Audiopile Review: After his initial pair of muddied illbient and heat-warped ambient albums released on Huerco S.’s West Mineral imprint, Kansas City-based producer Mister Water Wet has found a home at Soda Gong, who issued his excellent Top Natural Drum back in ’22 and now hit us with this beguiling new one. Bringing an organic edge to the album is Memotone, who is on a bit of roll after his two 2023 releases of engaging noir-exotica/glitched-jazz outings on Sähkö Recordings and Impatience, both big hits here at the shop. MWW runs Memotone’s slide guitar, vibraphone and clarinet through his unique prism of crackling ambience and shoes-in-a-dryer rhythms, at times recalling the hypnotic otherworldly visions of Roméo Poirier. Despite Mister Water Wet getting top billing, this is definitely one to peep for those fans of Memotone’s billowing midnight seances.

Iggy goes West! Soda Gong welcomes back Kansas City-based musician Iggy Romeu with his latest collection as Mister Water Wet. Cold Clay from the Middle West is a (characteristically) sharp left turn from his last two records, with Romeu offering up a surprising and addictive mélange of crackpot Americana and smoky noir beat science. “Cold Clay Suite” opens the record, a five-part ride into the sunset that features Cooder-esque guitars, cat-gut fiddle, horse-hoof percussion, stadium organs, penny whistle, and bleary-eyed polysynth ruminations, among sundry other ephemera. Multi-instrumentalist Will Yates, known to most as Memotone, shows up three times on the album, lending clarinet, keys, guitars, banjo, sarangi, and vibraphone to these kaleidoscopic productions. It’s a wild ride of a record akin to following a dotted bridleway on a crumpled old map, marvelously variegated and stitched together as only MWW knows how. Get along, now.