 80s feel, complete with black and
white Xeroxed cover. That's how we like these best.
- VITAL WEEKLY #1006

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L´INCORONAZIONE (HYSTER21, 2015)
Solid compilation of obscure bangers from this lovely label. Ive said it before but unexpectedly receiving stuff like this in the mail is what makes life worth living. so we have dear Beloved Henry,
R.S.T., Autumn Appreciation Society, Grey Park and Debt Of Nature, and even though i was only familiar with the latter two acts before i almost started to cry when i ripped apart the jiffy bag
like the greedy fucker i am and saw the lineup. Dont know anything about Dear Beloved Henry, i assume they are from finland, but this is great stuff anyhow. Tender droning fucked up by crudeish
electronics, got me thinking of Crawl Unit or something but i dont know. Crispy and delicate. Their second track is more straight up glacial droning, you never want it to end but it does. Two good
tracks, supposedly being excerpts from longer pieces and there is even a blurbfrom the band requesting interested label to get in touch for a LP release. There seems to be some kind of Debt Of
Nature revival going on, even with some 2015 recordings recently surfacing on cassette. Not sure if ´I am Flashing Towards The Response Track´ on this compilation is new stuff or not, but
extremely nice juxtaposition of radio manipulation, piano samples and field recordings it is. R.S.T. provides with the weird ´In Odio´, lots of stuff going on and I dont know what to think about
this one. Theres this strange and very loud drum segment in the middle of the track which is pretty stupid and cool. Grey Park is still going wrong and unfortunately their ´Logic´ is way too
short and very quiet, but i think there is a piano somewhere. Autumn Appreciation Society seems to be from Frankfurt but thats about the information ive been able to find. Gritty and muffled sounds
of god knows what, with snippets of what could be sampled public transportation announcements.
- FÖRDÄMNING #8 zine

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L´INCORONAZIONE (HYSTER21 , 2015)
Hyster Tapes brings forth this e.p. length compilation offering of electronic wizardry. Opening and closing with untitled cuts by Dear Beloved Henry, my interest wandered a bit while DBH
screeched through several minutes of nails-to-chalkboard audio trickery. Debt Of Nature follows with nearly eight minutes of more listenable tonal landscaping. R.S.T., Grey Park and
Autumn Appreciation Society fill in the remaining space with creative but not quite captivating offerings before Dear Beloved Henry come to bat to round things off. All said, this is a listenable
but not necessarily inspiring offering. The compilation nature of the album with multiple artists does tend to break up the sameness of many single artist tapes in the genre. This format is to be
encouraged when presenting relative unknowns into the spotlight. Plus marks for concept. The tape comes with a black and white homemade j-card insert contains artists, track names and times.
This is housed in a standard Norelco plastic case. The only label info is catalogue number and year of release (2015).
- Bob Zilli, CASSETTE GODS blog / Tuesday, March 15, 2016

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ZOE POLANSKI: Inertia: music from the motion picture (HYSTER23, 2017)
Heres a new release on the label that only uses recycled tapes and Zoe Polanski sometimes is called Bela Tar
according to her bandcamp under that name she is from Israel. I am merely quessing here if this is all true.
On Discogs it says for this tape: "Original scrore [sic] for the motion picture "Inertia". Dir: Idan Haguel, 2015",
and that this is a single sided tape. It is the only release listed by Zoe Polanski. The film exists, according to
IMDB and its plot summary reads like this: "Mira Segal wakes up screaming one morning to discover that her
husband has disappeared. The police open a Missing Person file and advise her to wait. As weeks turn into
months, Mira continues to search for him while exploring her own desires and the guilt of not wanting him back".
Four pieces here on this cassette of eerie electronics mostly, played with bit of sound effects for extra-terrestrial
treatment. In the last two pieces these electronic treatments sound like a recording of a string orchestra
being processed and it has that somewhat vague ancient Hollywood feel to it, a fairground soundtrack in
black and white, but stretched out and alien. Obviously I have no idea if this is the kind of soundtrack that
fits the movie very well, but as stand alone music it surely works quite well. (FdW)
- VITAL WEEKLY 1075

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ZOE POLANSKI: Inertia - music from the motion picture (HYSTER23, 2017)
Real film vs fake soundtrack // fake film vs real soundtrack // real film vs real soundtrack // fake film vs fake soundtrack

