HR038 - Cephalic Index — C60 — 1986
Side A
June 18 Neoplastic (edit) Meat Production Not A Tear The Bowels Of Society Where Does The Time Go? June 18 (Reprise) |
Side B
The Brown Man Search Hellbend (Live) Atypia Platelets No Light (Version) |
REVIEW by Jerry Kranitz
Cephalic Index was the solo project of Mike Jackson, who was also one half of the Cancerous Growth duo with Chris Phinney, became a member of Viktimized Karcass, and was in the one-off Harsh Reality tape project R.S.V.P.
The Chimerical Dysentary tape kicks off with ‘June 18’, a punk experimental drone-tribal bass and drums workout with weird soundscape ghoul drones. Mike creates a lo-fi experimental ghoulish soundscape drone vibe, with a LOW bass and sorta tribal drums, and apocalyptic “we're all gonna die” spoken/sung vocals.
‘Neoplastic (edit)’ features soaring and radio wave pulsating tones that get frantically pulsating and oscillating.... just freeform experimental fun with electronics tones and supporting effects. ‘Meat Production’ is next but the music flows such that I kind of lost track of which was which, though between that and ‘Not A Tear’ I hear more freeform sound, effects, samples, and spoken word workout. I like the chaotic clatter that flows along in a nice steady machine shop, block/tin can/power drill groove, as Mike rattles off destructive spoken word. Mike did comment to me that ‘Meat Production’ was “My attempt at industrial music with lyrics based on statistics of the environmental horrors of factory farming for meat consumption.”
‘The Bowels Of Society’ is similar but colored by psychedelic tape manipulations. Wow, this is a total fun with tape head trip that grooves along nicely. The voice samples on ‘Where Does The Time Go?’ are blended with twisted stilted tape manipulations with windswept, drone pulsating bubbling effects. Mike is clearly having fun experimenting with the tape recording possibilities. It’s repetitive yet experimentally intense.
Side B kicks off with ‘The Brown Man’, which starts off as fun with slide guitar experimentalism. Mike slides and bashes the guitar, and then throws in tape manipulated fun and all kinds of backwards voice samples and effects... cut in, start/stop... freaky stuff. I once again couldn’t tell whether I was listening to ‘Search’ or ‘Hellbend (Live)’, but in any event I hear a stoned bass riff and Mike’s spoken vocals, followed by a comet tail carpet of cosmic radio static. Then we’ve got bashing and messed up guitar and squealing, pulsating effects and voice samples. It’s spaced out, avant garde experimental fun with sound, plus good time short wave radio band alien soundscape experimentalism.
‘Atypia’ and ‘Platelets’ are in here somewhere, as I’m enjoying a cosmic wind storm of blazing waves, grating screeches, oscillating howls, over which Mike reads a spoken word science themed narrative..... I’m behind... I’m hear him saying something about PLATELETS. Then there’s lo-fi electronic tone, drone, and space noise experimentalism that at times has a cool and strange Heavy Metal feel, and it sounds like there’s some loop action here too. Mike told me the voice is from a found pathology cassette about abnormal blood cell counts or some such.
INTERVIEW with Mike Jackson by Kranitz
Jerry Kranitz (JK): Was Cephalic Index you first solo project? The music is way more abstract, let’s see what kind of fun I can have with this tape recorder experimental, rather than rocking punk/experimental like Viktimized Karcass or even R.S.V.P.
Mike Jackson (MJ): I began CEPHALIC INDEX in Memphis in the spring of 1986. I had certainly messed around with found sounds and made home recordings before that, but this was my first proper project so to speak. The first recordings were made at the home studio of a mutual friend named Jimmy Lee. He had a four-track, a Roland SH-101, a drum machine and other nice equipment I would have otherwise not had access to. At home I had a small reel-to-reel, cassette machines, Realistic mixer and reverb and recorded everything live to two tracks. By the end of '86 I purchased a Fostex X-15 four-track which changed everything. I was obsessed with the possibilities that tape had to offer.
JK: Was Chimerical Dysentary the first Cephalic Index release?
MJ: Chimerical Dysentary was the third solo release in the whirlwind year of 1986 (according to Discogs anyway). I'm actually not even sure that it was completed in that year because I no longer have the four-track masters with all the pertinent data to substantiate that fact. Either way a lot happened in a short period of time.
