Burred saw waves zig left and zag right and then zig left again through the stereo spectrum. Distant bells clang and then evacuate. Electric piano chords suggest a mood-setting mid-1960s film scenario. There is whirring sci fi noise and the deep dark clang of a gong and, later, the pitter patter of a cymbal meeting a brush head on. The cymbal seems to hover over your heard why the brush does its magic, attacking at numerous angles. This assemblage, of which those are merely a few of the constituent parts, is “ragged claws silent seas,” which Amanda Chaudhary committed to fixed recording as a submission to the annual San Francisco Tape Music Festival. Judging by the playbill posted at sfsound.org, Chaudhary nearly six-minute piece didn’t make the final cut, but it is available as a download for your own personal tape-music experience. What makes this “tape music” rather than, say, simply a collage, or simply a composition is less a matter of strict genre distinctions and more about a mix of literature and sensibility. Tape music is music that dispenses with both live performance and traditional instrumentation in favor of something that explores the experiential, spatial potential inherent in recorded sound.
Track originally posted at amandachaudhary.bandcamp.com. More from Chaudhary at amandachaudhary.com and catsynth.com. Chaudhary is based in San Francisco, California.