Hyperchaos Tapes presents, perhaps the most deeply hypnotic and disconcerting fusion of elements to hit the instrumental realm in quite some type – a collaborative split-release from Brisbane’s Banshee Vault Asylum and creative producer Orthotyp-a.
The two collections indulge the senses with a fiercely dissonant combination of ambience and outright industrial noise. Something of an aptly chaotic patchwork of sounds and segments, the project unites three tracks from Ganser Mule, and three from Dasein, and introduces the combined talents of Paul Young (orthoyp-a / Feet Teeth) and cellist and live pedal-player Felicity Mohr (Flickachu).
From Dasein, little Female Bear pt. 1 marks an explosive introduction to the darkness and depth of this electronic approach to modern audio. The tempo-driven track balances enchanting atmospheric warmth with intense distortion, volume, and self-described noise. Spiritui Sancto is sampled, and the subsequent musical expression effectively improvises its way from ‘clarity to obliteration’ – artistically underlining the journey or the very nature of sound and memory.
For the listener, we begin amidst an ethereal embrace – a pulsating sense of distance, with human voices and electronic looping waves all united under a calming blanket of rising anticipation. Then during the latter half, the immense weight of static appears as if like a sudden storm of power and presence. Those choir-like voices still linger amidst the outer layers though – a wealth of humanity clinging onto its calm and sanity, as the wires and weight of the future rain down around them.
Conversely, from Ganser Mule, for the likes of Inkwell in a Pumice Storm, a more minimalist and eerie vibe ensues – a theatrical realm intriguing and ever-changing, with sudden dashes of something like Jazz injecting a freestyle musical essence as things progress. This post-nine-minute composition is fascinating, even phenomenal – it captures attention with creative appeal and space and haunting intricacies, then maintains that with rising passion, fragments of melody, soulful rhythms, and an overarching sense of both power and lostness. The musicians authentically lose themselves in the moment, and as such, the listeners do too.
A highlight-anticipated new project, the split release of Ganser Mule and Dasein is set to launch on April 27th, and promises an unrivaled ‘voyage through dark drone, krautrock, and free improvisation’. The two EPs have been made up of samples and sounds exclusively developed in an acoustic realm. Orthotyp-a is a producer renowned for his unique manipulation of sound, and as such delivers a sonic landscape that’s all at once unsettling, intense, charming, and impressive.
BVA as a unit proves both stylistically and evocatively engaging, this crunchy and cascading intertwining of heavy strings and grating rhythms balances the soothing and the utterly perplexing in a fascinating and captivating manner. By blending the organic and acoustic tones of the cello, even in their occasional grit and instability, with limitless electronic access to rhythms and processed sounds, the resulting project appears to bring together the natural and the artificial in a deeply human fashion.
Find Orthotyp-a on Facebook, Instagram & Bandcamp. Find Banshee Vault Asylum on Facebook, Instagram & Bandcamp.