I started to ponder this conundrum and then just gave up. This may or may not be a Zoe Polanski or a further pseudonym - Bela Tar - but what this is, 100% truthfully, is one damn fine tape of pushed-out synth/sampler swoop with the buttons taped down on the "ecstatic strings" option.
Imagine taking one split micro-second of 10CC's "im not in love" and smearing that Brummy "ahhhhhhhh" all over 20 minutes of atmospheric and recycled tape. Imagine catching a drip of MBV's sampler-drek "hhuuuuuuhhuuuuu" and coating your atmos with that saucy ferric message.
"Capiche?"
Like an endless happy yawn the constant dragging of the orchestra pit makes me sleepy and lightheaded...but for such a brief soundtrack, moods and motifs keep emerging so im also on caffeine-soaked red alert.
The two note breathy faux-voice crops up hystering across the mix like a sea cow or something in "Mother's Theme". A sepia-stained, 6th generation dub of (perhaps) a smoke-filled cinema organ adds rhythm to the beautiful yet creepy "TV Nightmare".
- RADIO FREE MIDWICH blog / April 11th, 2017 at 7:13

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L'INCORONAZIONE (HYSTER21, 2015)
More ultra-lo-fi tape scrapings from the house of Hyster.
My copy is taped over a "Pallo Punainen" release but sounds excelent and full and wobbly, especially as DEAR BELOVED HENRY hawk out a couple of wonderful untitled tracks that seem to bridge the gap between Gastr Del Sol's sweetly-composed minimal whimsy and the raw burst of anger unleashed when you realise your car's been nicked.
No clues as to wat turns on DEBT OF NATURE - bird sounds and cicada-menace haunt their dismal keyboard slouch like teenagers forced to go to Sunday School. They may tit about in the kitchen but the leavings are pure Lambkin.
Irregular tappings and knocks play us out the first side with R.S.T. seemingly rattling some old rubber-junk while a tape of MAx Roach gets more and more distorted in one ear.
Old school hock-rockers GREY PARK reveal a decayed piano tune that doesnt even reach the 3 minute mark but for me could have continued all afternoon - abstrack ivory plonk - what's not to love?
Without a single Ray Davies riff the AUTUMN APPRECIATION SOCIETY sweep up a baffling collection of grim found sound and added scuzz-electronics. If this is an autumn scene in Finland then it seems to be heavily industrial Snow-Plows clunking apart to transform into gilded robots.
- RADIO FREE MIDWICH blog / April 11th, 2017 at 7:13

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ILIA BELORUKOV / JELENA GLAZOVA: split (HYSTER24, 2018)
Music by Ilia Belorukov is reviewed quite regularly in these pages, but not very often, so i think atleast, solo.
Here he has a fifteen-minute piece for "synthesizer & field recordings", which he recorded, edited, mixed and mastered in march-october 2017. We know him from his work with wind instruments mostly, so this is a bit of a chance, i would think.
I am not sure why it took five months for this process of mastering (etc.) as it sounds like very much like a live recording of street traffic, which may (or may not actually) be fed through a synthesizer.
While the piece is best be labelled as "all right, nothing special", most definitely at the length of fifteen minutes, you could also wonder why this has to released on cassette, even when they are recycled (as Hyster Tapes does). A download would have been equally fine?
On the other side we find two pieces for "vocals, controllers & laptop" by jelena Glazova, of whom a previous work was reviewed in Vital Weekly 979 (and released by Belorukov's Spina! label).
Here the work was recorded, mixed and mastered in a period of three months, whereas here too one could have the impression of a live recording with some editing, but who knows?
Maybe the whole thing was bit more complex than what it seems of course. The voice is rendered beyond recognition and in the two pieces become a drone like pattern that goes out towrds mild distortion.
Quite nice, these two pieces, but at fourteen minutes it is also too short to tell quite in-depth what Glazova is all about, but it made me curious about other solo work from her.
- VITAL WEEKLY 1117

