A distance of 8,000 kilometers: not the best conditions for making music together. But not impossible. And why not make a virtue of distance? »We both work primarily with tape,« says Sterling Mackinnon. The 40-year-old lives in London, while his partner Matt Bleyle, with whom he forms the duo Cuneiform Tabs, lives in the Bay Area in the United States. What do they do? »I use a Tascam 414 Portastudio, Matt has one too, and sometimes he uses a tape recorder.« Then they digitize and send and work. Until they are both happy. Which sometimes takes longer, sometimes shorter.
Mackinnon and Bleyle met more than twenty years ago. At a house party in a basement on Bainbridge Island. »We played in pretty pretentious, but interesting and fun bands for our age.« Years later, they met again when they both worked at Amoeba Music in San Francisco – one of the largest record stores in the world. Bleyle asked Mackinnon to play bass on a project. Since then, the duo has been working together in various constellations. They understand each other very well. »That makes it possible to realize a project like this from different countries.« One such project in this case is Cuneiform Tabs.
Their debut album was released last year, and their second full-length, Age, is now available. It is an exciting and irritating record, both in its aesthetics and its structure. Its ten songs are stubbornly harmonious and harmonically stubborn. »The first record was more of a casual experiment that we put together over a period of 18 months or so,« says Mackinnon. »But once it was finished and released, we realized what the project was all about.« The San Francisco-based label W.25TH approached the duo. (The same sub-label of Superior Viaduct that released Cindy Lee’s acclaimed album Diamond Jubilee on vinyl). The conversations motivated Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon. The second album was produced within a few months.
Intercontinental Disorientation Duo
Cuneiform Tabs is a logical progression from their previous collaborations. »To me, it sounds like a refined outgrowth of things we’ve tried in the past, but where we’ve just gotten a little better. We’re always trying to find something between songcraft and noise and drone experimentation.« All of this has a solid concept in Cuneiform Tabs: lo-fi melodies that fall apart and come back together, as Mackinnon describes it.
The influences on their work are correspondingly wide-ranging: »Brian Eno had a big influence on the things I brought to the project,« says Mackinnon. »Faust is another big part of what Matt and I have in common. Lots of stuff on Recommended Records. Flaming Tunes. I have a weakness for that borderland between what was called prog and art rock in the 70s.« Which makes sense when you read it. But when you listen to Cuneiform Tabs for the first time, you’d never know it. »Michael Yonkers’ ‘Goodby Sunball’ LP was talked about a lot when we were making ‘Age’. As far as contemporary stuff goes, I’m pretty excited about everything that’s happened in Gothenburg in the last ten years. So a lot of stuff that has been released by Förlag För Fri Musik or Mamma’s Mysteriska Jukebox.« Chris Gunn and Lavender Flu are other influences.
»I used to make music because it was my favorite way to get together with my friends.« Music soon became a kind of introspective exercise for Mackinnon as well. And Cuneiform Tabs is right in between. »To be honest, I’m always in the mood to create. I spend a lot of my day listening to works in progress and thinking about what I’m going to do with them when I get back to my studio space.« And the effect of their sound on the audience? They don’t want to dictate. »I guess the best I could hope for was some kind of somatic or subconscious reaction that could help a person forget where they are.« With a sound that carries out of the day and out of the night. To where thoughts get confused.
