Audiopile Review: Brand new cassette in from wzrdryAV, a local producer who was recently sent our way courtesy of MIDI Janitor. The project of Kelly Claude Nairn has been a mainstay of the underground Vancouver electronic scene for well over a decade, issuing cassettes, CDs and digital releases on labels like Digitalis, Silent Season and his own imprint Wzrdry Recordings, not to mention hooking up with Seekers International on their 2011 debut release. His early releases met at the well-trod crossroads of dub and ambient, though his ongoing Broken Sampler series has leaned toward lo-fi beatscapes. Subtly “re-tweaking” 30 tracks culled from the four volumes of the Broken Sampler releases, Nairn pieces together an hour-long mix that encapsulates his blunted style of hazy beats and hissy ambiance, the type of shit that sounds great on a cassette. Somewhere near the rhythmic constellations of Actress and Jamal Moss, the mix has the feeling of a fifth generation VHS recording that’s been through the wash, a static tonal quality of the tape’s previous ghosts lurking just beneath the surface of his smeared and narcotic beats. Much like MIDI Janitor’s degraded and brutalist IDM, wzrdryAV has struck upon a beautiful darkness in the depths of ferric oxide.

30 tracks selected, re-tweaked and re-texturized from the 78 tracks that make up all 4 volumes of the series. All blended into a continuous mix sprinkled with samples retrieved from a cassette tape containing recordings of Vancouver police scanners from 1982. The digital version includes 10 new dusty interludes from the Broken Sampler sonic universe!

Cop one of the limited edition tape versions of the mix! All copies hand dubbed real-time, recorded directly from the hard drive to a Tascam 112 cassette deck.