Bromp Treb / Horaflora split on Yeay! Records

This one came in from Yeay! Records out of Turnersfalls, MA (is that from It's a wonderful life?) and between these guys who have been steadily releasing stuff since '91 (!) and Feeding Tube...MA is definitely hogging it's share of experimental eclectic LP's...there are so many to order...but this one is a split single between Bromp Treb and Horaflora.

Back in 2008 I came across Bromp Treb on the Breaking World Records label and after looking that post over again I immediately recognize this hyper dense mash of samples and tones in disparate bursts of rhythm. This time it feels like Neil on this track, "Readinessmax" is going for a more mechanical sound, or let's say the pieces here are definitely taken off a turntable, giving away more about the process this time, going traditional DJ style with the whirring slow down, speed up of the hand manipulated record. The array of samples are from dub beats, sub basslines, which really pushes the limits of vinyl, and wouldn't sound the same any other way. I'm beginning to wonder if the entire piece isn't constructed entirely out of turntable mechanics...and somehow this is a table full of the same record, being messed around with in this extremely chaotic way. The rhythms never seem to repeat for long...it's chopped up, but not digitally...that might be the point here. A record proof of concept, the way your grandpa used to DJ.
The Horaflora side, "Glibbertonne", is coming at this chaotic structure from an almost purely digital angle, these glitches and bloops only exist out of the headphone jack of the electronics that made them, there emerges an overall very primitive rhythm, from sounds that could be an early TRS-80 drum circle. Dog range clicks, the vacuum tubes don't care if you can hear this sine wave...maybe it's for the robots. The call to revolt. How do digital warbles like this sound strangely like dripping water? Why isn't there some kind of plug-in that will let you draw out a waveform on the timeline filled in with pure tones and then you could trace something like a drip? Maybe Horaflora is doing that. Is that a locked groove? Not yet, just a skipping beat...actually had to get up and go watch the needle visibly vibrating and bouncing back a few grooves each revolution. That's a low ass frequency. Has anyone ever put a locked groove right in the middle of a piece? That's what I honestly thought was going on here...you have to physically move it over the lock to hear the rest. That's something that cassettes or cd's could never do. It's a new piece every time.

The sleeve is what really makes this unique, designed by Sightlab, it's a laser cut custom font with a random color image behind it (mine is a microscopic view of fireants eating a cactus). Turns out it's both band names, which I was pretty sure of previously, out of the corner of my eye, I swear I could read it, but then they are 180 degree mirroring each other and I was convinced it was just ornamental. Great design, impossible to do any other way, the detail of this cut out is only possible with lasers, the edges are burnt, and the rubberstamp on the reverse brings it all together.

Get this one from Yeay! Records. An artifact in more ways than one.