RAY SANDS
Escalator Attendant
3" CDR CEIL038
Vital Weekly
3" CDR CEIL038
Vital Weekly
Three weeks ago we had The Sand Rays, which cover read that this was made by 'Jim The Younger',
who, in a previous carnation was Jim DeJong, also know as The Infant Cycle, but the short note
that came with this says 'nothing to do with The Infant Cycle', and I wondered why, but this new
release, now by Ray Sands, it says 'produced by Jim The Elder' and 'nothing to do with The Sand
Rays' it makes more sense. It also that it was recorded at 'Echo Place'. Just the other day I was
playing some old cassettes by Comando Bruno, the musical project of Rafael Flores, who also used
extensively various delay units to manipulate his sound material, and I was reminded of that when
playing this music. Again, like the previous, entirely not connected release, 'not a 7"...' but
with two pieces that could have been on a 7". It is not easy to say what is fed into those delay
units, but my guess would be some kind of acoustic sounds, which we are no longer able to identify,
especially in the first. In the second piece, 'That Blurry Tunnel There', the source might be more
of a field recording nature - the hollow sound of that blurry tunnel there, in the mist. Changes
in both pieces are quite minimal and take some time to show development. The title piece is a
stuttering piece of musique concrete being looped and delayed, while the other one is a fine take
on ambient music. I am not sure if a 7" would sell well, and I would love to have 3"CDR with more
than thirteen minutes of music, but I guess you can't have it all.
-Frans de Waard
No trainspotter I, but old steam engines still conjure romance for me, especially caked matt black with the grease and soot of their labor, from their juggernaut grimaces to the steel wheels and the giant piston and connecting rods that give them motion. On Senor Trainwhistle, The Sand Rays- actually one man, Jim DeJong, releasing on his old-new label CEIL- present a brief, three-part symphony of locomotion- a long, sputtering drone, a clicks'n'cuts clickety-clack of forward momentum with subtle texturing as the passing scene, and the far-off and getting further away song of the rails.
DeJong frames the piece (and its quickly-following companion, Escalator Attendant) in a context of Bizarro world Magrittisms- addressing us as "Jim the Younger" and "Jim the Elder," respectively, we are told neither is a 7" (they are in fact three-inch CDRs- two sides of the same, cancelled vinyl single?) and that The Sand Rays have "nothing to do with The Infant Cycle," the name under which his generative, distressed oeuvre is most widely known. Identically designed, Escalator Attendant is credited to Ray Sands, who has "nothing to do with The Sand Rays."
The latter opens with a shimmering, juddering piece reminiscent of New York minimalism, opening wider until slowly tumbling down the huge chasm that has opened under it. The second piece, "That Blurry Tunnel There," if damp and clammy, is also smooth and narcotic.
Both are mysterious discs (five or six of The Infant Cycle's releases are called A Mysterious Disc, but I am sure they have nothing to do with Ray Sands or the Sand Rays)- looped, concrete, ambivalent, ambient and transportive.
Both releases are available on CEIL.
-Stephen Fruitman