'Box of Black' (Cassette, Download) by Ypsmael, out on San Francisco's Eh? Records, 21st November 2021.

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Reviews:

Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly (#1313), 2021: ‘When Ypsmael started in the late 00s, the intention was to play only live concerts, but eventually, CD-R releases followed. These contained recordings made at home and in concert. I have no idea who the members are. Early 2014 the Werkstatt für Improvisierte Musik invited the group for a two-day presentation of the Box Of Black, “originally a performance conduit for an unlit room”. Just as the information doesn’t mention the names of the members, When I first played this cassette, I had no idea what I was hearing; a guitar, some wind instruments, electronics? The Bandcamp page for this release lists this; “no-input feedback, voice, sipsi, slide whistle, amplified objects and claves fed into pedals for effects, live loops and textural layering.” While all of this may sound very much from the world of improvisation, one track more than the other. Hence, it seems, the overall impression I had was that it sounds so different from the traditional areas of improvised music. There is much to be enjoyed for everyone who likes drones, noise and electronics and who stay away from everything connected to improvised music. The rusty electronics, bending backwards and forward, rattling percussion, broken toys and ditto contact microphones make up for the psychedelic affair. This music is rainbow coloured, just like many sound effects they are using. Sometimes they work with amplifying objects, and in fine John Cage tradition, the feedback becomes an integral aspect of the music, which adds great urgency to the music. And then, suddenly, in ‘Rhombus’, a saxophone appears, out of this abstract mass of sound, forming a moment of (un-) rest in what is otherwise quite a hectic set of sound material; it slips back into wacky droneism right after that. Not the most accessible music, but I found all of this excellent.‘

Rigo Dittmann, Bad Alchemy Magazine (#113), 2022: ’[…] Ypsmael sublimiert Bohr- und Schleifgeräusche mit glitzernden Lauten, aber wummernde Motorik und Treibriemenrota­tion produzieren weiter die Suggestion eines schwerindustrialen Gorillas in der digitalen Blackbox. Das Ausgelagerte sitzt mit rauem Atem einer melancholischen Blasetondauer­schleife im Nacken. Lethargisch gezupfte Tristesse mischt sich mit dunklem Surren, schlurchig grollendes Beben wellt sich mulmig und wieder glitzernd. Erst ‘La Ndofo Akaf Terno On’ findet, vor pazifischer Kimmung meditierend, zu sonorer Einkehr.’

Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector Music Magazine and Radio Show, 2022: ‘Box of Black (EH?120) is credited to Ypsmael, something of a mystery figure who has been operating for around the last 12-14 years, mostly making live appearances and sporadically issuing a few self-releases and CDRs for selling on tour…they also go by many alias names, each of which happens to be an anagram of the word Ypsmael. Their real name is not widely known and they don’t even consider themselves to be a musician, preferring the term “experimental music conduit”. It seems that Box Of Black is the only “official” release after this bout of self-publishing, and it comprises a selection from live events which happened between 2012 and 2018 in the UK and Europe. The fellow certainly has an intriguing method, for the most part eschewing computers in his work; he hasn’t managed to exclude digital tech from his set-up completely, but it seems the focus is on analogue and handmade devices. At any rate, he’s very interested in glitch, noise, and any imperfections resulting from the recording process, as well as exploiting things like “room tone”, something which is very evident in all these pieces; you can really feel the enclosure of the small spaces where these performances were realised. I’ve found myself most engaged – and also alarmed – by the long track here, ‘Ah, quelqu’un!’, which is quite effective in building up a tense atmosphere, full of increasingly clogged-up sounds and a certain remorseless forward-movement in their deployment. In doing this, Ypsmael stops short of producing old-fashioned “noise”, and remains true to exploring the grains and textures of his materials; it’s that genius in the build-up that he’s aiming at, producing a very strong cumulative effect through sheer persistence, and letting the materials and processes speak for themselves. Even so, I’m left with the feeling that I want him to go a lot further with his explorations, and really start testing the limits of the spaces he’s intent on probing, working his objects so hard that they almost break. If he could do that, I think he has the potential to create a very distinctive language of his own. Promising.’

Joshua Macala, Raised by Cassettes, 2022: ‘Through a lot of sharpness and distortion, this cassette opens up sounding like a swarm of bees is ready to attack. Words can be heard spoken behind the chaos and it all feels quite dark, like a mystical scene out of a movie from the 1990’s. It all swerves in and out like a static panic. Through all of this harsh static I managed to hear sirens outside and I had to take a moment to make sure they were in fact not part of the song. We calm down and start with a ringing type of sound, someone is speaking and it just gives away the idea of being in space from the start. It turns into a slower, more robotic sounding type of distortion now - as if the static is crushing. In between songs seems to be the only time it gets calm as we come back into the next song with this modem-drone sound with sharpness breaking through. This sound just feels as if a sharpness is leaking through. It sounds like chains are dragging now, but in a locomotive rhythm and with alien whirrs behind them. On the flip side that static now comes through in waves with horns blasting here and there with them. Higher pitched tones come through now, as if in awe, but it also has this guitar driven way about it. There is also a slightly haunted sound within this all. These sounds all come together too now and feel a little bit like slow traffic. Through the darkness now comes the plucking of strings in this Old Western sounding way for sure. Words can be heard hidden in the back of this all as well. Distortion flows through haunted whooshes and this feels much like we are caught up in a storm now. A hollow glass tone comes through now as a drone. It has taken on a much quieter, ambient way now. Waves are in and out as soft tones drop. This all still feels a bit eerie and then the vocals behind it all have returned. Sharpness is coming through again, like feedback in a way which might hurt the ears, but it still all feels so distant and haunted. This is how it fades out, maintaining that sense of ambient drone mixed with haunted textures.’

