(Lost in a Sea of Sound) Flipped over countless times, turned around just as many, senses and balance are now asunder. The sounds within Stasis have this effect. A source of continual energy flooding every pour within the mind and body. Caught in a diving suit under pressures equal to lengthy fathoms, a burst of turbulence causes the diver to spin and tumble. As the current subsides, vertical and horizontal bearings have been washed away. Floating in a Stasis of sonic saturation, the world around fades into the blur it always is. We listen and are back within the womb of life's beginnings. Charles Lareau has composed Stasis, a tranquilly blistering absolute beauty of sonic essence. As with many compositions in similar construct to Stasis, this is not a sound piece for any moment. This is specific, these sounds can pacify or agitate depending on the framework of the individual listening. Fortunately, Lost in a Sea of Sound is slow. Stasis has been flipped in the cassette player countless times. The nuances of Stasis and creativity of Charles Lareau speak clearly to this conscious. Something so raw and untamed elicits gorgeous depths. A statement difficult to believe and write upon first listen. But now, easily said and almost not enough. Completely in love with these sounds and wish they could be shared with those around me.... You have to get there though. Stasis is something worked towards and then enjoyed. Charles Lareau has roots with the Bluescreen label form Hangzhou, China and the Foreign Lands label out of Shanghai. These labels gather force with Gertrude Tapes from Omaha, Pittsburgh's Unread Records and Bryan Day's Public Eyesore / eh? label from San Fransisco. Stasis is released on cassette by Public Eyesore / eh? in an unknown edition. Copies are currently available. Have been looking at Charles Lareau's Nature Talks 1-4 on Foreign Lands, a six cassette release foung on discogs. The discog description "Four tape boxset of late night ramblings and observations on existence or the lack thereof with along with situational recordings, film audio snippets, field recordings etc". Seems like this would be pretty darn interesting. Also, Lost in a Sea of Sound had the pleasure to describe Fluxion by Charles Lareau on Gertrude Tapes and an album by Bryan Day, Christopher Fischer, Charles LaReau and L. Eugene Methe titled Naturaliste - Temporary Presence collaborated by the labels mentioned above. Both amazing like Stasis. Happy to be quasi involved by listening and experiencing such stunning sounds. - Ken Lower

(Raised by Cassettes) There is a bit of silence at the beginning of this cassette, so when that first note hits it might give you a jump scare. The distortion comes through in a wall and just obliterates everything around it. Electronics come in now to give this a smooth driving feel before it sounds like a spaceship landing. Like an engine driving, this sound just stays steady now. Sounds somewhat like a lightsaber come through and it just kind of fades out into footsteps. A slow build of more angelic electronics now as it sounds like a cross between a can being opened and a glass bowl. A door creaks open now and everything feels like it is increasing in both intensity and pacing. A bit of back and forth as the alien whirrs come in as well now. A quieter rolling now and individual notes. Everything stops and a certain haunted air comes through now, slowly creeping. As it slows through this haunted room feeling, there is a sound now which is almost like laughing. It feels as if there is some heavy breathing into a microphone before everything goes silent with a whirr and that is how the first side comes to its end. As the whirrs whoosh on the flip side there are also some beeps which make this feel a bit alien- like we are exploring a different planet in search of anything. Someone is speaking, but it is difficult to hear as loud skipping distortion takes over everything. Sharp tones cut through the distortion now and this feels like a spaceship out of control, but you know, like one of those car types that drives on the surface of a planet. We drop down into some louder static now and this just feels like it's designed to blow out your speakers. Some whirrs come through and it feels like we're changing channels before this ominous beat of someone walking where it feels like they're dragging something. It has big vibes of Michael Myers or Leatherface, but then this blissed out tone like the "Masters of the Universe" movie comes through. Through these blissed out tones comes some scraping and then it just intensifies to where it feels like we're shipping off into space but in the most happy way possible. We're creating some nice looping here as it feels like we're drifting further and further into space, with the electronics loud but not as loud as before. You can really hear the guitar blistering through now. The electronics flutter back and forth as this one comes to an end in spectacular fashion. - Joshua Macala

