TV Pow - TV Pow (1995)

"Big Fat Fuckin Zero" by TV Pow

On scholarship to study under sculptor Ryoji Koie, Brent Gutzeit moved to Japan and eventually landed in Tokyo where he fell in with the city's experimental music scene. While living there, he formed a band with fellow Kalamazoo expatriate Michael Hartman. TV Pow released its debut tape TV Pow in 1995 on Gentle Giant Records.

The tape starts with a field recording at a Japanese train station: an announcement jingle, a Japanese voice and the train approaching, braking and blowing out the recording equipment. The sheer volume of sound is more than the equipment can handle. This embrace of compression to create and manipulate noise is the through line of an otherwise unfocused tape. The tape is a collection of experiments, mundane sounds, live noise rock, and homage. All of it the lo-est of fi-s. Simply, it is a combination of "trying things out" and "fucking around," recording with whatever's handy.

"piano song" is the tape at its most cerebral: a two-player variation on John Cage's "Water Walk" where the ordinary objects are more percussive and rhythmic, and the prepared piano is afforded an extended solo. The other end of the musical spectrum is in "this close" where the listener gets an earful of foreplay from a microphone too close to hear anything. The flirtatious intention is clear if unintelligible and the subsequent play is simulated by instruments.

"kitchen scene" highlights the clinks and clunks of bottles and pans moving about a kitchen. Following these cues on the rest of the record (outside of the few live recordings,) the percussion arrives by any means but drums. Thunder sheets, breaking glass, or any household object that could be thumped does the trick. The guitar, meanwhile, meanders its way into rhythms and songs or breaks out into the limits of its own abrasiveness. Finally, "i have a special camera" is one of many field recordings as skits strewn about the tape. It captures the youthful energy, freedom and drunken transgression of Americans walking the streets of Tokyo at night: yelling out an inside joke that is politely dismissed.

The tape is nothing serious and not to be taken seriously. Its modus is the youthful dawning of the ever-expanding scope of whatever music can be, and its result is inevitably sophomoric. Also inevitably from people who can see so far so young, TV Pow will only come to know itself better and grow from here.

Note: Special thanks to Brent Gutzeit for answering my questions about his time in Japan and providing a digital copy of the TV Pow tape.

Here is the discography surrounding TV Pow's debut tape:

TV Pow

Big Fat Fuckin Zero (1995 track from The Miracle of Levitation compilation album)

"Tokyo 01.95" by TV Pow

Pass the Headphones!!

Wheaton Research Labs - Sean Wood Is a Genius (1995)

"Floppy Fan" by Wheaton Research

While Brent Gutzeit was an active member of multiple bands (including Pencilneck and Liminal,) he also recorded and released music under the moniker Wheaton Research Labs—shortened soon after to just Wheaton Research. The solo project, which started in 1992, released its debut tape Sean Wood Is a Genius in 1995 on Gentle Giant Records.

According to Brent, Wheaton Research was based on experimentation with "recycled cassettes." To paraphrase his process, he would play tapes through his stereo and record them on his boombox then repeat the relay x number of times. The result would take the sounds from the original tapes, compress them and thus warp and distort them—all while accumulating layers of ambient noise.

Sean Wood is not currently available to break down, but the contemporaneous Davison 1995 gives an idea of the kind of experiments Wheaton Research was concocting. The pre-processed tapes could hold any type of sonic material including field recordings, room tone, live performances, or singular sounds such as a motor, a fan or a bass drone. And there doesn't seem to be an arbitrary number of times each tape might be re-recorded. This results in a variety of levels of distortion that can range from simple crackle that fills in the hum of a room to speed changes that can warp a drone into something more melodic. Every track is at the same time familiar yet off-putting; taking recognizable sonic imagery and warping the image into having an unfamiliar character. What new character that might be is entirely on the listener.

Also, I recommend checking out the video below from Brent Gutzeit's documentary/live footage/musical compilation project The Miracle of Re-Creation released circa 1997.

Here is the discography surrounding Wheaton Research Labs's debut tape:

Sean Wood Is a Genius

"73" (1995 track from split cassingle)

1992-1995 (2014 compilation album)

Davison 1995 (2023 release of 1995 recordings)

"Tokyo 01.95" by Wheaton Research

Pass the Headphones!!