RADIANT RADISH | MUSIC CASSETTE

Jetski, Peoria, IL-based producer Ian Ostaszewski makes music under the name Jetski. His gonzo sample-based output manifests as overwhelming plunderphonic collages of juxtaposed sounds charged by complex webs of overlapping rhythms and head-spinning shifts in mood and timbre, all meticulously laid out to the point that it feels like you're hearing a live band burn through a set of hyper-progressive music. The Radiant Radish, his first album on Hausu Mountain, follows his debut Reflex Engine (released on HausMo satellite label Blorpus Editions in 2022) with an awe-inspiring song cycle of freewheeling sample assemblage. He injects numerous fragments drawn from royalty-free sound libraries and public domain films - by his estimation somewhere between 4000 and 4500 samples - into composite takes that jitter with constant activity, performed live on his network of samplers running on iPads and iPhones. For all of his album's ballistic sample-churning pandemonium, Jetski surprises us more with the sophistication and dream-logic organization of his arrangements rather than their disarray. With his relatively anonymous sources providing the constituent parts of The Radiant Radish, the album draws it's manic power not from the potential of listeners pinpointing the origins of sounds or contextualizing them along a cultural timeline, but from the mind-bending narrative and morphing rhythmic reality of Jetski's collages themselves on a moment-to-moment basis. We recognize the tones of individual instruments but can't determine exactly what they're playing as they crash into the mix in a disfigured fashion for a few seconds, just as we come to trace brief passages of rhythm made from staccato samples that speed by too fast to even attempt to identify. Before long, we give up trying to pick out anything at all and let Jetski's tidal wave of sounds wash over us.