TURN ON THE RESONATOR – album review

by Jack Diablo
Former Jacksonvillian and champion of the local experimental music scene, Logan Owlbeemoth, recently self-released a new Telepathik Friend CD-R that not-so-mysteriously ended up in my mailbox after a late-night Facebook exchange. The last time we saw Logan he was dressed in neon with a mask made of pipe cleaners and a stuffed monkey hanging from his pants, rapping over noisy deconstructed beats. Nowadays he calls Austin, TX home, but continues to make music as Telepathik Friend and still finds the time to book and host shows out of his garage, aka Discovery Village.
Telepathik Friend has always been an amorphous collective of noisemakers whose past affiliates include other Jacksonville locals such as Matrix Infinity and Chris Spohn. The current incarnation features familiar faces such as founding members Owlbeemoth himself and Omebi, as well as new friends How I Quit Crack, Skullcaster and Joe Legzz. Turn On the Resonator features two live group tracks with additional tracks from each solo member. What results is a compilation of strange and spacey tracks sure to transport your consciousness into previously unexplored realms. From the slowcore droning of TP proper to Skullcaster’s wet lasers, one thing is clear: Telepathik Friend has risen above the confines of free-form noise to something altogether unique while retaining that avant-garde sensibility we’ve come to expect.
If your only experience of this kind of experimental music is limited to 3rd-hand jokes about “noise” shows in the Riverside Publix frozen food aisle, you owe it to yourself to at least experience it. This album is most certainly not noise and manages to keep things listenable despite being pretty far out there. It’s a shame that Logan had to get out of Jacksonville to create what is quite possibly his best work to date; at the very least, it’s good to know that Duval is being well-represented.
Turn On the Resonator can be purchased directly through the Telepathik Friend MySpace page at www.myspace.com/telepathikfriend.