Ritual Chair – Post Stacy.
Cassette. Uninvited Records. UNR25. 2017.
Side A.
1. I Hear
Themis Calling.
2. Zeta
Prayer.
3. I Have
5 Instagram Accounts.
4. The
Creed.
Side B.
1. Top
House Sorority.
2. We
Should Have Been Hazed.
3. How to
Build A Personality.
Me: What’s a Sorority?
Friend: It’s Similar to
Masonic Lodges with Freemasons.
In the last Ritual Chair
review, I moaned, saying I wanted more, so I was lucky that another tape
arrived this week (Post – Stacy) - I’d had some Facebook and Discogs luck, Ritual
Chair and Skeleton Dust Records came through for me this month. So straight to
work.
I talked of the Esoteric
aspect of Ritual Chair on the Lacrimae Arma Feminae Sunt cassette. This release
is even more so, it is based around Ritual Chairs time in a Sorority. The
warping of the dialogue is extreme to the point where you know it is there, yet
it is inaudible due to the distortion and warping. The dialogue which I believe
is the author and field recordings of time spent there is sometimes played out,
then played back in reverse. It is as if she is trying to show the basic horror
of that time and its events and then unearth it’s under currents until there is
nothing left but what it is – a stripping away of the layers of time if you
like.
The use of noise is subtle, it
functions on a similar yet more discreet way to Brock Turner, the noise teases
around the dialogue as if to be the point of view of the maker. The psychedelic
through repetition and minimal use of different elements creates a dream-like
state. Like Ashamed there are dialogues explaining what happened, it isn’t as
clear, it’s warped and distorted. The esoteric aspect is how it is made to feel
like a bad dream, your mood is shifted throughout the release, the past is
unearthed, but it is made present by being mocked and dissected. Post Stacey is
someone taking the peer pressure of the past and framing it as a picture. I am led
to ask who is Stacey, is she a nickname, is she a bullying peer, a deceased
peer? The feel of this tape is distressing, traumatic and haunted – it is a bad
memory made into a C17. It is real, yet doesn’t feel other worldly, like a
different dimension. The artwork seems to be the Sorority Crest in the hairs of
a target.
The more I am pulled into this
project, the more I am punished, the surprise of where it goes each time is a
massive reward each time. Excellent work.
Choppy Noodles, 2019.