amuletsmusic

[amuletsmusic]

For this piece I wanted to compose and combine the virtual reel to reel of the OP-1 with a real life mini reel to reel I found at goodwill. The OP-1 is playing back synth pads and chord changes while the mini reel to reel is playing back some improvised guitar loops. Both units are fed into the Zoom MS-70 providing delay and reverb. 

https://youtu.be/TWPAWvrkhzQ

[amuletsmusic]

*BIG NEWS* I am officially going on a west coast tour opening forThis Will Destroy You in February!! I’m super excited and honored to be opening for a band I have admired for so many years. Tickets go on sale this Friday, hope you can make it out! 🙌🙏🖤

Sat, Feb 8th - Berkeley, - CA - Cornerstone Berkeley

Sun, Feb 9th - Chico, CA - The Big Room at Sierra Nevada Brewery 

Tues, Feb 11th - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge

Wed, Feb 12th - Seattle, WA - Neumos

Fri, Feb 14th - San Francisco, CA - Slim’s

Sat, Feb 15th - Los Angeles, CA - The Teragram Ballroom

[amuletsmusic]

The Bored Brain Transmutron allows you "dynamically control combinations of pedals and eurorack effects" - so I decided to put it to the test. On the left side effects loop I have the AC Noises AMA and Mutable Instruments Clouds in series, while the right side effects loop has the Quiet Theory Prelude reverb/delay pedal. Also I have the tape loop being envelope followed and sending CV to the Transmutron and 4ms SMR, with a gate also being sent to the trigger of clouds. Drone from the SMR and a sequence from the OP-1 are mixed by the Make Noise Rosie module and are all outputted into the Transmutron for effects processing. Confused yet? I know, this thing is endless...like an abyss.

[amuletsmusic]

Back in February, I was given the space and opportunity to create a sound art installation for Variform gallery here in Portland. The piece I made, Parallels, consists of two identical tape players, playing back an extended tape loop between the two players, each panned left and right accordingly within the space. As the composed tape loop plays, you can hear it being delayed from one tape head to another, swirling endlessly within the space and stereo field. 

https://youtu.be/QOrjrb_gpH4

[amuletsmusic]

Spring is in the air and my studio is blooming with new sounds and equipment. One of which is the Teenage Engineering OP-1 which I have wanted for years! I finally took the plunge and don't regret it at all. I'm still learning a lot about the OP-1 and how I want to incorporate it into my setup, but I thought i'd share with you my first ambient jam. For this track, I used the built in tape recorder, and slowed it down a bunch (-14 to be exact). The first two track layers are custom samples I made from tape loops and the other two tracks are heavily modified built in synths. 

https://youtu.be/1jwpSzL9g0Q

[amuletsmusic]

So I recently bought a new (old) camera, a Canon EOS M to be exact, and brought it along for a coastal hike a few weeks ago. I of course also brought along a tape loop to record and capture some sounds with. I ended up filming the tape loop and other random footage on the hike and was floored by how everything came out once I got home and reviewed it. I was immediately inspired and wrote a little piece around the tape loop and cut this short film together.

https://youtu.be/e48AgUI-OlI

[amuletsmusic]

I love taking things apart to understand how they work. I'm also fascinated by the emotional and nostalgic appeal of objects like tape players and cassettes. I feel like this is a large part of my art and music and with this piece I wanted to simultaneously deconstruct the physical cassette and player while constructing a song for microcassette - a format historically reserved for dictation and voice memos. There is an inherit fascination with the deconstructed object and a very real emotional response to music on tape, both of which I tried to capture with this video. 

https://youtu.be/bZ2rKeuACKI

[amuletsmusic]

I’ve had a tape reel covered in sandpaper for a while with the intention of destroying a tape loop on purpose. I was recently motivated to finish this project by watching Simon the Magpie challenge Hainbach to destroy some reel to reel loops. Unlike Hainbach (and the inevitable William Basinski comparison) I wanted to go smaller and build a cassette tape loop that decayed within the cassette shell. Through a lot of trial and error I was able to design a self-destructive, self-contained cassette that not only eroded the magnetic tape, but could also be reused and reloaded with different loops for continued future experiments.