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ZOE POLANSKI: Inertia - music from motion picture (HYSTER23, 2017)
There’s something about handmade objects that is much more special than your plastic-wrapped, machine spit-out, printed and stamped bric-a-brac.
I got a whole bag of tapes in the mail and the soundtrack to a movie called INERTIA was one of them and it’s the cheapest and crudest of the
bunch but also the best one because it’s made from a recycled tape, which in this case means a tape got recorded over and someone used a piece of
griptape from their skateboard or maybe some sandpaper from the garage to buff out whatever was printed on it originally. You can feel the
roughness with your thumb and connect with the person who scratched it. You cannot do this with a computer or a machine. If a computer or a
machine makes something it is not an art object in the same way as someone grabbing a Jesus tape, buffing out the titles, and recording some
new sounds over the rambling pastor. This is the best way to do things, the freest way, and the friendliest to mother nature. Upcycled tapes, not
recycled. Why don’t more out there do this? Of the large stack of tapes I received this was the only handmade tape, hell the only one that a
human folded the jcard.
But whatever, the real reason to be sitting here typing away is to describe the SOUNDS on this artifact. The sounds are made by Zoe Polanski
and they are haunting, anxious and beautiful, if not a little dark. A voice echoes through empty space, perhaps there is a forest of dead trees,
the wind blows, something is missing, the voice fades into something else, an organ, then returns, brighter, dark brown turns to orange and is cold.
Mist, a moonless but starlit sky. Mother’s Theme. Dawn breaks and Benny is Gone. The heart beats faster. The mood is anxious and blue, dark blue, a
frozen blue and the sound lifts. I have not seen this movie which leaves me at a strong disadvantage in being able to describe what the sounds are
describing. I know I am at the cinema. I am not watching something happy or joyful. I am not watching something horrific. I am watching something
paranoid, guilty and perhaps scared. I am scared and I am sad and I am unsure. Hush, sleep comes and Mira Dreams. Sleep is peaceful at first,
slowed, lulled and torpid but Mira dreams deeper and the voice comes back whistling through the trees and then it is gone again, replaced again by a
slow, bright swell that soon will ebb and leave us alone, silent and alone before the storm comes roaring overhead in a televised nightmare. Yes I am
at the cinema and when I leave I will take with me all that I have seen and heard and keep it in the front of my mind from years to come.
CASSETTE GODS blog, Ricky Lemonseed / FEB 24 2018
'
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ILIA BELORUKOV / JELENA GLAZOVA: split (HYSTER24, 2018
Got a nice split tape (HYSTER24) on the Hyster label which arrived from Finland. On it, Russian powerhouse and Chieftain tank owner Ilia Belorukov occupies one side the same way that an invading army occupies a small territory of Europe, while the B side showcases two pieces from the remarkably elfin and poised Jelena Glazova from Riga. ‘Try To Have No One Here’ is Ilia’s advice, expressed as 15 minutes of ominous machine-like humming punctuated with packing crates being pushed around in some Hellish warehouse of damnation. Although there are some field recordings on here, it’s done with “synth clicks and undercurrents”, which is kind of hard to understand in this context, but I always dig Ilia’s attempts to limn an accurate portrait of the urban miseries that blight 21st century man. In this instance his answer is a resigned world-weary sigh of one who has all but given up the struggle.
Latvian goddess and multi-media artist Jelena Glazova was last noted by us in 2015, when we spun her split tape with Grigorij Avrorin and found much to relish in the “disconcerting bleak industrial noise” thus generated. Here she offers up two tracks of her cold, relentless, chattering: ‘One Breath of a Flesh Machine’ is a JG Ballard-inflected title for seven minutes of hideously creepy white noise, arranged in pulsating patterns that strike menace into the heart of any passing human being. It comes to something when we’re perceived as mere “flesh machines” by all the cyborgs who now rule the earth, and presumably we’re in the minority now. For those of us who remain, this bitter blast will be our theme tune…as for ‘Serene Sleep Between Death’s Legs’, this is a quite good piece of process drone with filters and layers a-plenty, but it doesn’t roll forth with quite the same dystopian terror-drive. She makes this music with “vocals, controllers, and laptop”, and demonstrates the same sort of mastery over her equipment as a dog breeder with 15 mastiffs at her command.
THE SOUND PROJECTOR / 02.09.2018 Ed Pinsent

