Mugen Series – Premiere on Tabs Out!

Hello and welcome! We’re so pleased to finally let you know about our next batch of tapes: the first four volumes of the Mugen Series! Infinite love to the guys at Tabs Out Cassette Podcast for premiering the series, and to Mike for his killer writeup. Check it out here.

 

NAC_3-Panel_JcardTemplate_FRONTMugen Volume 1: MrDougDoug & Mukqs
NAC_3-Panel_JcardTemplate_FRONTMugen Volume 2: TALsounds & Greyghost
NAC_3-Panel_JcardTemplate_FRONTMugen Volume 3: Ron Tubman & Sugarm
NAC_3-Panel_JcardTemplate_FRONTMugen Volume 4: Shingles & Josh Millrod
Each tape in the Mugen series features solo live performances from two artists, presented in single takes without overdubs. We make this distinction not to discredit other means of creation, but to identify recording conditions that these diverse sessions share. The eight musicians in the series approach their takes with different instruments in their hands, and structures (or lack thereof) in their brains – and they all produce sounds that might seem too dense to be the output of one human at one moment. But they aren’t really alone. Other brains help out, looping, processing, and layering live input: reactive synthesis, EHX2880 Multi-Track Loopers, auto-harmonizing frequency modulation, Boss RC20s, Line6 DL4s, way too much gear overall. Though the extent of the performers’ musical “educations” vary, certain masters provide overarching inspiration: Fripp and Eno’s tape loop collaborations, Klaus Schulze’s side-long synth odysseys, Terry Riley’s eternal swirling delay trails circa “Poppy Nogood.” These four tapes begin a series that we plan to continue indefinitely, adding more and more sessions to an already massive canon of tapes showcasing “one-take live drone / noise” and hoping something sticks out. If anything, the heads of the future will look back on Mugen and think “those young’uns were up to some weird shit.”

These tapes will ship on July 22nd, and they’re available to pre-order now from our e-shoppe! (Scroll down a little bit on the shop page to check out the MUGEN BUNDLE option – in the US, you can get all four tapes for $21 including shipping!)