I listened to Clark Gable one time, and it was a bad idea. The “King of Hollywood” appeared to me in a vision as if he had just stepped out of “It Happened One Night” and handed me a cassette tape by CIA Debutante, claiming it was the latest missive from Edinburgh-based Czaszka (Rec.). “Sell me,” I said, not unkindly, but wary of this anachronism of an encounter. He winked – you can totally picture that Clark Gable wink – and said, “CIA Debutante sounds like Dead C on McIntosh but when they were only 25 years old.”
I woke in a pool of sweat with this gorgeous hunk of tape in my hand, and I stared at its lovely risograph-printed artwork (one of two alternate covers!) for what felt like an hour but was only forty-five seconds. Those words hung in my mind as I tried to shake the cobwebs of the experience and escape the apparition that apparently had nothing to do in the afterlife except push expertly crafted experimental outsider music on us rabid fans. I composed myself and entered the artifact into a “boombox,” flicking “Play” so quickly and effortlessly that barely any time elapsed between the time the tape entered the player and the sound came out. I’m that good.
Hits from the future, indeed. CIA Debutante chases the “eternally temporary composition,” running guitar, voice, synthesizer through the duo’s personal ringer, emerging from the trauma with an endlessly fascinating lo-fi blast of headache-made-sound-art. The low purple spectrum of devious fluctuations bubble and merge till it makes so much sense that a ghost whose best work was in the 1930s has to present itself to sell me. Gable didn’t have to go to all the trouble. Czaszka could’ve hired a promo guy (me, even) instead of a medium.
Wait, did I say it was a bad idea that I listened to Clark Gable that one time? I meant it was a GREAT idea.
Czaszka (Rec.) always fascinates. This burner is no different. Edition of 50 – which cover will you get?
Patient Sounds ain’t no spring chicken, bub. 2019 will be the label’s 10th year in existence. That is a full decade of sounds oh so patient, and they are kicking`19 off the same way they have in years past: A couple of preorders and an open call for submissions (plus a few digital optical and risograph goodies). Here we go.
PS108 – Regarding the Music of Others – Shank Trilliams
Cut and lassoed into tightly wound bangers, this wobbly beat tape bobs and skips like a busted jukebox at the nearest honky tonk and it will knock your dusty boots right off. Step into some sneakers and pop across the square dance. Brandon Eckes is Regarding the Music of Others. Here, he takes a stab at an American Icon’s warbly catalog, chopping it into a laconic set of vagrant hustlers and bustlers. There are moments when that branded horse’s hide sticks its ass clear out, but most moments find the whole thing marred, wry and charming. With that fetching hitch in his giddy up, ol’ Shank moves to the city and makes his come up, looking distinctly dope in those streets and shades. Approachably horseplayed. Swagger along and slide in time with proper regards to those rodeo roots.
PS107 – Margraff & Yantis – Ohne Eile
The quality of a walk as determined not by the pace, or the distance, but by the landmarks passed. A leisurely wandering in proximity to infrastructure, vista, rubble. A memory is called up at every crumbling edge. Ohne Eile is the first collaborative work by the duo Rene Margraff (Berlin, Germany), and Cody Yantis (Colorado, USA). This expansive set of compositions explores a tacit dialogue between two remarkable and distinctive musicians. Sauntering into jarring electroacoustic sputter and warped guitar, churning static and tense orchestral stabs, and settling into a lilting and highly textural ambient haze, the compositions on Ohne Eile display dynamic grace, a sense of narrative, and an accessible and casual curiosity. This duo exchanges ideas, harmonizes and disuages, settles, second guesses; their dialog is even and their discourse is balanced. Some moments sprout curiously and tenderly, sticking a head through the grate tender green, others are stubborn and rugged, a bent steel beam of light, intertwining and oxidizing openly with the scenario.
Open Window 2019
“Every year from January 1st – April 1st we open a metaphoric window into our office/ears and let anything in. This is our unsolicited demo window. Please follow guidelines and your music can and will be considered for release on cassette tape in 2019/2020.”
Check out the full details and guidelines for the Open Window here.