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LEITMOTIV LIMBO / RNPno.2: split (HYSTER25, 2018
From the label that recycles old cassettes into new releases comes a split release with one side Australia's Leitmotiv Limbo, of whom I reviewed 'Limbo/Wind Swept' in Vital Weekly 952. As usual with cassettes by Hyster Tapes there isn't a lot of information on the cover. On the previous occasion I heard the music of Leitmotiv Limbo I thought it was a band rather than a one-person project but here I would like to think it is indeed one person. He or she is armed with a synth of some kind synthesizer and electronics at his or her disposal, doing a nice free freak out, playing around with sounds, textures and moods rather than rhythms and sequences. The cover lists five track titles, but for all I know this could also be six or eight or one, but in different parts. It is all a most enjoyable free ride on murky synth tones, cassettes covered with dust and rust, and a wild excursion of delay and other pedals. It is never really ambient, spacious but more your dark trip into a friendly psychedelic nightmare; of sorts. Maybe you get my drift. Maybe not. RNPn.02 as is the correct spelling of the orthern Europathe other side are sold as "assorted electronics, instruments & percussions lying in a mildly intoxicated basement". I assume it is taped in that basement as well with some additional hum on the microphone from the amplifiers used. There is nothing else really than that and they have six tracks here. A set of drums is present, some amplifiers, guitar, effects and perhaps a synthesizer of some kind and the members improvise their way around them. Not hectic, nervous, not rock like but more like spacious, not always musical per se, but trying to work out some kind of lo-fi rock improvisation. It doesn't work out too well, but it is all very much in the spirit of do it yourself. That's what we like! (FdW)
- VITAL WEEKLY 1152
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LEITMOTIV LIMBO / RNP No2: split (HYSTER25, 2018)
This glorious, DIY as you like, split tape from Hyster really is the business. The great Leitmotiv Limbo delivers a side of their trademark music-as-psychic-attack. In a series of smeared moans the mysterious Leitmotiv molds deep throbs from what I’m guessing is some sort of woolly synth and jacked it straight to the dirtiest, most warped tape in their collection for a quick foggy mastering job. Each column of sound is oscillating like a sausage being pumped with sonic gristle and fat. The plump pink hands of the butcher (each fingernail a crescent of blood) are surprisingly agile and gentle as the tube of minced flesh gets heavier and heavier. Now imagine the gory mess being mashed slowly, sensuously into your ears. It’s not all spit and sawdust…things get decidedly holy on ‘Door C’ as a whiff of incense coils like rope hissing through the gates of heaven. The mood is deepened on ‘Door E’ which generates that feeling of helpless exhaustion after an early winter run. You stand, steaming like a racehorse, hands on hips, breathing in the frigid air, the mind a perfect, beautiful blank. In the best possible way Leitmotiv Limbo conjure up the in-between moments of life. The pauses and stutters; the twitches and delicious stretches. A satisfied yawn cast in iron. Side two offers RNP No2, another mysterious presence, who operates in a similar sound world to that great Dane Claus Poulsen but with perhaps more of a pick n’ mix approach. Each piece is a perfect, stand-alone unit showing a variety of styles and obsessions. So, what may be rubber batons are beating gently against a copper tube as a single note is worried and plucked from within a felt piano. Or, on the wonderfully titled ‘The Pink Flowd pecking order’, bristling electric-hums play the drums and collect the empties at the bar at the same time. I don’t know about you but for me that’s classic Prick Mason material. Other jams of note take a tin bassoon feeding back through Jah Shaka’s soundsystem (or something) that slowly turns into early Dead C clanging, ringing and singing. We’re eased out of the listening space with a buffling roar, it could be more rubberised twigs on vibrating pig skin, it could be a puffy cheek slapped until it glows maroon. I’ve no idea what is happening, and what has happened is no guarantee of what is next to come. What a wonderful place to be eh?
RADIO FREE MIDWICH, November 25, 2018 at 11:35 am

