Homespun cassette label Regional Bears moves away from its preferred format with a debut vinyl release from Philadelphia-based sound artist Christian Mirande.  Previously releasing works on labels such as Hanson Records, Recital and Vatrine, his work is often characterised as textural or atmospheric and deals with themes such as memory, loss, and faith.

Beautiful One Day, Perfect The Next is a tale of two halves and employs Mirande’s trusted instrumental and compositional repertoire of magnetic tape, fretless bass, iPhone voice memo and a range of FM synthesis.  The A-side consists of a number of queasy, iridescent synthesis pieces broken up by haphazard interludes and bookended by two vocal pieces.  The nauseous pitch-bent sonics and vocal musings have us wondering if there could have been a Werkbund record on Lovely Music, or recalls Paul De Marinis’ seminal Music As a Second Language, whilst ‘Can’t Close My Hand In This Dream’ breaks up the inorganic sound with nostalgic vinyl crackle and out of tune piano.  

The B-side is occupied entirely by the title piece, opening with cool, menthol electronics before developing into rolling hi-hats, a driving fretless bassline and flurries of collaged spoken word samples.  We’ve spent the last 18 months with this piece of music in one form or another and are still yet to tire of it - something like modern take on Robert Ashley’s The Park with a double decker sized low end, it’s become a faithful companion to the store.  For us, it’s refreshing to hear techniques often deemed conceptual channelled into something more, erm, musical?  Or at least, enjoyable to listen to at entry level.  We’ll be listening to this non-stop for the foreseeable future…can’t recommend this any higher.