World Memory’s inaugural address comes from its creator: Tlaotlon, a fifth-dimensional Google Maps street view of where chaos and harmony meet. Natural Devices, his first release of the new year after a laundry list of 2014 EPs (Ektomists, split with Střed Světa, split with Katie Gately), is Tlaotlon opening covered ground and letting it breathe.
I was (and still 100% am) a Tlaotlon convert after Ektomists, my first introduction to Oceania-based Jeremy Coubrough. And from time to time, I struggle with claustrophobia: the infinite space after a cramped elevator ride or the first limbering stretch outside a gear-filled backseat are as indefinable as Tlaotlon’s back catalog. Tlaotlon’s 2013 Epic Sweep release Calavities was his twisted idea of trance. It was nauseating at first and at times still comparable to acute carsickness, but I keep coming back to it. Any sound, deliberate or not, that can shock or sooth or create any unworldly physical reaction is the definition of music. It’s something that brought me to bookmark 1080p. And it’s an uncomfortable jitter that drove me to Natural Devices. You could listen to the entire album ten-fold without hearing the same note twice. The comprehension is clearer, comparative to Coubrough’s prior solo compositions, but the disassociation between whether it’s mesh or matted is vague. Either way, there is nothing more reassuring in this stream Tlaotlon calls home than the formation of a base. World Memory will send people to space by blurring the line. Check in with Bandcamp for the flight plan.
“The Co-Domain” is the fourth track off Natural Devices, the debut from Jeremy Coubrough’s label World Memory. The digital download is up now and cassettes are available February 28.
• Tlaotlon: https://soundcloud.com/tlaotlon
• World Memory: https://worldmemoryrecords.bandcamp.com