(Disaster Amnesiac) Judging from the tones that he gets on this eh? Records cassette, the sense that Disaster Amnesiac gets is that Hangzhou-based Charles LaReau is a no nonsense kind of guy. He uses tapes and electronics in order to build up long form, granular drone pieces on Stasis, ones that eschew exercises in fanfare. This entire cassette has a mellow, and certainly contemplative feel to it, one that's perfect for use as background to reading or thought processing. It's been rainy and cloudy for the past few days where I sit, and the sounds from Stasis have served as a suitable soundtrack for staring out the window at clouds and puddles and the drops therein. One wonders what electronic devices were utilized for these tracks; whatever they were, they must have been spare, as everything here has a sleek simplicity that would evince an almost complete lack of bells and whistles. No Jazz Hands happening, just a lot of dreamy washes and trills that scroll by within the attentive musical head. Asian Ambient must be a thing already, and Charles LaReau is doing solid work within that presumptive micro-genre. - Mark Pino

(The Wire) Synth player and composer Charles LaReau first gained notice as part of Omaha Nebraska’s Naturaliste (along with L Eugene Methe). He’s done a lot of solo machine work since then under various monikers, and has been based in Asia since 2005. This tape was assembled in Shanghai using found sounds, recycled tapes and electronics. The overall heft makes me think of Michel Henritzi’s old band Dustbreeders. Not because they actually sound at all alike, but LaReau’s music often feels as though it’s being made underneath a blanket of dust. My fave pieces possess propulsive qualities that defy the album’s title, or at least fight hard against its strictures, but my dog seems to prefer the ones that murmur like extraterrestrial ships landing inside his little head. There’s no figuring canine taste! - Byron Coley

(Bad Alchemy) CHARLES LAREAU schuf stasis in Shanghai – im Null-Covid-Lockdown? - mit Tapes & Electronics. Und taucht dabei ein in die 'Algosphere', die Sphäre der Algorith­men, die dabei ist, die Noosphäre, den Mindspace, als ihr Reich einzunehmen. Larue war 1999 – 2005 in Omaha Teil des "Psychedelic junk-folk"-Kollektivs Naturaliste gewesen, bevor es Das Torpedo, wie er sich meist nennt, in Foreign Lands zog, mit Musil, Cages '4:33' und Marx' Gespenstern im geistigen Reisegepäck. Mit auch, wie „Specters“ zeigt, einem Auge für Mark Fishers 'eerie places' und, wie man hier hört, einem Ohr für die Woll­mäuse der Erinnerung. Durch tonbandverrauschte Szenerien einer Low-Fidelity-Klang­landschaft, die nur bei 'airwaves' durch Stimmen und pulsende Rotation noch einen akti­ven industrialen Anstrich hat, und nicht nur wie zuletzt nochmal bei 'trajectory' einen ver­schwommenen Nachhall davon, der dabei ist, zu einer dröhnambienten Musik zu gerinnen. Zuvor aber tönte bei 'transistor' schon nostalgisch verstaubte und bei 'algosphere' zutiefst elegische Musik wie aus dem Haunted Ballroom und Forgotten Dreams von The Care­taker. Das Brausen von '0II0I' trägt vage Fetzen von chinesischer Musik mit sich, wie von einem Tonband, das aus dem Magen eines Haifischs geborgen wurde. - Rigobert Dittmann

(Sound Projector)American experimenter Charles LaReau is also called Das Torpedoes and Voost Viszt, plus he’s part of an improvising group called Naturaliste. He’s currently a resident of China where he runs his own cassette label Bluescreen, but today’s item Stasis (EH? AURAL REPOSITORY EH? 121) was released on the Eh? Aural Repository. This one scored an instant hit with me, for reasons I don’t understand. Really great set of odd and strangely compelling sounds – an inscrutable mix of recordings, music, found sounds, process noise, electronic racket, and any other intangible flots our man can pick out of the ocean depths, using his gigantic submersible tongs. When this kind of work succeeds, it’s not really about the source materials that are being used, and maybe not even about the methods (recording, editing, processing), so much as the forces that drive an artist such as Charles LaReau in the first place. The “inner artistic demon” as I sometimes like to call it, rehashing a phrase I once read in a review of Ornette Coleman’s records, can sometimes be a benign force; I suggest LaReau is compelled to explore and find out new facts about the airwaves and the atmosphere around us, reporting back to HQ with all the exacting dedication of a man on a mission for the USAF who’s just returned to earth after a flight in the XRT. What I especially like is that he seems genuinely amazed by it all – and that’s a healthy attitude right there, far preferable to that of a so-called experimenter bringing in the exact same predictable results with each new episode. As such, there’s a real delicacy to his touch which is very evident on these dream-like recordings, and he behaves as one so respectful to the spider’s web and its tracery that he dare not disturb it, even as he makes his observations. A tiny gem right here. - Ed Pinsent