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LP
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TYPE 098LP
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Type follow up Mike Shiflet's Sufferers with a further exposition of his individual and far-reaching sound palette. A member of C Spencer Yeh's revolving Burning Star Core unit, and a prolific collaborator with the likes of Daniel Menche, Chris Corsano, Pete Swanson and many others, Shiflet has honed an intensely visceral feel for tone and texture which makes his records so intriguing to lovers of experimental composition and music-making. With some production/audio mastering assists from fellow Columbus, Ohio-based musician Joe Panzner, on Merciless Shiflet engages with corrosive textures from the off, enticing us in with fractured small sounds on "Feeble Breaths" before weaving a lattice of quick-drying fiberglass strands over your cochlea, which become infested with scuttling, insipid rhythms and abstract noise abrasions designed by Panzner on the lloopp software for max/msp. This induction, by contrast, makes the second half piece of evolving horror drones in "Exodus And Exile" that much more affective, while the second side plays through as one longer, queasy composition veering from cacophonous noise to wheezing drone and chilly isolation with the contribution of cassette manipulation by Jason Zeh, cello by Marina Peterson and violin from C Spencer Yeh. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Limited vinyl pressing of 500 copies only.
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LP
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TYPE 097LP
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Ohio-based noise upsetter Mike Shiflet has amassed an enviable amount of releases in the last decade. Tapes, vinyl, CD-Rs -- you name it, he's done it, but it's taken until now for Shiflet to weld together what he regards as his defining work. The first in a series of two "proper" albums, Sufferers takes the listener to the very heart of Shiflet's sound -- through the abrasive noise heard on his early releases all the way to the shimmering ambience that made up his breakthrough album Llanos. A deeply patient and rewarding record, Shiflet uses his long-practiced skills to lay waste to a gaseous collection of source recordings, bringing a chattering, disturbing resonance to what sounds like whirring hospital equipment. It is always difficult to reframe U.S. noise music without the punk, tape-destroyed aesthetic -- but like Kevin Drumm before him, Shiflet manages to push his sound into high fidelity effortlessly. Each frequency is picked meticulously for maximum effect, and if you listen on headphones, you are treated to an entirely different experience. Whether reducing the listener to an opium-fuelled coma on the shimmering "Axle Grease," or treating us to the kind of intensity Fennesz last exhibited on Endless Summer with "Blessed And Oppressed," there is a sense that Shiflet has an ineffable control over his plethora of techniques and ideas. A rare gem in a mire of half-hearted records, Sufferers grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the final creak. And this is only the beginning. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Limited vinyl pressing of 500 copies only.
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