Southern Outpost

Taken from The Every Album Project

Still not totally sure about “Panopticon” though I will say it is growing on me. But the flip side “Tears For A Fall Empire” is a thunderous bit of music that is beautifully dark and deep as hell. Worth having shipped over from the UK…

Seb from Cyclic Defrost has writen a review of bvdub’s ep “monuments to oblivion”. Posted here for all to see:

Ex-Sydney label Southern Outpost relocated to San Francisco just over a year ago but everyone knows their spiritual home has always been Detroit. bvdub’s first release for the label arrived on audio cassette containing four tracks, two of which also have release on 12″.

First it was a challenge to find a tape deck to play this back on. I had to pull several boxes out of deep storage to find my old 3 head Sony deck. And to my surprise, cassettes sound frightfully good for what they are - I think most of us have forgotten that if they were made properly and played on a decent rig then they could be quite good, especially compared to the flatness of mid-quality MP3.

I’m sure that’s part of the story behind this release because as the tape spooled over the dusty heads, bvdub’s 4 ten-minute plus epics of warm, gaseous dubbed out Detroit techno were filled with even more hiss, static, and flutter as a result of the cassette medium. Much like a faded photo the effect of the cassette medium on the muted kicks and plangent synths adds a degree of melancholy and age to the listening experience. The Side A tracks meander on jerky rhythms and clouds of synth delay. Side B’s ‘Tears for a Fallen Empire’ and ‘Gone are the Days’ bubble along on rubbery analogue bass and straight techno kicks, and are the pick of the four.

There’s little new here - but that’s exactly the point - just top quality Detroit influenced dub techno in the vein of contemporaries Deepchord and Echospace. It is even worth digging out your cassette deck to listen.

Wow, what can I say.. that sh*t went a bit crazy. The vinyl release has sold out from Clone already (24 hours). You may be able to find it at other stores around the place.

We will repress the record very shortly.

There still seems to be a few 12″ + cassette bundles still avail via Clone, so you better hurry!

Finally our special project from bvdub “Monuments To Oblivion” tape and vinyl are now out from Clone. Better hurry, the tape is only limited to 100!

Go get it here.

I’ve held onto the secret for long enough, so it’s time to let the cat out of the bag.

We are proud to be releasing a very special limited edition 4 track audio cassette by San Francisco native, bvdub, entitled ‘Monuments To Oblivion‘. The cassette will be limited to 100 copies, so you’ll need to get onto Clone real quick. The first 100 tapes will be bundled with a 12″ ep which will contain two tracks off the tape. As always the design has been made with love by maneki.

SOSP-001 Audio Cassette Tracklisting:
1.1 One Day You’ll See
1.2 Panopticon
2.1 Tears For A Fallen Empire
2.2 Gone Are The Days

Mastering by Dubplates & Mastering, so you know this is going to be quality!

Click links above for soundbites.

The idea to release Monuments To Oblivion on audio cassette were two fold. The warmth, hiss, imperfection and the eventual decay of magnetic tape adds another textured layer to each track that no other medium can reproduce. No two tapes will end up sounding exactly the same. Secondly, we purposely took a step back from the current direction of the industry to produce a product that is, in these days, unique and less immediate than a digital format. It will take a little more effort to hear this ep, but it will be well worth it when you do.

Southern Outpost Special Projects was setup to release quality music from all genres in special formats. All releases will be produced in limited editions and will not be available in digital formats to ensure that these will remain unique and distinct.

Once again, don’t sleep on this, only 100 audio cassettes are available exclusively from Clone.