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The Voice-O-Graph was a do-it-yourself recording studio the size of a small closet. Walk inside, close the door, deposit 35 cents and make a record of your own. The machines cranked out a lacquer-coated disc that held about a minute of crackling sound. It was first created in the late 1930s and used until the late 1950s. Soldiers and loved ones could send their own voices in place of a written letter during World War II.

 

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Turntablist and artist Christian Marclay created an album — using a 4-track in New York City, March 1985 — composed of other records. All seems pretty normal, but the thing is, Recycled Records’ Record Without a Cover was sold without a jacket or cover, and it even came with the instructions “Do not store in a protective package.” Marclay’s concept was to let the natural ageing process make each individual record unique. Through scratches, and dust caught in the grooves, the record’s deterioration make it constantly evolve. If it could be described, think: a warped history of the universe.

 

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German genius Peter Lardong came up with the idea to create records out of chocolate and, believe it or not, they can be played on a standard phonograph. He creates the records by pouring his time-tested recipe of melted chocolate into a silicon mold of his favorite vinyl. He places it in the refrigerator to set and voila. Each disc can be played up to 12 times before it’s too worn out, and that’s when you eat it.

 

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Robot with record player brain

 

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Buried in the midst of a load of LPs I recently bought was a clear virgin vinyl LP in a plain white jacket. The odd thing about it is there are grooves cut both sides with nothing on them. The dead wax on side one has inscribed NITTY GRITTY and BP 360 LP1 along with NW RTI 19724. Side two dead wax has 13875 and BP 000. Any ideas what this is and what it was for….we’d be interested to find out.

 

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Minimal sound maker and DJ Graham Dunning’s practice begins with vinyl destruction and is likewise closely associated with a communal nostalgia for the experimentalism of the 1960s. Dunning starts with modified and destroyed lps, carving records into sections and reforming them. In a video introducing his practice, he names this ‘sampling’, which is somewhat akin to digital sampling, where sound sections are edited to form accessible clips of music to be employed by the DJ. As well as playing vinyl, Dunning builds upon and extends his turntables so that they become triggers for electronic devices and a mechanical means to produce timed sounds.

 

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‘I first heard of the importance of Jack Goldstein’s records from Dan Graham, who was particularly insistent on the records, citing Two Wrestling Cats, 1976. When I tried to imagine the sound two wrestling felines would make, an image of two cats rolling on the floor came to mind––which was exactly what Jack had intended.’

 

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These are not a direct substitute for pressed records. These are 100% hand-made, in real time. If the record is 10 minutes long, it took 10 minutes to cut plus setup time. This labor, coupled with the maintenance and knowledge required makes these lathe-cuts more expensive (per piece) than a larger pressing of vinyl.

 

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Jeroen Diepenmaat ‘Pour des dents d’un blanc éclatant et saines’ (2005), Record players, vinyl records, stuffed birds, sound. Dimensions variable.

 

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Music lovers can now be immortalised when they die by having their ashes baked into vinyl records to leave behind for loved ones. A UK company called And Vinyly is offering people the chance to press their ashes in a vinyl recording of their own voice, their favourite tunes or their last will and testament. Minimalist audiophiles might want to go for the simple option of having no tunes or voiceover, and simply pressing the ashes into the vinyl to result in pops and crackles.

 

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In 1967, the BBC created its own record label, designed to exploit the demand for commercially released TV tunes, comedy shows and, finding an unlikely niche in the market, sound effects, the best remembered being their three horror-related collections. Volume 1, Essential Death & Horror, appeared in 1977 and offers a dizzying collection of 91 different effects. Particular favourites of my own include an actually rather disturbing electronic workout, ‘Monsters Roaring’, and ‘neck twisted and broken’. Such was the success of Volume 1, a follow-up album arrived in 1978 – Volume 2: More Death and Horror. Rather more ragged than the first release, we are treated to even more inclement weather and death rattles – of particular note is ‘death by garrotting’. There was one final outing, the paltry twenty-five minutes of Volume 3: Even More Death and Horror. Easily the most startling record of the three, the methods of torture are truly imaginative; ‘self immolation’, ‘female falling from great height’ and ‘tongue pulled out’.

 

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Knowing how easy it is to scratch records or make them skip with the slightest bump, it might seem counter-intuitive to put a record player into a moving car. But the automobile record player, first introduced by Chrysler in 1956, contained a number of features that would keep the music going even when there were bumps in the road. Part of its downfall can be attributed to the fact that the Highway Hi-Fi required special records; you couldn’t simply pull a record off of the shelf and play it on your road trip. Rather, drivers had to purchase all of their music again in the new proprietary format. Since the machine was only available on new vehicles and not as an aftermarket accessory, there wasn’t a huge commercial demand for it. Moreover, the devices had the nasty habit of breaking often and Chrysler wasn’t thrilled with the cost of fixing all of those under-warranty units. By 1957, just one year after their initial introduction, Chrysler withdrew support for the ill-fated gadgets.

 

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Glass disc recordings, produced photographically in the 1880’s by Volta Laboratory Associates – Alexander Bell, his cousin Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter. Smithsonian officials unsealed them in the presence of Bell’s daughters and a grandson in 1937.

