Barstool Mountain
Tightrope Walker
Tip! *315 copies limited edition* Barstool Mountain returns to Absurd Exposition after the well-regarded "III" CD from 2022. On "Tightrope Walker", the project's debut LP, Mattias Gustafsson continues his "harried, frazzled, grizzled" experiments in tape mangling with his Altar of Flies alter-ego. The album furthers the buildings-crumbling barrage of "III", leaving just enough room to realize that the walls are coming down hard.
III
"Texture. A nice word, wouldn’t you say, settling into the audible dis-course with whiffs of sophistication, complexity, depth. The Oxford English Dictionary gives us "the constitution, structure, or substance of anything with regard to its constituents or formative elements". Merriam-Webster offers "the disposition or manner of union of the particles of a body or substance". And here, courtesy Barstool Mountain, III, a deep-dive into fractured reservoirs of textural dis-course, whiffs of smudge…
Birth Canal
*150 copies limited edition* Barstool Mountain is the new alias of Sweden's Mattias Gustafsson, the artist behind the incomparable Altar of Flies. After quietly releasing two tapes on his own Hästen & Korset imprint, New Forces is pleased to bring this project to a wider audience. Mattias describes Barstool Mountain as the "primitive and raw" alternative to Altar of Flies. The recordings are more spontaneous, live sessions that capture a heightened energy. Pushing the intensity of recent Altar o…