Taiga Remains is the solo project of Students of Decay label head Alex Cobb. Although Paper Lanterns is just the second Taiga Remains 3” cdr released by Cobb on his label, it is clear that Cobb has been hard at work fiddling with his sound. Cobb’s other releases (Moon Colored Dogs on Students of Decay, and “Drowned Pollen Teacher” - appearing on Volume 4 of the Digitalis’ Wailing Bones series) use glacially shifting background drones as a base for whirrs, squawks, and buzzing tones to dance around. This yields majestic flowing soundscapes where tones pulse, bells ring, and shimmering loops appear transiently against a dominant background drone. By contrast, the two pieces on Paper Lanterns feature those elements that added color in previous releases as foreground agents while the formerly dominant drones fade in and out more intermittently. This may not seem like a big shift, but it changes the overall feel of the pieces significantly. Instead of a plush, enveloping headrush with little bits of ear candy to fend off complete drooling stupor, now the listener ends up being much more actively engaged. Think of it as the difference between early Birchville Cat Motel and recent Robert Horton headtrips or My Cat Is an Alien careening through an asteroid belt thrown down by Hototogisu. Or possibly even Otomo Yoshihide’s jittery spastic energy tempered by Philip Jeck’s patient sonic washes.
Some of this is likely media related. The 3” cdr time limit means that instead of unfolding slowly and leisurely, the sounds on Paper Lanterns mutate restlessly with very little global continuity behind them to hold them afloat. Nothing really sits still or coasts here. It reminds me of a time lapse film that compresses the activity of several days into less than twenty minutes. Making this type of fast forward seem as though it is still happening organically without herky jerky movements is no easy feat, but Cobb’s mastery of the mixing process is a marvel as tiny motifs constantly swim in and out of audibility. If there’s a criticism of the release it’s that one can feel as though all these gyrations do not really lead anywhere. But maybe they aren’t supposed to have a destination and in any case, the journey is fascinating. Paper Lanterns is the work of a fertile and restive imagination and Taiga Remains is definitely a project to keep an ear out for.