JK: Were subsequent albums always in a similar experimental style, or did Cephalic Index evolve as time when on?
MJ: Evolved maybe; changed for sure anyway. A lot of changes can be linked directly to the acquisition of certain equipment, while others may be more evident of personal growth as an artist and a person. I was only twenty years old when I stopped the project in 1990.
JK: What kind of instruments/gear/objects did you use on Chimerical Dysentary?
MJ: Found cassettes, crude electronic feedback between stereo components, electric guitar, shortwave radio, found percussives, field recordings, microphone feedback and a cheap amplifier with a tremolo knob, with the Fostex being at the center of it all.
JK: Was Cephalic Index always a solo project?
MJ: Yes, but others contributed occasionally willing or otherwise.
JK: ‘Neoplastic (edit)’… the ‘edit’ part implies there was some longer version?
MJ: I certainly hope not! Listening to it in 2020 it certainly seems sufficiently dreadful and self-indulgent as it is!
JK: Similar question for ‘No Light (Version)’… was there some other version out there?
MJ: Maybe on a compilation somewhere? I can find no evidence of another version today though.
JK: I liked the drone-tribal bass and drums workout and weird soundscape ghoul drones AND and apocalyptic “were all gonna die” spoken/sung vocals on ‘June 18’.
MJ: My neighbors at the time were Jehovah's Witnesses who had prophesied that the world would end on June 18. The bass was recorded at a higher tape speed to make it sound down-tuned.
JK: Was ‘Hellbend (Live)’ really from a live performance?
MJ: Actually yes; it was part of a live performance given in my bedroom in front of two friends. Sounds silly but the entire set was meticulously planned (and choreographed) and included a few actual songs from the CEPHALIC INDEX repertoire. This bit was more of an improvised interlude and is all that survives of the document.
JK: Again, looking at Discogs, you had quite a few releases on various labels. How did you happen to release on one or another label vs. your own Xkurzhen Sound?
MJ: I just networked like everyone else at the time and released entirely too much music. If someone else wanted it, they got it; if not, I'd put it out. There was a certain etiquette among home-tapers usually. If Al Margolis released your music, then you'd put out an IF, BWANA tape for instance. On the other hand, if you sent something to Zan Hoffman you had no idea what would happen to it (in the best way possible of course). Ultimately it was really a ton of fun.
Cephalic Index was the solo project of Mike Jackson, who was also one half of the Cancerous Growth duo with Chris Phinney, became a member of Viktimized Karcass, and was in the one-off Harsh Reality tape project R.S.V.P.
The Chimerical Dysentary tape kicks off with ‘June 18’, a punk experimental drone-tribal bass and drums workout with weird soundscape ghoul drones. Mike creates a lo-fi experimental ghoulish soundscape drone vibe, with a LOW bass and sorta tribal drums, and apocalyptic “we're all gonna die” spoken/sung vocals.
‘Neoplastic (edit)’ features soaring and radio wave pulsating tones that get frantically pulsating and oscillating.... just freeform experimental fun with electronics tones and supporting effects. ‘Meat Production’ is next but the music flows such that I kind of lost track of which was which, though between that and ‘Not A Tear’ I hear more freeform sound, effects, samples, and spoken word workout. I like the chaotic clatter that flows along in a nice steady machine shop, block/tin can/power drill groove, as Mike rattles off destructive spoken word. Mike did comment to me that ‘Meat Production’ was “My attempt at industrial music with lyrics based on statistics of the environmental horrors of factory farming for meat consumption.”
‘The Bowels Of Society’ is similar but colored by psychedelic tape manipulations. Wow, this is a total fun with tape head trip that grooves along nicely. The voice samples on ‘Where Does The Time Go?’ are blended with twisted stilted tape manipulations with windswept, drone pulsating bubbling effects. Mike is clearly having fun experimenting with the tape recording possibilities. It’s repetitive yet experimentally intense.
Side B kicks off with ‘The Brown Man’, which starts off as fun with slide guitar experimentalism. Mike slides and bashes the guitar, and then throws in tape manipulated fun and all kinds of backwards voice samples and effects... cut in, start/stop... freaky stuff. I once again couldn’t tell whether I was listening to ‘Search’ or ‘Hellbend (Live)’, but in any event I hear a stoned bass riff and Mike’s spoken vocals, followed by a comet tail carpet of cosmic radio static. Then we’ve got bashing and messed up guitar and squealing, pulsating effects and voice samples. It’s spaced out, avant garde experimental fun with sound, plus good time short wave radio band alien soundscape experimentalism.
