Now there's a label I promise you I have never heard of before. Well hidden on the other side of this flat disc called earth, from Nelson, New Zealand, it's called Astipalea Records. "Hubert Heathertoes and his Astipalea project explore subterrains of aural osmosis and linguistic dexterity of nautical devices dating back to hyperborean absurdity." For me, a woolly description with lots of complex words (being a non-native English speaker) meaning nothing serious. The art of a few releases is cut 'n paste art; others are very beautiful nature pictures. I feel like I'm being fed a nice cup of powerful sounds with a touch of dada (forgive me if I'm wrong - I love it, though ;-). Let's see how Modelbau's "Vanity" cassette fits in there. This is an overdue release as it was supposed to come out in 2017, so a slightly older Modelbau sound ahead.
First, we listen to the sounds. Because with Modelbau it's drone/ambience/ field/tapes/noises/stuff. The six tracks on this cassette are all around the 10-minute mark, and the titles all start with 'V' though the release title is not one of them. "Very" is a track where it seems the tape noise is pushed forward, and together with sonically manipulated water dripping, a drone is created. In the same setting, "View" combines tape-hiss, music boxes and voices. The used delay creates patterns or structures. If I should describe it with one word: eerie or maybe unheimlich. "Variety" is a cacophonic experiment where a siren-like oscillator is fed in a delay, and a stable drone in the back is slowly moved forwards. Very nicely done! Me likey.
Side B opens with "Variable"; Massive down-pitched broken radio sounds fighting with tape-saturation. Oof... Talk about knowing one's medium - Modelbau knows how tapes work. "Variant" is more in that same vein, but the 'broken radio sounds' have been replaced by erratic noises and maybe a sound-generating device. The final track of the cassette is called "Vacui" and is alone worth buying this cassette. A gorgeous drone zooming in and out of different layers, generating interference patterns when played loudly enough. Minimalist sound design with maximum output. The feedback that just touches in there and the rumble that remains.
Wiki: "Vanitas means 'vanity' and 'emptiness'. In art, this is depicted with - for example - skulls, extinguished candles, withered flowers, soap bubbles, decayed books, musical instruments, clocks or fallen glasses. They visualize the vanity, temporality and meaninglessness of the earthly." I think Modelbau could never have chosen a better title for their music (10/10)
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