Allmanna Town are a duo of Phil Dodds (Waxing Crescent) and Jonas Geiger Ohlin (The New Emphatic). There is, however, a third member of this duo – the Library of Congress C-1 cassette deck, used to manipulate sounds which are then edited and reconstructed using a variety of electronic tools.

Dodds and Ohlin’s first release together was ‘LF24 / C.FXNOISE’, part of the LIFEFILES series through my own Mortality Tables project. The proposition with ‘LF24 / C.FXNOISE’ was to use old cassettes I’d accumulated in the 1990s, which were then completely skewed through their intensive approach to re-augmentation.

‘1911’ consists of six short cuts (or ‘samples’ as they call them). There’s a digital edition, or you can shell out on a lathe-cut 7-inch which will have probably sold out by the time you’ve read this. On these pieces, you can really hear, first and foremost, the joint love this pair have for 1990s electro and techno. ‘Sample 28’ is a slow-motion electro-ambient piece that uses a crisp, sparse beat, while ‘Sample 04’ rides a neat 4/4 rhythm.

The trick is to listen to what’s going on behind these beats. The manipulation of tape sources leads to fluttering, unplaceable textures of unknown provenance. On ‘Sample 04’ the effect is to subsidise the regimentation of the the beats with a dreamy, floating motion. On ‘Sample 32’ – the longest track here, at 2’15” – beneath what could be a late-80s digital house piano loop and some sort of classical motif, we hear a web of chatter that sounds like a vocal warm-up from Hatsune Miku.

The whole thing lasts less than ten minutes, but it carries with it an intensity of imagination lacking in far longer releases. Expect great things from this inventive duo.

https://allmannatown.bandcamp.com/

‘1911’ by Allmanna Town is released March 14 2025.

‘LF24 / C.FXNOISE’ was released through Mortality Tables on October 4 2024. Available here.

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2025 Further.