LABEL PROFILES
OX CART NEW MUSIC Gabi Vanek, founder OXCARTNEWMUSIC.BANDCAMP.COM
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abi Vanek is the “label boss” of Oxcart New Music, but she isn’t precious about it. She didn’t use the word “curate” once in this interview. “So I have wanted to use the name Oxcart New Music for quite some time, but I kind of made it a catch-all,” she told me. It’s almost as if the sound of the name informed its mission as much as the meaning. It sounds cool. Is it cool? As I said in my review of Vanek’s collaboration with Chris Wiersema, Death Bag: If you hear “experimental live electronic music” and shout “where do I sign up?” this is a label for you. The two releases so far—Justin K Comer & the Unblessed Rest of Us and Ghost Actions (by Vanek and Will Yager) are resolutely experimental free improvisations. That kind of music is by definition new, insofar as no one hears it until the moment it’s performed, including the performers. Both releases came out on cassette in addition to download, through the casual arrangements of musicians who don’t expect to make any money. Vanek said to Comer, “Hey, do you want to just put it on Oxcart so then it can live in two places: your bandcamp website and then Oxcart? I can just bring it with me when I’m playing gigs or post about it on social media.” Improvisation, to Vanek, is not an arbitrary practice. “Insofar as practicing and knowing your scales and music theory, it’s exceedingly helpful … because you develop a syntax. Kind of like
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languages, you know all these words and phrases and then how to put them together in an interesting way, whether that’s melodically or experimentally, if that makes sense. Yeah, I’m a composer, but by accident.” As for her own playing she says “I’m more interested in exploring the boundaries of the instrument, specifically the bassoon, because I’m a bassoonist,” The COVID-19 pandemic was difficult artistically. “I started doing some of the daily Instagram video Bleep Bloops for a bit, and Ghost Actions came out during the pandemic. I had been testing vocals for my bassoon [i.e. singing while playing] but I wasn’t work on specific projects for myself.” The freedom of Vanek’s free improvisation is not without structure or intent. “When I’m performing, I should not be practicing for you. I did stuff in my laboratory, which is my practice space, right? And figured out that X and Y go together to make this sound or weird thing Z. So I would never perform being, like, “Oh, can X divided by Z make Y? Because if I didn’t practice that I don’t know if it’s going to work.” As for Ox Cart New Music, Vanek has no particular plans but said, “I would mostly like to be able to just release things for, you know, new music, experimental buddies in town or even just friends out of state who just need an opportunity to have something on a label and put it on their CVs.” Vanek stamps her personality on her label and her work as a performer: playful, but with serious intent. “There’s a whole world of free and proposatory music out there,” she says, “and I think every player must come at it a little different. You have some ideas, but you don’t know specifically what’s going to come out. You’re just not trying weird shit to try weird shit in front of people.” —Kent Williams
5CM RECORDINGS Mathias Timmerman, founder 5CMRECORDINGS.BANDCAMP.COM
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n 2013, I played my first solo set (as Underwater Escape From the Black Hole) at one of the Zeitgeist fests that were held in Boone,” Mathias Timmerman, of Des Moines label 5CM Recordings, said in an email. “And I ended up meeting a lot of other folks who were running little DIY labels, putting out tapes and releases for the weird little experimental projects that they were currently in. I loved the culture I found at the fests, people swapping tapes with each other and enjoying some waay out there experimental music. Iowa labels such Personal Archives, Warm Gospel and Centipede Farm were big inspirations.” Originally from the Dubuque area, Timmerman and his partner Kaylee moved to Des Moines in 2014, and he started 5CM shortly after. The label’s first release was a split between his Underwater Escape … and a musician from Scotland named Soma. “My half was mainly ambient loops and swells, and his half was in the same vein,” Timmerman said. “I’m still super happy with that release, both with the music itself and how the tapes turned out.” More recent releases, he said, cover a wider variety of styles, from “shreddy prog punk” to “harsh noise.” Among them are a split from Gravity’s Constant (one of Timmerman’s solo projects) and Heaven Drugs, a cassette from Haploid (which Timmerman
is also part of), and work from Moulttrigger, from Ames, and Excrete, based in Des Moines. “I’m actually in waaay too many projects haha,” Timmerman said. “I play synths in Haploid, bass in Leonard, and I’m also in an improvised collective called Sarin and I do solo electronic music as Gravity’s Constant ... One of the reasons I started 5CM was to have an excuse to put out physicals for some of the releases I was working on at the time. It helps having a little merch to sell at shows, and cassettes were a more affordable way to do that.” Although he’s experimented with other media, Timmerman—a 7-inch vinyl, a lathe 7-inch, occasional CDs—but he keeps returning to cassettes. “Cassettes are fun because they’re super easy to do on your own. You can order shells in almost any color you can dream of, and dubbing cassettes is something you can do totally on your own, without having to outsource anything. CDs can get a little tricky to do on your own and still look professional, but with cassettes, once you put some stickers on the tape and get the j card folded up and in place, and voila you have a legitimate looking somewhat professional release. When I started out in music having an actual physical release meant a lot to me, so I try to help others have the same.” Ultimately, Timmerman said, “I’d like 5CM to become a little hub for some of the music that’s off the beaten path in the state. There’s some great little scenes that have been emerging across the state in the past few years, particularly in the metal and punk genres, but electronic music and experimental stuff is a little harder sell, so I think helping to promote some different genres will help diversify the music in the state a bit.” —Genevieve Trainor
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