Jaap Blonk-Joyous Junctures; eh? Records #107, cassette; 2019

Recently at the high school where Disaster Amnesiac works, our World History class has been delving deeply into World War I. Along with marveling at just how much of a waste of people and resources that debacle was, I've also been thinking about how dada was really the only sane response to such an absolutely insane pursuit.
If you're thinking that Joyous Junctures, the recent cassette from Jaap Blonk on eh? Records, also has Disaster Amnesiac thinking about dada, you'd be right. The playful, willfully skewed nature of the music on this release is certainly worthy of the moniker. The ways with which Blonk bends computer sounds, voices, and tones from other sources has my mind pinned to the existential floor as
I imagine those that experienced the ontology emanating from Cabaret Voltaire must also have felt. Approached for a more linear vantage, Joyous Junctures may not do much for a listener, but if heard with a bit more of cyclic one, the songs on this cassette having the kind of surreal atmospheres and modes that really are delightful. Electronic squiggles merge with whirring and burbling tones. Metallic sounds scrape and trill. These then find themselves serving as the backdrop for vocal experimentation from both human and AI. Glossalalia and written texts are both found and explored by Blonk and his robots, sometimes within the same piece. It all adds up to an hour of delightfully odd, fun and often quite funny sounds.
If you're in need of escape from the every day mundane, Joyous Junctures will surely do the trick. Its dada will likely have you laughing and marveling simultaneously. It's art for the living, so spend some time living with it, human!