 

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Chris Supranowitz has made some images of a record’s grooves using an electron scanning microscope. For the vinyl record sample, he simply cut a small section of a record and attached it to a sample stub via carbon tape. He then sputter coated approximately 90 Angstroms of gold onto the grooves. Since the sample was relatively thick (2-3 mm) carbon tape was applied along the side to ensure good conductivity. It’s finally clear what the grooves actually look like!

 

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Jacques Tati with record player

 

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In 1973, the Kingdom of Bhutan issued several unusual postage stamps that are playable miniature phonograph records. These thin plastic single-sided adhesive-backed 331⁄3 RPM discs feature folk music and tourism information. Not very practical for actual postal use and rarely seen canceled, they were designed as revenue-generating novelties and were initially scorned as such by most stamp collectors. They are now fairly scarce and valuable and are sought after by both stamp and novelty record collectors. Their small diameters (approximately 7 and 10 cm or 2.75 and 4 inches) make them unplayable on turntables with automatic return tonearms.

 

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Nam June Paik ‘Listening to Music Through the Mouth’ (1962)

 

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NON’s Pagan Muzak (Gray Beat, 1978) is a one-sided 7-inch with 17 locked grooves and two center holes, meaning each locked groove can be played at two different trajectories as well as any number of speeds. The original release came with instructions for the listener to drill more holes in the record as they saw appropriate.

 

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The Hi-Fi murders were the killings of three people during an armed robbery at a home audio and record store called the Hi-Fi Shop in Ogden, Utah. On April 22, 1974, three enlisted United States Air Force airmen, named Dale Pierre Selby, William Andrews, and Keith Roberts drove in two vans to a Hi-Fi store on Washington Boulevard, Ogden, just before closing time. They entered the shop brandishing handguns. Two employees, Stanley Walker, age 20, and Michelle Ansley, age 18, were in the store at the time and were taken hostage. Pierre and Andrews took the two into the store’s basement and bound them. Later, a 16-year-old boy named Cortney Naisbitt arrived to thank Walker for allowing him to park his car in the store’s parking lot as he ran an errand next door; he was also taken hostage and tied up in the basement with Walker and Ansley. Later that evening, Orren Walker, Stanley’s 43-year-old father, became worried that his son had not returned home. Cortney Naisbitt’s mother, Carol Naisbitt, also arrived at the shop later that evening looking for her son, who was late getting home. Both Orren Walker and Carol Naisbitt were taken hostage and tied up in the basement. With five people now held hostage in the basement, Pierre told Andrews to get something from their van. Andrews returned with a bottle in a brown paper bag, from which Pierre poured a cup of blue liquid. Pierre ordered Orren to administer the liquid to the other hostages, but he refused, and was bound, gagged, and left face-down on the basement floor. Pierre and Andrews then propped each of the victims into sitting positions and forced them to drink the liquid, telling them it was vodka laced with sleeping pills. Rather, it was liquid Drano. The moment it touched the hostages’ lips, enormous blisters rose, and it began to burn their tongues and throats and peel away the flesh around their mouths. Ansley, still begging for her life, was forced to drink the drain cleaner too, although she was reported (by Orren Walker) to have coughed less than the other victims. Pierre and Andrews tried to duct-tape the hostages’ mouths shut to hold quantities of drain cleaner in and to silence their screams, but pus oozing from the blisters prevented the adhesive from sticking. Orren Walker was the last to be given the drain cleaner, but seeing what was happening to the other hostages, he allowed it to pour out of his mouth and then mimicked the convulsions and screams of his son and fellow hostages. Pierre became angry because the deaths were taking too long and were too loud and messy, so he shot both Carol and Cortney Naisbitt in the backs of their heads, proving fatal for Carol but leaving Cortney alive. Pierre then shot at Orren Walker but missed. He then fatally shot Stanley before again shooting at Orren, this time grazing the back of his head. Pierre then took Ansley to the far corner of the basement, forced her at gunpoint to remove her clothes, then repeatedly and brutally raped her after telling Andrews to clear out for 30 minutes. When he was done, he allowed her to use the bathroom while he watched, then dragged her, still naked, back to the other hostages, threw her on her face, and fatally shot her in the back of the head. Andrews and Pierre noted that Orren was still alive, so Pierre mounted him, wrapped a wire around his throat, and tried to strangle him. When this failed, Pierre and Andrews inserted a ballpoint pen into Orren’s ear, and Pierre stomped it until it punctured his eardrum, broke, and exited the side of his throat.

 

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Gregor Hildebrandt’s ‘Kassettenschallplatte (Cassette Record)’ (2008) is a sculptural work composed of hundreds of feet of wrapped cassette tape, a fetish object for which one medium has been rendered useless to embody the equally nonfunctioning image of another.