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GREY PARK: Olic Banquet (HYSTER26, 2018)
Its been a while but here.s another release from Grey Park on the ever reliable, open to trades, analogue only, recycled Finnish cassette label Hyster Tapes. I.ve just been perusing their rudimentary, two page, not changed since the year dot, perfectly formed website and most of the reviews on it appear to come from me and the Bearded Wonder with a smattering of Vital Weekly and Tape Gods thrown in for good measure. This made me realize that I write a load of old shit at times and repeat myself ad nauseum. Hey ho. Grey Park releases have been passing through these hands for many years now and I.ve never heard one that disappointed me. Packaging has always been a highlight with one release arriving in an inside out coffee bean bag, the artwork stenciled in red onto the shiny once inner, now outer surface. Olic banquet arrives in a slip of white paper with the twelve track info typewritten in glorious not computer font old typewriter font. The cassette is of course recycled and runs through most of one side most of what is, I.m assuming, a C90 before the news in Finnish kicks in. The flip is still blank and there for you to use should you choose to. We find Grey Park on the Experimental Industrial Ambience floor of the Sound Building of Life, their sound that of someone sweeping the floor of an abandoned factory while listening to a distant 1940.s German shortwave radio thats had its last working speaker kicked in. This is best captured on the second track, a ten minute live outing from 2013, a succinct and oddly beautiful trawl through dead frequencies but let Olic banquet wash over you and you will find yourself subjected to; Chinese language tapes being stretched over capstans, the neighing [and trotting] of a horse looped in to rhythmic structures, the click of a run-off groove buffeted by lo-fi rumblings as a female voice drifts in to the ether, the clang of a dead steel triangle hit metronomically as a record is spun backwards at a ridiculously fast BPM. And on and on. A veritable panoply of odd sounds, murk and delight. Todays news revealed that cassettes sales have gone through the roof, mainly thanks to certain popular artists making cassettes part of their release schedule. From being the dominant format 27 years ago they now account for a paltry 1% of total physical sales. Tiny numbers that will no doubt stay tiny long after a new generation of people who cant quite believe two plastic shells holding sellotape with iron filings on them can actually carry sound, has long since worn off. A part of me still likes cassettes though. I have a great affection for them and despite their obvious flaws that will remain so. And while Kylie might shift a few of her latest on cassette I find pop music a total flirt capable of living quite happily on any format with mobile phone being perhaps the mode of choice these days. In contrast, I find experimental music thrives on cassette. Find a cassette player with automatic reverse play and you can listen on a loop, the gentle click of the tape swapping side your only reminder of the outside world. Let it ever be so.
- IDWAL FISHER, Friday, January 04, 2019

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RE-CLIP: noon (HYSTER28, 2019)
From the ever-obscure empire that is Finnish Hyster, there is now a one-sided cassette called 'Noon' by Re-Clip.
Hyster is not the sort of label to expand with many words on either artist or
release, so we have to make do with this: *Nona hora, the ninth hour of the day or the liturgical term none.
change that takes 2 centuries, yet from midday to midnight the sound of it remains the same. also: birds get reduced
to tiny cracks, mechanics of cassette deck gets amplified etc. NOTE: the gaps, drops and "malfunctions" during the
last track are part of the program, all copies are OK". That's the total sum of information here, which is, I think,
not really enough. So, while I have very little idea about the musician(s), instrument(s) and such like I listen to the five pieces
here, and found it likewise not easy to figure out how all of this was made. So here's a wild guess. I think Re-clip is someone
with a flute, a shakuhachi perhaps and some effect pedals, including a loop or two to keep the signals going, while exploring
the flute sounds further on top of that. The results are quite different; usually oddly mellow and spacious, with space being
suggested by the use of reverb, but in 'Heights' it is also quite piercingly loud and nasty. That was something I personally didn't
care for, but the quieter approach worked quite well. It never became 'ambient' or 'new age', but with all these effects from the
lo-fi end of the instrument shop, made it all quite 'experimental' and, indeed, lo-fi. It is vague, it's weird and it's quite captivating.
- VITAL WEEKLY 1176
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YOL & LLOYD & POSSET/RNPNO.2: split (HYSTER29, 2019)
Here we have split tape with on the first a trio recording made earlier this year in Glasgow. It features Yol (vocals and metal objects),
Lloyd (Dictaphone and vocals) and Posset (Dictaphone and vocals). This is music meeting performance art meeting poetry, in a very personal
purge of sounds, captured on tape, voices, vocals, mouth sounds and occasional stumble upon metallic objects. Maybe Yol is reading
from a manual, maybe it is something very private, but I could not quite grasp the meaning of it all. I was reminded of Sindre Bjerga's
solo work here, perhaps more abstract, but with a similar approach to Dictaphones and small sounds. I wasn't blown away by it,
and wondered what made it special enough to release. I am not sure.
On the other side, we have three pieces by RNPno. 2, which were called RNPn.02 before (Vital Weekly 1152) and about
whom I still know nothing. They open up with a fairly long piece of moody drones; it could have been made on a modular synthesizer,
but for all I know it could also have been a bit of feedback that is looped around in a sort of neat ambient way. Before
it was said they used "assorted electronics, instruments & percussions lying in a mildly intoxicated basement", but also in
the other two pieces I would think it is no longer a bundle of instruments and percussions, but surely lots of electronics
and field recordings, certainly for the two shorter pieces. The moodiness here forms a fine contrast with a rough tumble
on the other side of the cassette. RNPno.2 seems have made some progress from lo-fi rock improvisations of the first time I heard their music.
- VITAL WEEKLY 1201

