Golden Cloud Tapes

transgender-person — text: marc jauss
picture: beau devereaux

Working one’s way through the outsider label Golden Cloud Tapes is to sometimes find oneself in a seemingly endless corridor, sometimes in a cathedral of sound.

Italian filmmaker Dario Argento once said, “Horror is like a serpent; always shedding its skin, always changing. And it will always come back.” Golden Cloud Tapes, the label from Madison, Wisconsin, comes off as equally present and versatile. The imprint was launched in 2010 with Secret Parking Lot, the enigmatic debut from Samantha Glass. Behind the pseudonym is the skateboarder and self-confessed Rihanna fan Beau Devereaux, who on the one hand runs the label and on the other, as an artist, wears many skins: as Anvil Dome, Victor Portsmouth, Roan Linden, and even Samantha Glass, he produces mystical sound landscapes. Glass’ milestone albums Mysteries from the Palomino Skyliner and Surface Water Perception have even been released on the labels Not Not Fun Records and Sacred Phrases, respectively. Devereaux repeatedly brings the listener into a trance-like state—the conscious world loses focus and they suddenly find themselves in an endless corridor of beguiling echoes and distorted guitars. Should they suddenly regain awareness, they’ll soon be released from Devereaux’s voice, penetrating as if through a thick fog. This apocalyptic trip is just one of many positions found in the universe around Golden Cloud Tapes.

Take, for example, the 2014 album The Vitrine of Blindness from Robert Anthony alias Sleep Museum. For over ten years, this Brooklyn-born musician has produced dark and mostly rhythmic synthesizer noise that bore deep into listeners’ ear canals. Anthony sees his work as building musical cathedrals: filtered arpeggios, dusty pads, and raw bass lines dance like bats around one’s face. While wandering astray here, primed for adventure but in search of the exit, the listener nears the album’s end and finds the illuminating title: “We Are Here.” A ghostly voice wants to tell us that we’ve arrived.

It’s uncertain what skins Devereaux and Golden Cloud Tapes will slip into in the future. What is certain is that future releases will continue to surprise.

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Golden Cloud Tapes

The imprint was launched in 2010 with Secret Parking Lot, the enigmatic debut from Samantha Glass. Behind the pseudonym is the skateboarder and self-confessed Rihanna fan Beau Devereaux, who on the one hand runs the label and on the other, as an artist, wears many skins: as Anvil Dome, Victor Portsmouth, Roan Linden, and even Samantha Glass, he produces mystical sound landscapes.

columnmarc jauss16 December 2018aktuell01