(Bandcamp) The Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp, February 2025. The two 25-minute pieces on Cast Off Form‘s new cassette Strings are based around acoustic guitar, though you might not know that from listening. This Omaha, Nebraska-based sound artist adds no-input mixing and modular synth to his guitar forays, turning strings into noise. Both tracks are dense and busy, with side A’s “strings one” starting in near-silence before launching into whirrs, whines, and crashes, while side B’s “strings two” is more crackly and disruptive, less a meditation than a disturbance, with crunchy sounds banging around. Both pieces are united by an intense focus that treats even the smallest sounds as something worth examining up close. - Marc Masters

(Vital Weekly) This is the “latest instalment in the Acoustics Series”, says the label, which I read about nine minutes into the cassette. It made me smile, as the word acoustic didn’t come to mind in these nine minutes. I considered writing about the noise side of improvisation. I will use it, but on ‘Strings’, the otherwise unknown Cast Off Form uses a “solid cedar acoustic guitar accompanied by no-input mixing and modular synthesis”, and whatever is done on the guitar, it all renders beyond recognition when it leaves the no-input mixing and modular synthesis. Noise it is. I also told that “Cast Off Form spent the latter part of 2023 and the entirety of 2024 exploring unconventional uses of the acoustic guitar”, which is extended as, to some, it might sound like another lovely improvised drone/rock/noise (equal measures there) guitar music. Most of the time, the distortion and feedback prevail, and sometimes, you are reminded of the presence of the guitar. This guitar isn’t played in any conventional way. I enjoyed this interaction between the guitar and the electronic part quite a bit, mainly because it stays away from the more apparent approaches that could have been taken, like droney ambient music. At the same time, it’s not always a conventional noise release, going off in a brutalist form of electro-acoustic music. Maybe a bit long at 50 minutes, but quite the ear-cleanser, mind-resetting thing. - Frans de Waard

(KZSU) 1) (25:44) begins w LFO idling engine drone, slow sloppy percussion beat slowly joins, ~8m in glorious brutal noise crashes in, evolves to lovely noise riddled rhythmic balm, organic live feel retained 2) (24:46) low fi rather subliminal noise cacophony beneath waves of lovely feedbacky low drone - Your Imaginary Friend

(Raised By Cassettes) "Strings" begins with a jackhammer type sound which could also be an engine starting up. It does not sound like strings are used in the making of this, as there are little squeaks behind it as well. I can hear coughing in with this as well. It feels like this could just be that motorcycle getting ready to drive and it's about to take off. This is taking on different levels of intensity, the drone slowly changing. Some banging is coming in behind this now. It does feel like we're running an engine in a garage and hammering something. The banging takes on a rhythm. Single banging now keeps that engine purring. This takes on a sound now like something is getting hit and falling off. It repeats in a way which can put you into this trance because it can almost feel like it's glitching by doing this over and over. A hissing like a rattlesnake takes us into heavy distortion, which becomes that harsh noise wall. Again, this doesn't seem to really be using strings in the way that I thought this was going to feel more like an acoustic orchestra. Distortion just reigning down now, like it's leveling cities. Sharpness comes with it. This has just become pure chaos. Before it was steady and now it just feels like a non-stop assault. The sound becomes mechanical now, moving in a rhythm and loop where it could be borderline industrial. I'm caught bobbing my head now as the destruction takes a turn for the fun. Into sharp feedback now and we drop off into a lower static slip stream. The synth behind this moves, but then it all comes together in one loud, sharp tone. Banging is just coming down now like hit after hit and this has just turned brutal. A combination of these distorted punches now and sharpness coming through, covering all angles. Hit by hit, this is just dishing out a beating at this point. Wheels come screeching to a hault now and we're back to that engine type sound from the beginning, only this time it has a higher pitch to it. There is a little bit of that hammering / banging now, which is forming a rhythm after that just onslaught from prior to this. Sharp starts and stops now as well. A long sharpness and a little bit of tapping bring this side to its end. On the flip side we begin with that same engine hum again, but then it sounds as if guitar strings are being tuned down. This sounds like the destruction of an acoustic guitar somehow and then we slowly move into this groove like Pole Position. We continue with this sound and then it feels like acoustic percussion falling off, perhaps a rain stick. There is a feeling of scraping now as well, like something being dragged across concrete or a driveway. A low hum is behind it all now. This now feels like strings are being plucked and then it turns into droids communicating, still with the dragging and scraping sounds as well. This whole tone can cut through like a lightsaber now and that sound of something being dragged frantically persists. I almost feel like the object being pulled around in a driveway is an old plastic toboggan but that probably isn't it. More strings being plucked and causing their own brand of chaos now. I can almost feel like this is going into skramz as it takes on the chaos, but it still has those sounds of scraping and some strings which are also interesting. A louder tone comes through now to the point where it becomes too much. Like an electric razor but it makes my ears hurt a little bit more. A bit of cutting is within this all now, like the wind. This really does, though, feel like the sound of an electric razor so I just imagine someone getting their hair cut. A pounding now as well, almost hollow and acoustic but it is back there taking its beating. This can all feel like feedback now, like a guitar going out of control and hitting the skids. To some extent this can also just feel like an old video game style boxing match. We're steady droning now with little bits of sharpness. The droning can also feel like a dialtone at times. We're beeping now as if in an alarm. This is once again crashing down into that distorted destruction. And then it just ends. Everything. - Joshua Macala