 

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Record player ring

 

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In the late 1920s and early 1930s the Vitaphone sound system used large 33 1/3 rpm records to provide the soundtrack for motion pictures. The record rotated in the usual clockwise direction but the groove was cut and played starting at the inside of the recorded area and proceeding outward. This inside start was dictated by the unusually long playing time of the records and the rapid wearing down of the single-use disposable metal needles which were standard for playing lateral-cut shellac records at that time. The signal degradation caused by a worn needle point was most audible when playing the innermost turns of the groove, where the undulations were most closely packed and tortuous, but fairly negligible when playing the outermost turns where they were much more widely spaced and easily traced. With an inside start the needle point was freshest where it mattered most. Almost all analog disc records were recorded at a constant angular speed, resulting in a decreasing linear speed toward the disc’s center. The result was a maximum level of signal distortion due to low groove velocity nearest the center of the disc, called “end-groove distortion”. Loud musical passages were most audibly affected. Since some music, especially classical music, tends to start quietly and mount to a loud climax, such distortion could be minimized if the disc was recorded to play beginning at the inner end of the groove. A few such records were issued, but the domination of automatic record changers, and the fact that symphony movements, for example, varied greatly in length and could be difficult to arrange appropriately on 20-minute disc sides, made them no more than curiosities.

 

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For their single “Blue Ice”, Swedish indie group Shout Out Louds came up with the idea of making a functional record on ice. 10 press kits consisting of silicon mold, a bottle of distilled water, and complete instructions were sent to select media and fans. Of course the record would only last in one play, and your needle is most likely to be ruined after, but the less-than-perfect crackling sounds have their own lo-fi DIY charms.

 

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Performance artist and experimental musician Laurie Anderson invented the Viophonograph in 1976. Its violin body turns a custom 7-inch vinyl record which is played by a needle mounted to a bow, all fed into an amplifier.

 

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Artist Pieterjan Grandry has broken a major barrier between the unreality of the Internet and the rest of the real world. Grandry has successfully taken animated GIFs and made them analog. His device, based on a pre-film form of entertainment called a phenakistoscope, uses frames from a GIF printed onto transparent material as individual frames and placed on a wheel. Once spun and illuminated, the images form a single moving picture — in this case, a head bobbing cat.

 

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A record album is stuck in record 3 of the 5 record changer in my Sharp Audio Disc A4 Player. How do I get it out? Record changer not responding. Disassembly may be required to get access to the stuck record and remove it.

 

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In the 1946-1961 era, some ingenious Russians began recording banned bootlegged jazz, boogie woogie and rock ‘n’ roll on exposed X-ray film. The thick radiographs would be cut into discs of 23 to 25 centimeters in diameter; sometimes the records weren’t circular. But the exact shape didn’t matter so much, as long as the thing played. “Usually it was the Western music they wanted to copy,” says Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev. “Before the tape recorders they used the X-ray film of bones and recorded music on the bones, bone music.” As author Anya von Bremzen elaborates: “They would cut the X-ray into a crude circle with manicure scissors and use a cigarette to burn a hole. … You’d have Elvis on the lungs, Duke Ellington on Aunt Masha’s brain scan—forbidden Western music captured on the interiors of Soviet citizens.”

 

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Ottawa band, Hilotrons are releasing nuggets of their music on plastic records that only work for an all-but forgotten children’s toy. The Fisher Price record player is actually a simple wind-up music box, and each indestructible little plastic record is a spool that triggers different notes. What you get is the creepy, tinkling tones featured in the video below.

 

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Jasper Johns’ ‘Scott Fagan Record’ (1970) is a lithograph of Scott Fagan’s ‘South Atlantic Blues’ record, released in 1968. Fagan is the father of The Magnetic Fields singer and songwriter, Stephin Merritt. Although they had not met, John’s ‘Scott Fagan Record’ was instrumental in reuniting Merrit with his estranged father. Writer Mark Swartz had posted an image of John’s lithograph on his Tumblr, which Fagan found while searching for himself on Google. He contacted Swartz, and a relationship eventually created an opportunity for Merrit and Fagan to reunite, along with Merrit’s mother, Alix. Fagan and Swartz created a Kickstarter to fund a tribute album of a man interpreting his son’s (Merrit’s) songs, to which Jasper Johns contributed. The sentimental nature of the work is also present in the imagery, recalling Johns’ early “Target” paintings.

 

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Evan Holm: There will be a time when all tracings of human culture will dissolve back into the soil under the slow crush of the unfolding universe. The pool, black and depthless, represents loss, represents mystery and represents the collective subconscious of the human race. By placing these records underneath the dark and obscure surface of the pool, I am enacting a small moment of remorse towards this loss. In the end however this is an optimistic sculpture, for just after that moment of submergence; tone, melody and ultimately song is pulled back out of the pool, past the veil of the subconscious, out from under the crush of time, and back into a living and breathing realm. When I perform with this sculpture, I am honoring and celebrating all the musicians, all the artists that have helped to build our human culture.

 

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Imagine a turntable but instead of a needle, you have a pizza sauce spout, and instead of a record, you have pizza crust spinning so the red sauce can cover every inch. Imagine no more. That’s how pizzas get made at Costco. Workers put the dough on the turntable and the pizzas gets expertly covered in a controlled flow of sauce from the machines.

 

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WOW is a vinyl record containing a single ultra-low frequency which will alter slightly depending on the mechanical components of your record player. Use more than one system to play several records simultaneously and the air around you will start pulsating. Play 33 ⅓ Hz on 33 ⅓ rpm or 45 Hz on 45 rpm. Feel free to use the pitch wheel or even touch the record to control the sub-sonic wave field. Your choice of record players, the number of records and the character of your room create your individual listening experience.

