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to-night golden curls/teeth collection+plasmic formations split 7" (lmd to 100)

From Heathen Harvest: This is something of a family affair from the respectable artists that comprise the Community College and Epicene camps in Dayton, Ohio. All of these cats have done their time and made a mark in the tape and CD-R American “noise” underground and are now bringing it to the stage and a choice slab of vinyl. This 7” was hastily assembled and released to commemorate a tour of the artists involved back in March and it's an attractive release packaged with some lovely textured brown home-made paper in a numbered edition of 100 copies on black vinyl. Seems like a logical next step to me; nothing sells at a gig like a hand-packaged 7”. What these guys do is hardly your everyday pedestrian noise though. They transcend the pedal abuse and 'noise for noise sake' shit and create some intriguingly fucked up aural landscapes.
Nicholas Ceparski and Jonathan Enrique Barajas are the current incarnation of To-Night Golden Curls. The duo's contribution here has some serious gravity akin to the dense fog of a particularly humid morning. Like any morning though bird songs, traffic din and other sundry sounds manage to cut through the haze however muffled they may be. Such mornings can be disorienting as you hear everything through open windows but can't see a damn thing because of the low lying clouds. This track has a similar acousmatic effect. Heavy drones, some sporadic peals, a moaned voice and scratchy rhythmic loops weave a web of dimly-lit intrigue. It's pretty lo-fi, but gets the job done even as the track ends prematurely. More of this would certainly be welcome.
Apparently the soloists that record under the names Teeth Collection and Plasmic Formations have a rich history together, both as members of various other projects and in a previous duo Ghost Of Obtuse.
Name games aside, this is their first effort collaborating using their contemporary nomenclatures. These cats obviously work really well together. There's a real sensitivity to dynamic momentum and textural diversity here that is rare in a lot of today's underground electronic/noise music. Underlying the track is a simple two-note figure that serves a grounding element to tie everything together. In some circumstances this could be considered lazy, but here it's pretty damn clever considering the menagerie of electronic and acoustically derived sounds that are riding over it. It reminds me a bit of some of Throbbing Gristle's better concert moments in the 70s and early 80s when the chaos coalesced into some semblance of order purely by chance. My hunch is that these two are a little more in control and that their live performances were absolutely transcendent. Hell, what do I know?
Keep an ear out for both (all three?) of these projects and Epicene's impressive roster of releases that include much more than just electronic music. Mick Barr and Weasel Walter? Send me that shit yo!

From Smooth Assailing: this split, put together for all three groups' collective tour in march of this year, is the first vinyl release from tngc, and also their first release after the ohio group lost jon lockhart to michigan.
damn, nicholas ceparski and jon barajas are on some grim shit here. this is a hell of a lot different than the first thing i heard by them, the 8 tape. this untitled piece is dark and mostly minimal, at least until the final minute. there's a constant drone stalking about in the background, and after opening with some interesting sounds they get into what i'm assuming are slowed down vinyl manipulations which raise the spooky factor considerably, as will the loud wince-inducing screeching noises that i can only compare to fingernails on a chalkboard. after those less ear-friendly sounds, they'll piece together a nice, but atypical, rhythm, which isn't percussion-based in the slightest. that rhythm will come in handy once this duo's tormented moans and jarring screams start up. this actually does creep me out somewhat, ha. still, i can't deny how great the relationship between the truly unsettling vocals and this pretty catchy rhythm is. the last minute features some good, but held in check, feedback and that looming drone will step up a little just in time for the track to end.
(excluding the tape with bsbc) i never would've thought that a track with teeth collection in it would turn out to be the lighter piece of music in a split release. not only that, but actually be kind of, well, nice sounding. it starts off a little darker, nearly following tngc's opening, but where they chose evil, joshua's synth foundation reaches out towards blissful heaven. i love the isolated synth and the faint background chimes, even the spacier tones and sounds from his instrument are perfection. i still can't figure out what matthew's doing. i mean i can hear it, but exactly what it is that i'm hearing, i haven't a clue. i can say that it's all complimentary, though, and provides the celestial work with even more unworldly sounds. i like this a whole lot.

From Green Record Reviews: This is the first time i've heard either artist. I knew of them before, and played on the same bill as To-Night last year, but had to get home before they played, sadly.
The cover of this 7" is a really really strange mild-style textured red piece of fabric/paper. I like it though. The back cover is purple and has all of the essential info needed. Not the best art i've ever seen, but not the worst either.
Side A is the TNGC side. It starts off slow, with a low hum and some scratching. Soon enough, it busts into a feedback kick with some low growling beast-like vocals. After slowing down, it goes into awesome vocal hell, just moaning over an unchaning rhythmic pulsing. To end the song, there is some dial-up internet sounding feedback and ambient humming.
Side B is the PF/TC side, which was recorded live. Starting with a delayed scraping/screaching texture, the song goes on with droning and chirping synth and windchimes that make this side great. You also get the sounds of the rainfrorest (definatley not what the actual sounds are, but i'd like to describe it that way). Though the sounds change throughout the song, there's an unchaning synth rhythm that never quits. Definatley the softer side of the softer side of the split.
Overall this is a pretty cool 7". The PF/TC sounds incredible for a live recording.

From The Wire (issue 292 [June] Size Matters column):

zemekky/to-night golden curls split cs-20 (lmd to 20)

From the review blog of Tyler Debelak: A pulsing buzzsaw sound cuts through the feedback in the beginning of the Zemekky piece and unleashes backward tape flutters which breaks into “spooky” keyboard and guitar strums. This builds gradually up into a kind of frantic pace which drops into electronic mumbles and oscillating meanderings and then ends. On my first listen I didn’t really get the ending, because it really threw me off. It made me think that the jam was a mess, but now it makes more sense. It reminds me of when the computer starts going crazy at the end of Logan’s Run, where it totally freaks out about how there is no sanctuary. It was actually kind of nice to hear a band taking a more disjointed approach to their noise in the hopes of coming up with a greater whole. I’m going to have to check out some youtube videos to see if these guys use samples or not.
The B side is To-Night Golden Curls, a band that I’ve been pretty into since seeing them at the 517 Noisefest. The tape starts out with feedback squeaks and low end rumble that build with grinding sounds meshing into a constant hum that propels you forward. The more the sounds build, the more they oscillate, bunching back and forth. Everything sounds epic, pulsing, pushing frequencies to the edge. High pitched mechanical birds squeak to layers of feedback. The jam rests on uncomfortable tones and you wish it would keep going but it buzzes there long trying to wait it out, finally releasing buzzing through to super echo pulses that ride the furious sounds like a buoy. The sounds drop and swirl around the rumble and then this side of the tape ends.
All in all, this tape is pretty solid. After starting to get the A side more, I think I dig it. I will have to check out some more Zemekky and see whats up. As always, the To-Night Golden Curls material is solid. I didn’t hear any PE type vocals in there, so it was a little different than the other stuff I’ve heard from them. Since this tape was limited to 20 copies, its probably hard to get a hold of, but maybe after reading this you’ll find some of there other work that is equally good.