Bilking blind devils with an immediacy that would make a fruit fly jelous, the man behind the infamous Susan Balmar project and way too many others to count is at it again, already. This time he’s performing under the moniker of /f, and it appears he’s still minding his S’s and P’s, and glowing with the hard work of sour-mash finger play. Then again, the 404 might be tucked out of sight. I completely doubt that, being that tape-echo quivers and his signature vocal sample "signum" (not his recent album on Beer on the Rug, but the Latin equivalent of "sign") are both present. On the other hand, with what the album description says (I guess?), all of this harmonious derangement could in fact be the product of just software. This is 100% unlikely in my mind, but there are never firm answers with the man. Obscurity isn’t just employed with Balmar: it is Balmar (peep the color choices/fact that none of the other artists exist online/lengths of time the releases stick around (already three gone, to my count) on the labels’s Bandcamp).
The other releases on said label — the newly emerged Psalmus Diuersae, which is Latin for "different song" (looks like somebody might be headed to a seminary with all this Latin being thrown around!) — all have his vibe, but appear to be the works of other artists. Does this matter, though? Of course not. In this realm, questions only need to be asked; never answered. Personally, I hope they are the products of different people — contemporaries getting light and whatnot — but such things are moot at this point.
What does matter is the vital now-ness of ƒ sj J¶JF : Pq~; ???/a/a/ J#(. . a a9. As soon as something is recorded, played, heard, etc, it becomes the past, so one might as well move on. Well, with that said, repeated listener that I am/we are, this is some of the densest Balmar related work to date, needing ample time and the aid of his past material to help be absorbed. But even though these tracks are basically roughage, and will take time to truly be appreciated, please do and try to keep up, ‘cause everything is about to change again… probably.
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• Susan Balmar: http://susanbalmar.tumblr.com
• Psalmus Diuersae: http://diuersae.bandcamp.com