 

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In over fifty new paintings depicting the circular labels of assorted vinyl albums and singles, Dave Muller draws upon his endless fascination and encyclopedic knowledge of music and its capacity to shape both individual and cultural identities. He culls resonant records from the ‘20s through the ‘90s, some familiar and others forgotten, tapping into shared poetic moments and a collective dialogue.

 

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A record player sits on the floor, shown from above. Slightly off-centre in the corner of a room, it lies surrounded by cables and a power strip. Through a transparent lid, the white label of a black vinyl disc catches the eye. This painting by German artist Gerhard Richter depicts the record player of Andreas Baader, member of the German terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF), inside Baader’s cell at Stuttgart-Stammheim prison, and was painted after a police photograph.

 

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Many might say it is impossible for a tortoise to survive three decades living in a record player inside a filthy storage room. Those people would also be wrong. One fateful day 30 years ago, a pleasant Brazilian family lost their tortoise named Manuela. Manuela apparently got trapped in the storage room where the man of the house, Leonel Almedia, stored a variety of worthless junk, including electronic devices. Inside a record player is where Manuela the tortoise would call home for 30 years.

 

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22 picture discs

Anti-Flag ‘Bacon’

Skid Row ‘Youth Gone Wild’

Rev Jim Jones ‘Thee Last Supper’ WSNS 1984-PSYCHIC TV/TG

Metallica Interview LP

Fat Boys ‘Pizza Box Set’

Trick ‘r Treat Soundtrack Album

Urine Junkies ‘Abscess’

MF Doom ‘Rhymes Like Dimes’

J Dilla ‘Fuck the Police’

Sebadoh ‘Limelight’, ltd. ed. released to ‘honor’ Rush’s 40th anniversary

Revolting Cocks ‘Beers, Steers & Queers’

Uriah Heep ‘Backstage Girl’

Acid King ‘Busse Woods’

NZI 490004G605

David Bowie ‘Valentines Day’

Erika’s Hot Food to Go

Ozzy Osbourne ‘Miracle Man’

Guns n’ Roses ‘Nightrain’

Danny Brown ‘The OD’

Malcom McLaren ‘Madame Butterfly’

Queen ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’

Lord Finesse ‘E-mu EP’

 

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One of Afro-Peruvian artist William Cordova’s recent sculptures, “Greatest Hits (para Micaela Bastidas, Tom Wilson y Anna Mae Aquash),” is a 13-foot tower of 3,000 stacked records accented with pieces of broken discs. Inspired by historical movements such as Dada and Arte Povera, Cordova created the tower to recognize those who have been overlooked in mainstream music. He wanted the piece to acknowledge past artists who added to the genre even if they had not produced a “greatest hit.”

 

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New five pound note plays vinyl records

 

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Rutherford Chang has a unique vinyl collection. He only collects the Beatles first pressing of The White Album. I interviewed him: Q: Did you grow up in a house of Beatles fans? When did you first hear about the Beatles? and about the white album? A: My parents are from Taiwan and didn’t listen to the Beatles, so I didn’t grow up with the music. I bought my first White Album at a garage sale in Palo Alto for $1 when I was 15 years old. Q: So how did you get familiar with the Beatles? A: They are the biggest band. Q: Are you a vinyl collector? A: Yes, I collect White Albums. Q: Do you collect anything other than that? A: I own some vinyl and occasionally buy other albums, but nothing in multiples like the White Album. Q: Why just White Album? why not Abbey road? or Rubber Soul? A: The White Album has the best cover. I have a few copies of Abbey Road and Rubber Soul, but I keep those in my “junk bin”. Q: Why do you find it so great? It’s a white, blank cover. Q: Are you a minimalist? A: I’m most interested in the albums as objects and observing how they have aged. So for me, a Beatles album with an all white cover is perfect. Q: Do you care about the album’s condition? A: I collect numbered copies of the White Album in any condition. In fact I often find the “poorer” condition albums more interesting.

 

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Never mind the surface noise, artist Jeff Thompson is making records without any music whatsoever. His pop-up shop White Noise Boutique explores the different qualities of white noise, where each customer will receive an utterly unique form of white noise based on a set of algorithmic decisions they make, pressed onto 7″ vinyl record. Visitors will “select from a variety of random ‘seeds’ and number generators” to determine the quality of the sound, which has been developed by Thompson from devices like untuned FM radios and a Type 1390-B tube powered noise generator.

 

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50 Locked Grooves by Audio-Visual artist Haroon Mirza made from cardboard, tape, glass amongst other things. Double pack contains 2 identical 12″s designed to be played together. Play any loop with any loop to unlock the music inside.

 

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Aphrodisiacal record

 

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In Dario Robleto’s ‘Sometimes Billie Is All That Holds Me Together’ (1998), several new buttons were crafted from melted Billie Holiday records to replace missing buttons on found, abandoned or thrift store clothing. After the discarded clothing was made whole again, it was re-donated to the thrift stores or placed back where it was originally found.

