Scott Spear, a.k.a I’d m Thfft able, is in my opinion, simply one of the most inventively creative and talented performance artists in the current “generation” of experimental musicians, and those who have been as fortunate as I have to witness his live sets multiple times have been in for an equally mindblowing, yet subtley different experience each time. In a live performance context, Spear typically utilizes his voice and various percussive scrap/household objects (both amplified and not) along with pre-recorded material on either tape or cd-r, creating electro-acoustic collages that tread some sort of non-existent line between experimental improvised music, conceptual “performance art”, and completely absurd sonic destruction. While relegating any sort of fixed descriptors to this music feels like a serious undercutting of its brilliance, the same esthetics can be said of the recorded material that is released under I’d m thfft able’s name.
Take for example a new release that Spear recently uploaded to bandcamp, titled “Endless Blooper”, put out on his own label, Mangdisc. Though I don’t know how this tape was recorded at all other than that it was made between December of 2009 and January of 2010, it seems that recorded music by I’d m thfft able undergoes a different process than his live sets, though not necessarily harboring that drastically different of a result. The use of Spear’s voice provides much of the material here and other sounds and samples are layered in somehow (though I am not sure whether it was done digitally or with a multi-track tape machine). This music covers a great deal of conceptual territory, spanning from very quickly shifting sonic abrasiveness that sound like several cacophonous radio channels phasing in and out of each other to more static, droning moments, to pieces that layer samples liked quasi-looped grooves, becoming a template for Spear’s demonic chants. The pieces all draw the listener into very vivid sonic environments while also utilizing some brand of weird humor as the underlying source of the timing and sonic choices of the music. Something about this music is both playful yet uncompromisingly sinister in a way that I can’t quite articulate, but either way I would highly recommend listening to and purchasing this release. Get it via the bandcamp page or physically through mangdisc.