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D.D. DOBSON: ritual bath (HYSTER30, 2020)
Hyster Tapes provide mystery on recycled cassettes. Here we have D.D. Dobson on one side and the other side Jim Goodall and Brad Laner.
But is that they together or two individual pieces? Or is D.D. Dobson a duo of Jim and Brad?
The label's website might not provide that many clues but I think it's the latter. As mysterious as the non-information on the cover, such is also
the music on this cassette. It is not easy (read: impossible) to define instruments as such. I know Goodall is a noise/punk drummer, but are there
any drums insight? I don't know. On the first side, I was thinking there is some sort of saxophone present. But the way it is all recorded makes it
vague and obscured. And yet, there is something highly captivating with this music. Through the haze, there is a shimmer of melody and rhythm
but then re-recorded through three generations of cassette masters from the early 80s, through time and space, into the third millennium. Brush it
up, re-master it and you might be surprised to learn there is a rhythm machine, synth and saxophone at play here. Play- and thoughtful music with
quite a bit of experiment, some minimalist electronics and hazy melodies. I may not entirely understand the obscurity of it all, but it made me
curious enough wanting to find out more about D.D. Dobson.
- VITAL WEEKLY 1248

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D.D. DOBSON: ritual bath (HYSTER30, 2020)
...theres little chance of entering the digital realm with Hyster Tapes seeing as most of their
releases exist as physical objects only, the majority on recycled cassettes that are also a
very reasonable two euros apiece to purchase. To enter in to Hyster’s world is to come face
to face with some exemplary ‘out there’ sounds. You can start your journey at ‘noise’ base
camp in that all the Hyster releases I’ve head come from that germ seed but you’ll soon find
yourself wandering lost in a room where just about anything that can make a noise is
deemed worthy enough for inclusion on a recycled cassette. The D. D. Dobson release is no
different in this manner in that some of it appears to be going in perpetual reverse and here’s
a capstan coming to a shuddering halt and theres several conversations all going at once
with one in particular exhibiting the characteristics of a gibbering lunatic. This is the musical
equivalent of the detritus that accumulates on forest floors and over time becomes mulch t
that gives life to so many other things; a constant chatter of groans, whirrs, chunters and
grunts not as escaping from a human voice box but from that deep mulch sound world. None
of this explains why there’s sections of a syncopated finger-clicking surreality here or why
theres a sirens wail [the classical kind, not the emergency services], or why a warbled tape
presence should be here to set the tone. But it does. A series of cascading and rapacious
tape swirls straight out of the Pierre Schaeffer book. Tell me this was recorded at Studio
d'Essai circa 1953 and I wouldn't think any different and are they really trying to harness all
that electrical power and do they have a van de graaff generator to hand with which to
dissipate all this outage? Russians talking. Drones. And why is there a washed out
Residents track in here? Why not is the answer. And why is someone blowing tunelessly
down a trumpet tube while bombs fall on Libya? Can someone explain this to me? I’d be
eternally grateful. On seconds thoughts …. Russians. A gong shimmering. Residual hiss and
1970’s telephone connection blat. Reel to reel computers going full bore just to send you your overdue leccy bill.
-IDWAL FISHER, Saturday, October 31, 9:35 am, 2020

