3 out of 5

Label: Auris Apothecary / Castle Bravo Tapes

Produced by: Joe Fawcett (recorded by)

I was rather iffy on this to start, as the visual component to Flannelly’s sound experiment – improvisationally crafted drone via effects pedals and a mixer and nothing else – felt kind of… predictable. Which is absurd, since it’s all flashing imagery done up in VHS distorted neons, but it’s like you could look at the cover of this (an image of VHS distorted neons) and feel like you’d seen the majority of what’s on display over the set’s 50 minutes.

But, after a bit, we get there, and we’ll allow some buffer due to this kinda stuff leaning more into art project than necessarily something to sit down to with some popcorn, but initially, even as background, I wasn’t sure why the VHS was necessary.

Flannelly made the sounds, split up into 8 sections which were given over to other musicians / artists to provide the visuals. I’m not sure if there were any kind of restrictions put on what they could provide, but, initially, it feels like John set the stage with his own opening section of flashing colors, and then the rest followed suit. But this is really only true for the second section; after that, things open up a bit more.

A couple of pieces surely took some work but don’t really feel inventive, if I’m being honest, sticking with the analog medium and doing old-school graphics that feel like 90s era screensavers. There’s some interesting stuff in there, and it’s not like I would know how to put it together, but these creations rather dragged.

But then we get those that stick within the framework – if there was one – and offer up experiences you actually want to watch: Jeremy E. Tubbs’ Go Back to the Woods is a creepy picture-in-picture Blair Witch vibe, whether or not that was the intention; Kurt Lee Nettleton takes advantage of a shorter track to capture some beautiful flurries for Glistening, and Auris Apothecary’s DAS has my favorite addition – the melty color washes of the ‘Probe’ tracks. And the closer from Esteban Garcia marries the screensaver ethos with glitchy pacing and unnervingly fluid backgrounds, dialing into the sounds for inspiration really effectively.

Regarding which, with these more varied accompaniments, the “music” does benefit; though splitting it up into songs feels rather meaningless – it’s a lot of buzzing and clicking throughout – the changing pace and style of the visuals make you tune into that buzzing and clicking differently.

The drone effected here is pretty minimal, and probably good for those of us who like some zoned out chaos, but I’m not sure I’d make it through the whole 50 minutes (paying some attention) without the VHS, and though the VHS takes a while to get there… it’s a worthwhile, complementary view.