 

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C.C. Records (2013), an installation work by Duto Hardono is inspired by the city of Cairo & the most popular icon at the moment General Abdel Fattah Sisi himself, hence the title–if you’re an Egyptian, you might get it–the work stands as a satire comedy of the recent political life & situation of the country. The audiences create their own combination of the broken-into-half C-shaped Egyptian records & make their own mix of composition. Sometimes it creates a unique locked grooves that plays a loop over & over again. The audiences also choose their own speed whether it’s a 45 or 33 revolution per minute.

 

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For ‘Years, artist Bartholomaus Traubeck fashions a slice of tree trunk into the form of a vinyl record, with the tree-trunk’s rings resembling the spiral groove of the now-outdated audio format. Using a record player with a special sensor, computer software is used to translate the trunk rings into notes and then “play” them as melodies.

 

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Meredyth Sparks Record Player 1977 (sleeves), 2008

 

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Making a comment on Christian Marclay ‘Record Without a Cover’ João Paulo Feliciano, together with the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, is releasing ‘Cover without a Record’. The object, a gate-fold album cover, is produced on a standard record plant on edition of 1000 copies.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** myneighbourjohnturturro, Hey there, neighbour (of JT). Cool and somehow not a surprise that you’re keyed into a lot of the same things I am. No, I have not heard that new Saint Abdullah & Eomac thing, but be assured I will hunt it post-haste. Thanks. We’re in the standard, obnoxious routine of having to wait for a festival to accept the film for its premiere, after which hopefully it can start getting out there in a more generous way. It’s such a racket. So, thanks, hopefully in not too long. My world’s doable, and I hope yours is actually inviting. ** PL, Your first club, like, ever? Wait, you said ‘club’, so never mind, assuming club’ and club are distinct entities. Well, great luck. There are about four sites where I look for slaves. The main and most useful one is called Recon. ** Lucas, Hi, Lucas. Ah, great, so there you go. I’ll find ‘what happens next’, thank you. Intriguing. ‘Malady of Death’ is a favorite novel of mine, so, yeah, agreed. I’ve never seen ‘Agatha and the Limitless Readings’. Okay, I will get that under my belt, or, well, under my forehead at least. My day was mostly trying to catch up on things, largely email, on which I am hugely behind. So it was kind of productive but nothing much. I got a ticket to see the ‘avant-premiere’, as they call it over here, of the new Leos Carax film with Mr. Carax in attendance, so that’s as close as I got to your ‘Desertshore’ moment. Dang, you’re in a pretty place. Gorgeous, it was. Here’s a non-real, muted person saying hi to you. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Happy that the Murder Boys met your unimpeachable standards. I’ll get the Actress, but in nondescript mp3 form as I don’t have a turntable. Tragically. ** Steve, Hi. The Gordan album is especially good, I think. Jacklen Elswyth: no. I will. Glad you liked a couple of things. I think I did end up on tumblr a fair amount. It housed things I could use in my blog making somewhat frequently. It was also a major gif storehouse. Still is, but to a hugely lesser degree. ** tomk, Hi, T! Thanks, pal. Good stuff. I strongly suspect there is no playlist of my, what, 168 and counting gigs. You’d have to be pretty extremely nerdy to spend those hours. Oh, shit, I’m sorry to hear the real life messes. But, yeah, it’ll be fine, seriously. I remember when I had chicken pox as a kid. Man, that shit itched. I think I still have a little pock mark or two from my excessive itching. Love, me. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Okay, I’ll see what if any friends would go with me to an Olympics thing and pony up. You’re right. I think Sinner is interesting. And Alcarez. I’m sort very vaguely tuning in. ** Cletus, Thanks, pal. I’m glad someone other than me loved/despised Hideous Figure. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I can’t believe it either. I don’t believe in curses, but I think we’re got one. I started the email dispersion, and love will hopefully keep on track today because I am way, way behind. Like way. Because your laptop not crapping out is so important a goal, I am just going to redouble your assignment to love for today. Love, protect Dominik’s electronics today and every day, that’s an order, G. ** Harper, Tell me about it. Jesus. I very proudly had a little poem thing that Candy Darling wrote in an issue of my old zine Little Caesar back in the late 70s. I love ‘Women in Revolt’. What’s that famous line … I know I’m going to get it wrong … ‘You’re not a blonde on a bum trip, you’re a bum on a blonde trip!’ Glassian headaches: haha, how precise and, yes, been there. ** Justin D, Hi, Justin. Glad you liked it. The Kee Avil album is really good. I love ‘Helicopter’ of course. I think it’s one of Deerhunter’s very best songs, and I’m blown away that Bradford did that. He used to be a regular commenter on my blog ages ago before Deerhunter blew up. Thanks for the link. I’ll listen to the track once I get out of here. How was your day? Did you make progress on anything you aim to? ** Darby🤨, I was about to say I miss methruns. but I actually don’t. I’ve heard of Failure, but I haven’t heard them. Will do. Yay, about the camera. Don’t drop it, haha. I do naturally, yes, like Acid Bath and Boris. I met Boris, or a couple of them. They’re buddies with my friend Stephen O’Malley (Sunn0)))). They were stand-offish but very polite. Wow, I am behind. It’s been a year since TdF? That’s scary. You looked very exciting while you were writing that. I look like this while I am writing this. ** Nicholas., You don’t do gluten? I think I would starve to death if I couldn’t eat gluten. Gluten is practically all I eat. You played video games all day! I’m very green. And wrote a song?! Titled after something of mine?! Wow. I’m almost finished with the p.s., so I will sit back, crown myself with headphones and sonically luxuriate within mere minutes. Thank you! ** Oscar 🌀, Nice. I actually really want that Elmo for real. And I bet I can make one. You writing your name on a piece of paper and holding it up to a mirror and deciding you’re going to legally change your name to Racso then doing that and then looking in a mirror and saying ‘Hi, Rasco’. Do you realise that my name backwards is sinned? How cool is that? Oh, write something. I encourage you, obviously. You’ve been flexing your writing muscles with these comments, and now it’s time to get ‘serious’. My day needs to be work-y today, and that’s my goal. My week? That and trying to solve hideous film related problems and going to the private opening of a Matthew Barney show at Foundation Cartier and helping a friend edit her short film and maybe going to a book launch event tonight and … that’s it so far. What about your week, eh? I’m reading the Candy Darling biography. Sweet about you and the Perec novel. It’s great, I think. If I lived in the country, I think I’d have a pet goat or two, wouldn’t you? I think they’re an underrated species. ** Okay. Today you get the 4th iteration of the blog’s occasional, ongoing Records posts. As franchise entries go, it’s better than ‘Indiana Jones 4’ but not as good as ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 4’. See you tomorrow.

