Outer Sounds 008 - June 2021

The selection for June 2021 is Tongue Depressor’s In The Quarter Column LP on Red Scroll Records. Tongue Depressor is the duo of Henry Birdsey & Zach Rowden from New Haven CT. They have mostly been releasing limited edition, self released cassettes since 2017 and this is their debut LP. Their music represents the next generation of noise, DIY, modern composition, drone & free improvisation (and even some nods to Early Music). Henry is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer originally from Vermont. Zach is a bassist, composer and improvisor from New Haven. The music on In The Quarter Column feels like a crystallization of their sound and aesthetic to date. Everyone Was There on Side A works on a bed of woozy, droning, plucking tape loops of pedal / lap steel and introduces their approach to just intonation and alternate tunings. It reminds me of a more lo-fi, dissonant version of Oren Ambarchi’s early pointillistic guitar work. A Singing on Side B moves in a more horizontal drone space with microtonal pipe organ and long tone bowed bass layers. Dissonance and beating patterns emerge among the alternate tunings again. Both sides offer up an immersive listening space full of details that reward multiple spins. This isn’t placid, background ambient music, its an enveloping & mildly dissonant world to explore that demands your attention not unlike the music of Alvin Lucier, Tony Conrad, Arnold Dreyblatt, La Monte Young, Phill Niblock, Charlemagne Palestine and more. Step inside and recalibrate your ears! Check out my conversation with Henry & Zach of Tongue Depressor about their new album and more! (coming soon)