Jacob DeRaadt, Tabs Out, 2022: ‘Box of Black by Ypsmael is really well-crafted, modern noisy experimental electronic music with ambient touches in parts that encapsulates a lot of the newer digital aesthetics as well as the abstract. Wails of guitar-as-sound-source approach that sometimes lend themselves to melodic phrasings or repetition, but abruptly cut off. Other songs give an electro acoustic dissonance that sustains tension within bursts of high end feedback sends. Microphones shake… Four track sliding fuckery of odd popping and rubbing sounds with what sounds like low level voltage stabs under the slowly building layers… The layering in parts is what sustains the tension and fills negative space while not filling them up entirely as a whole. Muffled voices in the background… Moaning organ sounds against tuned water droplets in a lake or a vast cavern… The Box of Black shines in the dark, glows with dark messages from other chaotic realms. Different zones get mined throughout a single tape. […]’

Mario Biserni, Sands-Zine, 2022: […] ‘Ypsmael, invece, è effettivamente tedesco e anche lui, seppur più limitata, ha già svolto una discreta attività. Anche Ypsmael, come Surak, è un artista che fa del paesaggismo sonoro, però molto più orientato verso l’utilizzo di strumenti tradizionali come la chitarra, dei quali impiega soprattutto i feedback, di tutta una serie di oggetti amplificati, di effetti di varia tipo, di loop e di una voce che, quando c’è, è quasi sempre un mormorio sommerso o un vocalizzo allucinato. Al top il ripetitivo Ah, quelqu’un! che, inquietante e accattivante allo stesso tempo, è un brano semplicemente magistrale sia per la sua strutturazione sia per la qualità e l’originalità dei suoni utilizzati. E, comunque, è nel suo insieme che la cassetta convince, con la sua miscela fatta di suoni malati e dilatati, per una psichedelia di stampo futurista.’

Marco Carcasi, Kathodik, 2022: ’Una buia stanza performativa, commissionata nel 2014 dal WIM di Berna. Per chitarra, no-imput feedback, voce, oggetti, effetti, live loops e parecchio altro, no computer. Parti dell’originale performance poi macinate, ideuzze tralasciate e bozzetti preliminari. Cupezze ambientali dove l’inatteso e benvenuto, distensioni cigolanti quasi astral-kraut (Ah, quelqunt!), inquiete sospensioni (Rhombus), desertiche sabbie post-Eno (Excerpt), sfinimenti in congelata fluttuazione (La Ndofo Akaf Terno On).’

Ken Lower, Lost In A Sea Of Sound, 2022: ‘Crashing into the sun begins long before a spacecraft ever reaches the solar surface. Huge mountains of escaping energy will create ships with indifferent emotion before they ever arrive. Like glass being manipulated by an acetylene torch, mutation and decomposition are the first welcomes. But, before this, traveling at x-times some speed through space, the sounds of the vessel vibrating and sporadic shuddering are part of the journey and what becomes familiar. On the bridge, the ships flight deck is another source of fantastic sounds. Ever since bio mechanics were developed years ago, the computers and engines working together as the equivalent of oxygen carried by blood pumping through a body. As we become more wise to noise from space travel, the true sound to pay attention to is the amalgamation of all noises over a lengthy period of time. There is a foreboding sense of despair as the unchangeable plotted trajectory is straight into a star. The last sentence in the above paragraph is completely inspired by the longest track on Box of Black titled “Ah, quelqun!” Fourteen minutes of nails biting into palms and conscious reveling beauty. Ypsmael is such a go to. Dive into this release and this artist, thoughts will be stretched and crumbled but so sweetly inspired.’

Mark Pino, Disaster Amnesiac, 2022: ‘The music that Ypsmael conjured up for this release [Box of Black] keeps bringing me back to that word “murky”. Things bubble up from the silence and kind of float there, interacting with other sounds in a sonic soup that immerses the perception in ways that I imagine would make for a pretty harrowing journey through a completely dark space. Disaster Amnesiac has had visions of falling through layers of spinning matrices, much like those shots from old psychological horror films from the mid-20th century, in which the person is spun around and around, going deeper and deeper into the void as that action continues relentlessly. About three tracks in, an insistent rhythm clips out on the track Becol, and while this may give some relief to a listener, it’s only enhanced the overall anxiety jam feel for me. It’s as if the conveyor belt to the abyss has increased its pace and is pushing even harder at the mind. I guess that it harks back the early waves of Industrial Music production, Death Factory and their fellow travelers, and it still works. Disaster Amnesiac can groove with it in the light of the day, and indeed daylight times are the only times that I’ve played Box of Black. Honestly I don’t even want to know how these sounds would hit me at night! […] I guess it’s not all doom and gloom as the track Rhombus gives off some neat synthesizer brightness for a spell before going dark again and Bob Outro hints at UFO Club-styled psychedelia, but even within these pieces it’s tough to shake off the fear vibe, as that murky feeling evoked by the mysterious sound sources is never that far away within them. Again, imagine yourself hearing these sounds and not being able to see what’s in front of or behind you.….damn. You have to hand it to Ypsmael, they certainly don’t ever lose the thread of the apparent vision for Box of Black. Be brave while you listen to it, and just maybe have a close friend nearby to guide you back to light, should you drift too far into the darkness while doing so.’

Dereck Higgins, 2022: ‘Intense and excellent […]. This [Box of Black] is more noise-based, but, it works. There is at times a sense of danger with the sounds […], you can hear the physicality, how the sounds are being made. […] I want to applaud the music and sound makers who explore their will, their interest, regardless of financial reward, I think it’s really important that art survives in this way […] and I encourage you to check this out.’