 

Tony Conrad & Jennifer Walshe
Kee Avil
Chris Corsano
Lolina
Elaine Mitchener
Gordan
British Murder Boys
Pollution Opera
Greg Saunier
Hideous Figure
Marco Baldini & Apartment House
Morgan Garrett
Sunburned Hand of the Man
Innode

 

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Tony Conrad & Jennifer Walshe In the Merry Month of May
‘Few artists have managed to exert such a wide influence over the musical landscape of the last sixty or so years as Tony Conrad, and probably none have done so while retaining an unwavering commitment to experimentalism. Conrad collaborated with John Cale, La Monte Young, John Cage and Faust. He was a member of Fluxus and the Theater of Eternal Music. He helped define the parameters of drone and minimalism as we know them today, while his visual art and film has been exhibited in the MoMA, the Whitney and the Louvre.

‘Conrad died in 2016 from prostate cancer but was active throughout his later years. One of his most fruitful collaborations was with Dublin-born composer and experimental vocalist Jennifer Walshe. Walshe’s pedigree is hardly less impressive than Conrad’s: she is Oxford University’s Professor of Composition, her works have been performed all over the world and she has collaborated with or performed the work of dozens, if not hundreds, of the contemporary music scene’s leading lights. The pair’s final piece of work, and the last thing Conrad recorded before his death, In the Merry Month of May, was made over seven years ago and is finally seeing the light of day.’ — Thomas Blake

 

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Kee Avil do this again
‘With a strong background in improvisation, but a knack for unconventional arranging, it seems fitting that Kee Avil has cited both This Heat and Jenny Hval as inspirations. She describes her relationship with music as visceral, although her output is as hushed as it is razor-sharp. “I don’t really question the music that I write” she once told Fifteen Questions. “Often there is no concept behind it—it just has to feel like something.” When held up next to the shadowy records that preceded it, Spine still comes across particularly bone chilling—a whispered secret of grave importance.’ — Ted Davis

 

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Chris Corsano The Full-Measure Wash Down
‘Chris plays each part of this arrangement, drawing himself upward and onward in an organic enigma of chicken-egg communication — where does the tale begin, and who’s following who in this enervating flow of throbbing rhythms and compulsive heat?’ — Drag City

 

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Lolina Unrecognisable
‘“Unrecognisable” is a story about a city where buildings are used as weapons in a war between the government and the people. The initial chapter, “Eiffel Shard”, was published as an online graphic novel with an interactive soundtrack. It depicts a phone call between Paris Hell and Geneva Heat, two members of the resistance group Unrecognisable. On this concept album, Lolina performs the role of both characters, her own voice often made unrecognisable by pitch-shifts and distortion. It was recorded almost exclusively on a Casio SK-200 sampling keyboard boasting 1.62 seconds total sampling time. No beat preset (total of 20) is left untouched, unchopped or unlooped. Not one of the 49 mini keys is idle. Retains samples when turned off.’ — Relaxin’ Records

 

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Elaine Mitchener stretchedwoundspeaks
‘Elaine Mitchener is a vocal contortionist. The performer and composer may start by singing melismatic melodies, but in a second she can transform them into gurgling throat calls or hushed whispers. In every motion, she extracts the underlying meaning of her words, using extended techniques to illuminate their power. It is a skill Mitchener has developed over the last fifteen years while also maintaining her movement practice and collaborating across disciplines and with fellow experimental musicians such as George Lewis, Matana Roberts, Moor Mother and Apartment House. On Solo Throat, she exemplifies her vocal skill with twelve concise pieces that each examine poetry from all angles, breaking it down and piecing it back together again.’ — Vanessa Ague

 

