Reviews

Igloo Mag

For his most recent release on Audiobulb, Mental Cassette, Neuro… No Neuro was “reaching back to childhood,” according to the liner notes. Sustaining the notion that “the sound of cassette brings forth moments in time long-forgotten,” the line “utilizing melody to help remember, Mental Cassette gently cups dissolving memories; fragmented recall set out on softly unfolding cassette tape reels,” sums up appropriately where the new album is headed. These notes encapsulate the path that takes place when Tucson, Arizona-based Kirk Markarian crafts distinctive lullaby clicks’n cuts, glitches, and micro-percussion to enhance these recordings—just have a listen to the opening track, “Afternoon Clouds” to get the idea.

As Mental Cassette progresses, we can see and feel more moving segments come to life, right in front of our ears—from the subdued bells and echoes of “Coaches” to the gentle rhythm and tones of “Story Time.” Here’s where Neuro… No Neuro gets his footing; beneath the quiet, blip-heavy, and saccharine soundscapes of “Lunch Boxes” to the nostalgic, static-filled “Playground Slides,” Markarian creates exquisitely flowing soundscapes on a microscale.

The album closes with a benchmark remix titled “My Words Come Out In Different Ways – Subgenius Remix,” which features Autistici’s support. Tiny kaleidoscopic noises and disjointed samples merge with psychedelic ambient pulsars and quivering melodic fibers, creating a surreal dream that is filmed in real time. In summary, Mental Cassette features mind-bending and engaging minimalist soundtracks captured in eleven sonic miniatures.

Original review > HERE

The Slow Music Movement

The cassette tape has long been offered life support by the ambient community who rightly treasure its sound degradation & ferric haziness as an atmospheric adjunct to their creations. As Neuro... No Neuro is seemingly entering his own ambient phase he's been exploring the climate warped wobbliness, stretched otherworldliness & questionable head cleaning fluid joys of this unwieldy analogue format via Audiobulb. Perfect for a lazy, hazy Saturday.

Original review > HERE

Monolith Cocktail

Charging up the neurons and memory receptors once more, the Tuscan, Arizona synthesist and electronic artist Kirk Markarian softly captures abstract feels and recollected scenes/evocations from his past. Under the binary Neuro…No Neuro nom de plume, Kirk’s bulb shaped translucent spaced-out notes, pips, bubbles and cloud gazing and horizon opening waveforms soundscape the subtle gauzy mental reminisces contained in the memory banks of a febrile mind.

On cassette form, with all its idiosyncratic tweaks and foibles – from a little hiss, the odd spell of bity granular surface noise and some staccato stuttered cuts and breaks in the flow – this latest hallucinogenic mirage of the tingled, arched, bended, warbled and languorous is like being blanketed in the soft play area of a psychoanalyst session.

Woozy ambience and delicate, rounded pollinations and mauve-coloured coated melodic minimal electronics and echoes of Library music conjure up such innocuous prompts as sticky tape, coaches and playground slides. This is like a watercolor version of fond recollections of innocence; an almost hypnotizing and dreamy abstraction of childhood created by a truly unique sound artist.

But changing the mood, the signature, there’s a longer remix treatment of ‘My words Come Out In Different Ways’ by Subgenuis – who, for all I know, might just be another disguise, alter ego of Kirk. This never quite hits its stride, filtering, as it does, in and out of a sort of vapoured psy and techno futuristic vibe; with a sample (I think) of some female writer/speaker communicating some theoretical address to an audience on the processes of something creative that involves dialogue, the sharing of one’s thoughts: and perhaps, repressed memories.   

The Mental Tapes now could be said to archive, document for posterity those feelings and emotional states of regression therapy. Connecting with one’s childhood has seldom sounded so oblique and empirical.

Original review > HERE

Vital Weekly

There have been various releases by Kirk Markarian's project Neuro... For instance, there is No Neuro on Audiobulb and Mille Plateaux, which I heard about (see Vital Weekly 1418). That one didn't blow me away, with a bit of click 'n cuts, glitch and broken techno beats, with too much variation. This new cassette is, in that respect, a more coherent thing. There is still that slightly broken-up sound from the world of glitch music from so many years ago, but stylistically, Markarian keeps his things together. It all has an exquisite ambient touch of one keyboard, one or two sound effects, and some editing on the computer, the latter to give the material a more cut-up-like feeling. Sometimes, he adds a few additional sounds, a glitchy rhythm, vinyl crackling or a robot-like voice. Throughout this cassette, the music remains quite sparse and to the point. Ambient and yet not too ambient with those 'other' elements scattered throughout this release, the music sticks with the more gentle side of music. Because of what seems to be the weird cutting of sounds (or maybe Markarian plays his keyboard that way), it all stays away from the world of new-age music. I liked this cassette way more than his CD. I can hear similar approaches, but in the more coherent on cassette, this works much better. (FdW)
––– Address: https://ab-nnn.bandcamp.com/

Original review > HERE