Australian multi-instrumentalist Bassling (née,Jason Richardson) describes himself as “exploring the nether regions of the frequency spectrum and delighting in their visceral response.” Well, his nether regions are our visceral pleasure, too. Through the years, he’s cast a wide and adroit musical net, moving with ease from slash-and-burn low-frequency smolder, to anti-slash-and-burn environmental activist field recordings, to flash-and-turn dance mixes. These modes, in BasslingWorld, interchange and interact, often balancing high-concept and poignancy, as on his record For 100 Years (above), created from a series of field recordings at playgrounds around his Oz town of Wagga Wagga (Leeton). Liner notes vía bandcamp:
Imagine the stories they could tell
if playgrounds talked
or maybe sang?
He remixed my track riding waves [disquiet0066-nonofi] for the 132nd junto challenge, which prompted this deep return to his catalog.
His virtuosity combined with entertaining, revelatory track descriptions at his blog (which take a tone of charming irascibility and often include kick-ass videos of his recording process) have resulted in some of my absolute fav junto pieces. His track for the 110th junto challenge, Of Leeton Yesterday Morn, sees Bassling celebrating the 100th birthday of William S. Burroughs in a “cut-up” track based on this story from his local newspaper, The Irrigator, about a series of botched break-ins:
And in Steady Boil, for the 131st junto challenge, Bassling conducted a tea kettle in a minimalist symphony that manages to be philosophical, mechanical and fun all at once:
Run around his cunning-as-a-dunny-rat universe at:
bassling
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