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Gordan Seediq Song
‘Svetlana Spajić has spent the last twenty-five years visiting villages in the Balkans, absorbing the words passed down from generation to generation, as well as the decasyllabic cadences of traditional folk tunes. Hers is a voice of such unique power that spiritual uplift and deep pathos simultaneously imbue the listener when she’s in full flight. It’s an album that defies classification and bursts with existential meaning, with all the death and pain that go hand in hand with that percolating out of its ancient verses. But perhaps the most extraordinary thing is that tradition and modernity cohere so effectively, an arrangement that rarely augurs in real life.’ — Jeremy Allen

 

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British Murder Boys Now, This Is You
‘Many, many years into their thing, Surgeon (Anthony Child) and Regis (Karl O’Connor) finally unveil their debut album as British Murder Boys, two decades on from their ‘Learn Your Lesson’ debut for Counterbalance in 2003. “Renowned for their explosive live performances, British Murder Boys released a slew of influential 12″s in a short intense period between 2003-2005 on Surgeon’s Counterbalance and Regis’ Downwards labels, before reuniting for a 12” on Mute’s Liberation Technologies imprint in 2012. Recent releases have been sporadic, and include a cover of Lou Reed ‘Real Good Time Together’ and a limited-edition cassette documenting their residency at Dutch studio Willem Twee.’ — Love Collective II

 

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Pollution Opera Cairo???
‘Elvin Brandhi and Nadah El Shazly refuse to turn away from the horror. The intercontinental duo’s Pollution Opera album is an uncompromising futurist depiction of our disfigured, dystopian, and dying reality. Facing hell in full defiance, the experimental noise album catapults itself through a volatile compound of breathless shouts, screams, and screeches, in collision with vocal samples, environmental recordings, and acousmatic sounds. Ten tracks cover the spectrum of electroacoustic fragments and vocalizations, treacherously suspended between the roar of engines and synth distortion, of evocative intonations or guttural retching.’ — Danse Noire

 

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Greg Saunier Grow Like a Plant
‘It seems almost unbelievable that Greg Saunier never released a single record under his own name before 2024. The Tucson-based drummer and composer has an almost absurdly vast list of credits as a producer and collaborator, from mixing records for small indie bands to producing some of Xiu Xiu’s best albums (The Air Force, Always) to playing in bands with a head-boggling list of luminaries from Joanna Newsom to Mike Watt to Sean Lennon. His place in underground rock history would be guaranteed even if all he’d done was founded the great Bay Area band Deerhoof. It’d also probably be guaranteed if he’d never founded Deerhoof in the first place but had still done everything else he’s done in his three-plus decades as an active musician.’ — Daniel Bromfield

 

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Hideous Figure Last One Left
‘Rotten harsh noise inspired by Texas, reflecting childhood psycho-geography triggered by Indiana landscapes. Local radio, scrap metal feedback and microphone purgatory. An exploration of space, memory, and sound.’ — No Rent

 

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Marco Baldini & Apartment House Plutone
‘The piece is based on a symphony from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. Favola in musica (1607). In this composition the original score is as if sent on a loop and each time some harmonic element dissolves until only a distant echo of the initial harmonic structure remains. At first the piece was to be called Caronte, because in the score the symphony is located near the beautiful bass aria O tu ch’innanzi morte sung by the character whom Orfeo meets at the beginning of his catabasis. But the sound of the title didn’t convince me much, so I opted for Plutone, whose character appears in the opera shortly afterwards.’ — Marco Baldini

 

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Morgan Garrett Suck
‘From the fierce opener of ‘Alive’, Purity moves through fragmented songs, unnerving background noise and cathartically mangled riffing. On ‘Tearful Life’, an acoustic ballad gets interrupted by feral glossolalia. ‘Suck’ is like Primus with the bass virtuosity muted and the sense of a Lynchian circus ratcheted up. ‘Cost Of Living’ is death metal taken to cartoonish extremes, as though Garrett is desperately trying to treat crippling ambivalence with melodramatic bombast.’ — Daryl Worthington

 

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Sunburned Hand of the Man The Lollygagger
‘At its core Sunburned is both a familial and mercurial entity. There’s not a fixed lineup, yet those within its borders are fervently committed. There’s not so much a consistent sound as a spiritual throughline, straddling god-loves-a-drunk mysticism, bombastic basement show ethos, the far reaches of post-hippie underground esoterica, and making the gallery world scratch their heads instead of their chins.’ — Three Lobed

 

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Innode Splitter
‘A new methodology to make the album is applied yet again from the trio of Bernhard Breuer, Steven Hess and Stefan Németh. The approach is more an anti approach where the trio let the process of creation itself steer the development of the recording, without any prior conceptual agenda. Irregular rhythmic patterns often served as the initial springboard for each piece with Breuer creating a loop either by playing drums or with the aid of a modelling percussion synthesizer. The results often bypass existing formulaic grids. The outfit embraced these anti-precision steps building shapes around the tarnished templates. The process of building upon the core structures laid forth alters throughout. In the case of „Splitter“ you can hear an example of Bernhard´s core loops dominating a skeletal audio sphere.’ — Editions Mego