Simon The Magpie Challenge: https://www.instagram.com/p/Br8JTUSiHdy/

Hainbach Destruction Loops: https://youtu.be/cVy9ABT5-iY

[amuletsmusic]

In June of 2018 I was given the opportunity (and grant) to realize a dream of mine - create a fully immersive tape loop sound art installation. I flew down to Austin for a week and installed a site-specific, multi-sound source tape loop installation that was on display for 6 weeks over the summer. Each tape loop had a different part/drone recorded to it and added a collective cacophony, but as you walked around the space you could hear subtle harmonies coming from each individual sonic structure. This installation was also meant to deteriorate over time through magnetic tape wear and Texas summer heat. My hope was that the loops would drift out of harmony with each other to create a different sonic experience upon every visit and eventually fade into a wall of noise. 

https://youtu.be/hJpyuzH0798

[amuletsmusic]

THE SHAPE OF LOOPS TO COME

I have always been fascinated by the tape movement in vintage roland space echos and wanted to experiment with that idea. This piece uses a modified walkman and hacked cassette shell to explore the limits of unhoused, free form tape loops. The exposed magnetic tape is constantly looping, morphing, and dancing in weirdly hypnotic and mesmerizing ways. This is the shape of loops to come.

[amuletsmusic]

only a few shirts left...

https://amulets.bandcamp.com/merch/limited-edition-amulets-4-track-t-shirt

[amuletsmusic]

I have never really loved the sounds (or programming) of the microkorg, but decided to dust mine off and see if I couldn't give it another try. I had some fun and absurdly routed an extra long tape loop around the knobs to physically integrate the loop with the music. The result was amazing...until the walkman ate my tape loop, which I ultimately decided was the best (and last take).  Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/bxBOhvSWliU

[amuletsmusic]

Out on Muzan Editions. Pick up a limited edition cassette here: https://amulets.bandcamp.com/album/future-fog

[amuletsmusic]

For this video, I wanted to experiment with delayed playback by using two tape players in series with each other. The tape loop connects the two walkmans and has a pre-recorded loop of toy piano recorded to it. The tape loop starts with the left walkman (left channel) and passes through the the right walkman (right channel) a few seconds later. I also experiment with physically shifting the tape players and bending the exposed analog tape to create shifts in pitch and speed. 

Download this music exclusively on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/amuletsmusic 

[amuletsmusic]

The new companion-album crafted by Amulets and Bus Gas is built upon a sense of unavoidable cause and effect. Ashes after a fire. Thunder before a storm. Quiet after a snow. The two cassettes are meant to be played in either order, two halves of a whole, combining together into a before-and-after rumination on anxiety and uncertainty. The bass lines on Bus Gas’ Immortal Yeller bend and warp, refusing to stay on their prescribed note while the guitars sound less like tools of rock-n-roll bravado and more like sirens at constant alarm. Mechanical rattles and clatters echo wordlessly through the din of Amulet’s Mountains Past, rumbling underneath hazy orchestras of synthesizers and tape loops. The two Portland based drone artists have both separately examined the emotional nostalgia of texture and physicality in their music, so it seems only inevitable that they would eventually join forces for the most immediate and potent collection of music they’ve yet put to tape. Bus Gas’ and Amulets’ collaborative, two-halves-of-a-whole mindset is carried into their release’s extravagant packaging. Two clear pro-dubbed tapes are housed side by side in an oversized double cassette case. A die-cut window in the stark white j-card reveals a collection of boldly patterned die-cut inserts that can be rearranged and combined into a recursive, layered image of the listener’s own creation.

PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY HERE

[amuletsmusic]

Excited to be heading back to the northeast to finally share my music with some old friends and new fans. Please come say hi and hang out if I’m in a city near you!

8/20 | SAN FRANCISCO - EL RIO

8/21 | OAKLAND - ELBO ROOM

8/25 | BUFFALO - THE VELVET GARDEN

8/26 | CINCINNATI - 3117 WARSAW

8/27 | PITTSBURGH - 1106 REEDSDALE

8/28 | PHILADELPHIA - LIASON ROOM

8/31 | NEW YORK CITY - H0L0

[amuletsmusic]

Infinity X Loop is a visual art exhibition and multi-point sound installation by Randall Taylor. His current body of work under the moniker Amulets expresses his interest in the intersection between visual art and music. His physical cassette tape loops are like mini musical canvases. They create sonic tapestries in his mechanically performative installations. Using recycled tapes and players, he simultaneously fuses music, recycling, art, and nostalgia.

Dimension Gallery

Austin, Texas

June 23rd - August 14th