WARMER MIXTAPES #1385 | by Matthew Revert

1. Vanessa Rossetto | Whole Stories
I wrote at length about Rossetto’s work for issue 1 of Surround some time back, but that essay was largely analytical in nature, whereas my connection with Rossetto’s Music is more emotional. The title track from her most recent solo release, Whole Stories, stands apart for me in terms of the enormity of its emotional content. I was lucky enough to have insight into each stage of this piece’s construction, from the capturing of initial Field Recordings to the each carefully grown iteration until it became the staggering piece of Music it became. I view Whole Stories as a somber tribute to Life itself and how our despairs can shape our path forward. It is harrowing and beautiful in equal measure.

2. Burning Witch | Sacred Predictions
This track is indicative of my interest in Metal, which spanned a great portion of my life and, fifteen years ago, was essentially all I listened to. I was particularly attracted to the oppressive ugliness that emerged from the Doom/Sludge scenes and Burning Witch typified this while maintaining an utterly idiosyncratic sound, thanks in large part to Edgy’s unhinged vocal delivery and the single-mindedness of the instrumental attack.

3. Keith Rowe/Jon Tilbury | Cathnor
The release of Duos For Doris in 2003 coincided with my move away from exclusively listening to Metal and demarcated my introduction to the area of Music commonly known as Eai. The sense of melancholy permeating the 70-minutes of Cathnor is overwhelming. Tilbury’s mother had died two days before these recording sessions and each carefully executed sound is a tribute to the embodiment of this recently lost life. Perhaps due to my own experiences with Death, I have always felt a very close connection to this record.

4. The Shadow Ring | Watch The Water
I could have picked so many different pieces from Graham Lambkin’s world of Music, but I thought it best to single out a piece I heard prior to knowing Graham in any way. This recording dates back to 1997 when Lambkin, along with Darren Harris and Tim Goss were part of the curio known as The Shadow Ring. The best way I can summarize my opinion of this Music would be to state that, to my ears, this is exactly the way a band should sound - stripped to the viscera with each component given a voice. As a writer, the emphasis on spoken word was also very exciting to me and helped me understand how the worlds of Writing and Music could come together.

5. Luc Ferarri | Presque Rien N°1 Ou Le Lever Du Jour Au Bord De La Mer
Ferrari’s Presque Rien taught me the importance of noticing the World around me and discovering the constantly unfolding Music within. It allowed me to see profundity in quotidian moments and genuinely helped me engage more completely with the World at large. Those who really listen to Presque Rien are given a piece of Ferrari’s famous wandering ear to call their own.



6. Hans Krüsi | EX HK. (Excerpts) (Side B)
I only discovered the work of Krüsi last year and have been obsessed ever since. To date only the one LP of untitled excerpts compiled from private tapes exists, but these excerpts are incredible. It’s a collision of Field Recordings, Spoken Word and Art Brut calamity coming together to form something primal and utterly unique. I appreciate that the excerpts on this LP were seemingly made for no one other than Krüsi himself. This insularity is something I have tried to embrace with my own Music.

7. Ruth White | Evening Harmony
When I discovered Ruth White’s Flowers Of Evil LP, it felt like I was merely reacquainting myself with a memory. Everything about it seemed to exist within me despite the fact I had never heard it. Evening Harmony is genuinely spooky without being trite and Experimental without being dry. I actually managed to make contact with Ruth White a few years ago via her niece. I was going to send her one of my books, but ultimately decided she’d likely been through enough in her life without adding some Australian wanker sending her his silly book.

8. Jocy De Oliveira | Estória IV
I have never tried to learn anything about De Oliveira because I want to maintain that sense of mystery her Music imbues in me. Her Music isn’t performed as much as it’s exuded like a pheromone. No matter how much Music I hear, I have never encountered anything else that sounds quite like this and that singularity never ceases to inspire me.

9. Real Life | Send Me An Angel
From where I sit in Life at this moment, it would be fair to say that Send Me An Angel would be a fitting summary of my childhood. This was released the year after I was born and seeped into me at an early stage in my development, before the concept of Music had arrived. It was really with the prominent use of this song in the movie-length Nintendo ad The Wizard that this song became a greater part of me though. To say I was obsessed with The Wizard would be an understatement. I have always found something impossibly sad about this song.The way the backing vocals confront the plea of don’t give up with an immediate give up is something I find both tragic and confronting.

10. Liam O'Gallagher | Border Dissolve In Audiospace
I have selected O’Gallagher’s Border Dissolve In Audiospace as an indicative example of my love for Sound Poetry primarily because it was the first piece I truly engaged with. I heard it as part of the seminal 10+2 American Text Sound compilation that came out in 1975. I think this piece serves as a good introduction because it is so entertaining and O’Gallagher’s back and forth with the different phone operators he interacts with possesses a near musical cadence.