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** ted rees, Hi, Ted! I just got your new book yesterday, and I’m excited to read it. I hope the release is going as well as releases can go. I’ll go find that podcast. So nice to see you. You’ll be inputting wordage into my eyes and brain any moment now, what a pleasure. ** Katalyze, Holy moly, Kat! Wow! Amazing to get to see you. Well, talk with you at least. I’m okay, I’m good. Fantastic about the show you curated. And especially and obviously about the upcoming one where you’ll perform your own work! Any chance there’s work by you online somewhere where I can hear it? Sure would love to. Awesome, so sweet and great to have you here. Warmest hugs and etc etc., xo, me. ** Tosh Berman, Thanks a lot for the info for Harper, sir. ** Mark, ‘Tour de France’, nice pick. I hope they bring the multi-part show over here. Maybe just maybe. Holy crap, there’s a Pikme-Up documentary? Which I’m told is not available for viewing in my territory, grr. But there’ll be a way. Have big fun and success at the Zine Fest. Wish I could wander around in that, duh. ** PL, Hi. I’m okay, thanks. Oops about the guy, well, … you live and you learn or something? My favorite Fassbinder is ‘In a Year of Thirteen Moons’. I’m not sure if I’ve read ‘Uzumaki’, I’ll have to check. Good luck acing French. Well, yeah, I do enjoy gathering the slaves. You’d be amazed how labor intensive that process is. May greatness encompass you. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. ‘Moonraker’, yeah, that was a wacky one. You want to know about wacky, my fave was the ridiculous non-official, star studded, self-consciously weird ‘Casino Royale’. Which probably hasn’t aged well at all. ** Lucas, Thanks, Lucas. The rest of my day was just a horrible meeting aftermath, but it was survivable. And now it’s today at long last. Even though I’m not young, I never looked at Livejournal, I don’t know why, it’s weird, that doesn’t made any sense. Nice geese, thank you! Here’s a not very interesting photo of the giant crane that moved in next door to my apartment the other day. It looks better when it moves. Good day, pal. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Happy the books sang to you. Oh, god, way too long and complicated to explain about the current producer problem except just to say that the same fuckhead whom I have been complaining about here for years just managed to fuck everything up for the millionth time, and now we’re trying to fix and survive his new mess. Hm, I’m guessing the forest is the part that has the clues? Love forcing me to catch up on my emails today, or at least four or five of them, G. ** Oscar 🌀, I really love duck quacks, how did you know? An animatronic Emo with a fake knife “carving” the words ‘Hi Oscar’ into its ‘thigh’, a feat accomplished via tiny red, gradually illuminating led lights imbedded in its ‘skin’. (No actual Emo was harmed during this demonstration). Wow, congrats on freeing yourself. Surreal congrats. So, what now? The meetings sucked, but thank you, and we’ve gotten very used to surviving little hellish things re: our film, so we’ll be okay. I would be kind of surprised if there isn’t already a tumblr novel, although I can’t think of one. Huh. It used to be a helluva locale, yep. Someone told me that when ducks are mean that’s how they express their intelligence, so mean ducks would be okay as long as I remember to, err, duck, sorry. I hope your day feels like a fairytale in retrospect. ** Steve, Film stuff, as almost always, yeah. Thanks. Hang in there ’til Thursday. Of course you will. You’re a serious trooper. I tried to do a Shu Lea Cheang Day a while back, but there was nowhere near enough of her work on line to make that possible. But I’ll see if anything has changed on that front. Sigh, I so wish Criterion Channel was EU friendly, but it most certainly is not. That array sounds very interesting. ** HaRpEr //, Hi! So sorry about the back and forth with your dad. Dads are hard, or mine was. If it’s any consolation, which I know it isn’t, I’m going through hell with our film producers who are behaving like they’re Zac’s and my dictatorial fathers. I’m glad you and your actual dad are quelled at least for now. I feel the same about whining about our producers, but sometimes you have to in order to feel sane. Great you liked ‘Duelle’. They don’t make ’em like that anyone, as they say. I’m reading Cindy Carr’s Candy Darling bio too and similarly pleasured. Cindy’s great. Her bio of Wojanarowicz is also very good. Cool! ** Nicholas., Howdy to you. Your science = magic spiel was lovely. I’m on board. That’s funny: I have two lighters, one new, and one nearly dead, and I brought the nearly dead one and not the new one out with me, and it died within a minute of my leaving my apartment. Dinner: cold sesame noodle, my favorite food, kindly made for me by Zac. When you said you just watched ‘Gattaca’ everything made much more sense, yes. ** Uday, Oh, good! Uh, hm, maybe I could sign a ‘Flunker’ when I eventually get mine for you? Amphetamine Sulphate is in Texas, and I’m in Paris, so I don’t know how else that could happen. Ha, I think it’s going to be more like kidney stones, but I pray you’re right. That makes sense: back when I used to get depressed I would slap a Nico album or Leonard Cohen’s ‘Songs of Love and Death’ on the turntable, and I think that worked? I can’t remember. I hope you feel good by now. ** Right. Today I made one of my gigs featuring music I’ve been into lately, and it’s a pretty eclectic gig, so maybe you’ll find something or somethings that suit you therein. One hopes. See you tomorrow.