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SICK DAYS (HYSTER31, 2021)
As far as I know, the releases by Canada's Sick Days that I reviewed were released by Vacancy Records, a label from
Canada who recycles old tapes and put new music on them. More labels do that, and one of these is Hyster, from Finland.
It should be no surprise that Sick Days have a release on this label. Behind Sick Days is Jeffrey Sinibaldi and from his previous
releases I know he uses synthesizers, field recordings and sound effects upon an acoustic object, or as the credit goes for this new release,
"tapes, drones, field recordings, loops etc." On this cassette we find two pieces, one being thirty minutes and one is thirteen.
This new cassette sees sick days moving away from his rougher approach to the world of ambient music and going from something
altogether more refined and quieter. In 'Cold Tones', the longest piece, there is some interesting exploration of a drone and miniature
variations that are no doubt made up on the spot, and it sounds wonderful. The music is kept 'small', with a bit of white noise from using
no noise reduction, which adds to the atmosphere of the music. It sounds as if Sick Days took some inspiration from Eliane Radigue.
In 'Point Abino' (if I read that correctly), the synthesizer is playing along with the recordings of rain and is quite a different piece of music.
This is quite loud, certainly compared to the other one, and yet moves along similar lines, in terms of development, which is minimal.
A fierce rainfall, deciding upon the contours of the piece. I thought this was a great release, a major leap forward for Sick Days.
- VITAL WEEKLY 1291

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LOST SNIVEL: further down the spora (HYSTER32, 2021)
There are two labels in the world of recycling cassettes that I know of (I'm sure there are more), and I love m both. From Canada, there is Vacancy Records
and from Finland hails Hyster. When I first encountered the latter enterprise (see Vital Weekly 980), it was to review a cassette by Tietokoneduo J&J and Lost Snivel.
I checked Discogs just now, and that seemed to be the only release by Lost Snivel so far, with a fifteen-minute piece. That first introduction was a fine piece of music,
nothing that blew me away, but quite decent experimentalism, as I wrote back then. The label describes this new cassette as a release "of questions, answers, found synths,
piano, fieldrec of a squirrel, audience collaboration etc.". I quite enjoy this release, especially for all its vague approach to music and sound. There is a hazy blur that lingers
on this release, of shimmering electronics, of buried field recordings (well, exhumed, really, but with dirt all around it), odd snippets of an unfinished piece of music, or
somebody trying their hand on a few piano notes. It fits the trend of lo-fi sound generators, but not so much because of the presence of small synthesizers and sound effects,
but rather its thrift store character. For all I know, Lost Snivel found a few old tapes and simply transferred those and call the content his own. Some of the diversity of the
material hints in that direction. The B-side is filled with a long 'live at Keith Berlin, 23.3.'16' piece, consisting of a synth rumble on the verge of feedback and people talking,
all slowly fading into vagueness. I love it!
- VITAL WEEKLY 1303 (FdW)

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LOST SNIVEL: further down the spora (HYSTER32, 2021)
No real info where this artist is based or anything, but the label is from Finland and generally recycles used cassette tapes as their medium of choice. This second Lost Snivel
release is a series of small noisy events that sound like they were recorded live and generated by something small and maybe digital. There are stretches of tone-interaction
that feel almost composed, but the way theyre nestled among eruptions of sprong! makes me think this may not be so. Regardless, the music evolves continuously with snippets of vocals,
piano and even "band" stuff that may be heisted or self-generated. No damn idea. And whats not to like about being stumped?
- Byron Coley / Size matters, WIRE #454 / 2021

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JAZZHAND: muuttomatkalainen (HYSTER34, 2022)
From the ever so lovely home of recycled, Hyster Tapes out of Finland, a new release is both a joy and a slight burden. The burden being the fact that the label has no formal Bandcamp site
with neat information. Who or what Jazzhand is, I don't know. Their tape has three pieces, if I understand correctly with a total length of thirty minutes with the music being the same on both sides.
They use electronics, field recordings of bird sounds and it sounds as obscure and great at the same time. The music has nothing to do with jazz music as such, but you could see this as a form
of improvisation or free jazz and then, perhaps, the name makes sense. An element of randomization is surely part of this. However, it doesn't sound like some sounds were thrown together and
that the idea was, 'let's see what sticks'. The music is at times too free and too much like collage of sound that it only partly roots in the world of lo-fi drones. When Jazzhand reaches for that,
the music gets an additional noisy layer, which adds to the variation of the entire disc. At times the music gets quite intense and there isn't much room for subtleness. Somehow that fits very much
the whole punky notion of having a label about recycling.
- VITAL WEEKLY 1360 (FdW)

