Introducing Mended Dreams

5.5.21 by Matty McPherson

At this point, I don’t really know what Claire Rousay is gonna announce. After getting “emo-ambient” into the paper of record, she could literally reveal that we’re all on a plane hovering above the Bermuda Triangle or introduce us to her new line of barrel-aged Mexican lagers and I’d believe her! Fortunately though, Rousay has chosen a more enlightened path, announcing a new imprint nestled in the American Dreams multiverse entitled Mended Dreams (it even has its own HQ!)

What I do know is that it’s not everyday that you just suddenly decide to strike up your own label imprint for the second time in under a year. And Rousay is going hog wild, with a flush 3.5 hours of music to hit the Bandcamp this 5/7 (Bandcamp day). Out of the 3.5 hours of music hitting, Rousay has been kind enough to reserve a hefty chunk for the cassette format — her first releases on the format proper since December’s on Notice Recording! And these aren’t any reissuing of recent material — brand new zones chalk full of brand new art.

Claire Rousay – Twin Bed EP

Back in March, Rousay participated in Tone Glow’s live concert, lending a new audio/visual composition entitled Twin Bed. Even through the text and scroll of a Twitch chat, something must have been in the air when it transmitted through the internet as everyone sat struck. Through its 11 and a half minutes, Rousay’s typical haptic shabang become only a layer within her one-person piano slowcore-orchestration. It’s a heady piece, letting its length uncurl. I recommend it as you prep and take in the longest bowl of your life. This release is being issued here with a few other new tracks recorded throughout 2020.

Claire Rousay & Patrick Shiroishi – Now Am Found

It’s not hard to spot Patrick Shiroishi in my Bandcamp email feed as much as the Twitch chat using all caps to hype up Japanese whiskey. The local LA gentleman has been transmitting his essential sax sound and ethos on every cool cat’s project — seriously, do I need to stand up on the local mountain with my new yard sign that features Brad Rose’s tweet?

Last year, Patrick went for broke on (holy alone), his first major batch of field recordings for Never Content Records. For as much as it was a personal pandemic tape, it transcended space and time, transporting me back to a centrifugal space of the late 40s urban sprawl. Perhaps he’s looking to cast centripetal zones with Claire Rousay, over a tape of “Field Recordings, Guitar, Piano, Synth, Vocals.” Yeah that’s right, this is a no-sax zone! Both mavericks instead are working towards a “cocoon-like space where the mundane, the sacred, and the cherished become one and the same.” Take a listen to the tape closer “Brushed to Hard,” and you can garner a pretty good sense of the openness that they look to bring to the center of your soundsystem. I’ll be placing my copy in an open-air cloud-room-glass-room and letting ghost cars pass out of the boombox and straight onto the highway.

Tape Pre-Orders look like they are going up Friday 5/7; be there or be square.

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