East​-​West Gacha Master

press release ⇲

"Though written and recorded apart, East-West Gacha Master finds outclub and DT Dream in sync. The tape locates the artists, more commonly known as sad_rave and docterre, amongst their favourite moments from a medium that’s provided them with solace and reprieve over the last few years. With what can only be described as housemate energy, the two artists found themselves doing the same thing without knowing, serendipitously producing a split release that samples entrance themes and promo music videos from the world of Japanese women's pro wrestling, known to its practitioners as "joshi puroresu".

A sound artist and songwriter, outclub has spent a lot of their lockdown learning new things about making music. They’ve been getting curious about chord progressions, experimenting with synths and reacquainting themselves with their first instrument, the guitar. The result has been a series of tunes as sketches, one minute drones that drop off into contented silences, carried downstream by warm, meandering melodies. As outclub, they also test the water as a producer, incorporating loops and samples into their most tightly structured work to date. Much of what outclub's previous output is characterised by mellifluous tones and gentle aimlessness, but here their music moves ecstatically, animated by the joy of watching joshi wrestlers perform.

Having long since honed their skills as a producer and DJ, DT Dream’s music has become confident and expansive, their tunes opening up vast spaces that glisten with the samples and beats reflected onto them. On this release they forge forward with an eclectic supermix of widescreen ambient texture and playful dance music. Their side is a reimagination of joshi material - slow theme grooves are bumped up through the gears on some tracks, transformed with disorienting club euphoria, while others are pitched down into the aquatic dreaminess of vaporwave. Their production strikes a balance between detail and feeling: the crowd chants of “FP Mystery” are pushed way back as a simple, sad melody glides by over top.

East-West Gacha Master is a celebration of joshi puroresu, and a way of saying thank you to it, but it also acknowledges the friendship between outclub and DT Dream, their accidental telepathy getting a nod in the transition from side A to B on the tape, which is marked by the entrance theme for retired wrestler Miki Tanaka."
- Robin Smith

outclub x DT Dream / cassette / 57min / 2021

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