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DEL STEPHEN: listener (HYSTER36, 2022)
Del Stephen is the operating soubriquet for the artist Stephen Del Duca. His work involves combining found and/or field recordings with live instrumentation – keys, percussion, vibes, bubble
machine, etc – and this single sidedtape fits these various sources together like feet, gloves, hands and mittens. Its hard to know exactly which elements are which, but some of the material was
sourced from tapes recorded in various parts of Canada, where Del Duca has long been based (although he might be living in the UK these days). The music here is a mix of simple melodies and
rhythm constructions, larded with sounds from streets and other unidentified locales. The taped bits don’t supply a sense of place so much as they suggest a phantom audience for a ghost
machine performance held in some large empty building. Ive no idea what the actual situation was/is, but Listener is a very intriguing tape.
- Byron Coley / Size matters, WIRE#469 / 2023

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ARCHIVES ASSISTANT: television road (HYSTER38, 2024)
Now, hang on a minute; what the heck is Hyster thinking? I know this Finnish label as an enterprise for recycled cassettes with Xeroxed covers, and now this? A full-colour digipack with an
actual CD? What happened? Alright, that’s not a question for which I have an answer, except maybe that in my last review of The Archive Assistant (Vital Weekly 1382), I wrote, “I
understand that recycled cassettes mean limited edition, and there are only ten of this one, but I think it’s about time somebody releases a best-of on a format that reaches more than two
hands full of people!” That is not to say this is the best of these older releases, but hopefully, reaching a larger audience. Jordan Cook, the person behind The Archive Assistant, creates
some excellent collages using found sound, adding a wonderful blend of electronic music, which brings out the best of ambient house, but not that much of house, and yet more than your usual
ambience. His opening song, at almost eighteen minutes, also the longest, is a bass-heavy collage of various percussive samples, loosely arranged electronics, multiple stages of delay, as the dub
element is never far in his music, and various segments of drum machines, with the end a more stomping 4/4 beat. This sets the tone for the other pieces, spanning sixty-three minutes of music.
I wrote before that the music sounds like The KLF meeting Zoviet*France on more than one occasion, and this is still very much the case on this CD, and on the understanding that with The KLF
I mean ‘Chill Out’ rather than ‘The White Room’. Strangely off-beat at times, aiming at the chill-out room perhaps, moving back and forth with segments of pleasant rhythmic material,
samples of a more orchestral nature and portions of field recordings from lakes in Ontario. Once more, it is lovely stuff and something that should reach a large audience! Its on CD, and its
readily available in recognition of this great musician.
- VITAL WEEKLY 1423 (FdW)

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ARCHIVES ASSISTANT: television road (HYSTER38, 2024)
The Archives Assistant is Jordan Cook from Peterborough, Ontario and his album Television Road is the first release issued on compact disc by Finnish label Hyster Tapes. He comes by his professional
title honestly, having helped a local radio station cull its library of vinyl and in the process, discovering rare and unheard sounds from the past. “Every record gave me an idea,” he writes, and some
of those ideas are pleasingly realized on Television Road.
Though he doesn’t mention the word, Cook might be considered a Canadian avatar of hauntology – think Moon Wiring Club or Belbury Poly, The Focus Group and a host of British artists on the Ghost
Box label. He crafts his unique bricolage with admirable patience, letting the work evolve smoothly, without jagged edges or smash cuts.
“Libra,” the opening track, is eighteen minutes of undulating electronica with such a mesmerizing effect that only judiciously appliquéd found sound and rhythms cause the listener to stir from his reverie.
The hypnotic effect continues into “All-Terra,” a spectral take on house music that, like most of the pieces on Television Road, morphs into something else altogether. “Peach” has an infectious African
vibe that turns itself inside-out and then scurries off. The final piece is twelve minutes of resplendently manipulated piano and wordless female vocalizations wallowing in thick, gooey dub, which are
unfortunately assailed by sporadic beat attacks midway through. Perhaps that’s why it’s called “Bad News.”
A minor niggle based on personal preference. As a whole, Television Road is an album whose distinct vision and steady handiwork offer a generous hour of invention.
- AVANT MUSIC NEWS, Stephen Fruitman / 02/2024

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