‘Atypia’ and ‘Platelets’ are in here somewhere, as I’m enjoying a cosmic wind storm of blazing waves, grating screeches, oscillating howls, over which Mike reads a spoken word science themed narrative..... I’m behind... I’m hear him saying something about PLATELETS. Then there’s lo-fi electronic tone, drone, and space noise experimentalism that at times has a cool and strange Heavy Metal feel, and it sounds like there’s some loop action here too. Mike told me the voice is from a found pathology cassette about abnormal blood cell counts or some such.
INTERVIEW with Mike Jackson by Kranitz
Jerry Kranitz (JK): Was Cephalic Index you first solo project? The music is way more abstract, let’s see what kind of fun I can have with this tape recorder experimental, rather than rocking punk/experimental like Viktimized Karcass or even R.S.V.P.
Mike Jackson (MJ): I began CEPHALIC INDEX in Memphis in the spring of 1986. I had certainly messed around with found sounds and made home recordings before that, but this was my first proper project so to speak. The first recordings were made at the home studio of a mutual friend named Jimmy Lee. He had a four-track, a Roland SH-101, a drum machine and other nice equipment I would have otherwise not had access to. At home I had a small reel-to-reel, cassette machines, Realistic mixer and reverb and recorded everything live to two tracks. By the end of '86 I purchased a Fostex X-15 four-track which changed everything. I was obsessed with the possibilities that tape had to offer.
JK: Was Chimerical Dysentary the first Cephalic Index release?
MJ: Chimerical Dysentary was the third solo release in the whirlwind year of 1986 (according to Discogs anyway). I'm actually not even sure that it was completed in that year because I no longer have the four-track masters with all the pertinent data to substantiate that fact. Either way a lot happened in a short period of time.
JK: Were subsequent albums always in a similar experimental style, or did Cephalic Index evolve as time when on?
MJ: Evolved maybe; changed for sure anyway. A lot of changes can be linked directly to the acquisition of certain equipment, while others may be more evident of personal growth as an artist and a person. I was only twenty years old when I stopped the project in 1990.
JK: What kind of instruments/gear/objects did you use on Chimerical Dysentary?
MJ: Found cassettes, crude electronic feedback between stereo components, electric guitar, shortwave radio, found percussives, field recordings, microphone feedback and a cheap amplifier with a tremolo knob, with the Fostex being at the center of it all.
JK: Was Cephalic Index always a solo project?
MJ: Yes, but others contributed occasionally willing or otherwise.
JK: ‘Neoplastic (edit)’… the ‘edit’ part implies there was some longer version?
MJ: I certainly hope not! Listening to it in 2020 it certainly seems sufficiently dreadful and self-indulgent as it is!
JK: Similar question for ‘No Light (Version)’… was there some other version out there?
MJ: Maybe on a compilation somewhere? I can find no evidence of another version today though.
JK: I liked the drone-tribal bass and drums workout and weird soundscape ghoul drones AND and apocalyptic “were all gonna die” spoken/sung vocals on ‘June 18’.
MJ: My neighbors at the time were Jehovah's Witnesses who had prophesied that the world would end on June 18. The bass was recorded at a higher tape speed to make it sound down-tuned.
JK: Was ‘Hellbend (Live)’ really from a live performance?
MJ: Actually yes; it was part of a live performance given in my bedroom in front of two friends. Sounds silly but the entire set was meticulously planned (and choreographed) and included a few actual songs from the CEPHALIC INDEX repertoire. This bit was more of an improvised interlude and is all that survives of the document.
JK: Again, looking at Discogs, you had quite a few releases on various labels. How did you happen to release on one or another label vs. your own Xkurzhen Sound?
MJ: I just networked like everyone else at the time and released entirely too much music. If someone else wanted it, they got it; if not, I'd put it out. There was a certain etiquette among home-tapers usually. If Al Margolis released your music, then you'd put out an IF, BWANA tape for instance. On the other hand, if you sent something to Zan Hoffman you had no idea what would happen to it (in the best way possible of course). Ultimately it was really a ton of fun.