"Hazel Motes 2" interpolates a melody from "Sri Krishna Arati" (traditional).
Guitars, bass, drums, organ, and piano recorded to tape by Elio Deluca at the Soul Shop in Medford, MA on August 14th and 15th, 2011.
Everything else recorded by Jesse Rifkin in various houses and apartments in Brooklyn, NY and Annapolis, MD, October 2011-April 2012.
Live recordings by Ted Gordon. Surveillance tape of an unidentified telephone conversation discovered by Trevor Wilson.
Mixed by Jake Aron at home and at Dr. Wu's Studio in Brooklyn, NY May-June 2012. Mastered by Yale Yng-Wong at Dr. Wu's Studio in August 2012.
Cover art by Chad Turner.
Help in other very significant ways: Chris North, Gabrielle Moss, Will Stratton, Ira Rifkin, Ruth Berlin, Chris Roush, Jason Anderson.
With love and gratitude to our friends and families.
Much admiration and respect to R. Buckminster Fuller.
For whatever reason, Bandcamp does not allow gapless streaming. We highly suggest you listen to this album as it is meant to be heard, in a gapless player (iTunes, for example).
This recording copyright 2013 A Landfill Full of Records, all rights reserved.
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"I wish that we could give it another try… because believe me, as time goes on, these things don't happen that often."
Jesse found a döppelgänger in acetate, an unknown woman talking to someone named Terry [her shrink? old friend? mother?], forever embedded in iron oxide, entering his life, by chance, through that most capricious of all yentas-- Craigslist. Who decided this should happen? Who made this be? Was it really necessary to lug around 3 reel-to-reel tape players for a year all around Brooklyn to bar after bar, night after night, making the band strain to reach their controls between songs?
Yes. If there's any word that characterizes this album, it might be "necessary." The French say "Il faut que," to need as a transitive verb: this music needs us, makes us need it. It is necessary to wear eye makeup, a home-made nudie suit, a deer mask, to bite blood capsules, to take off one's shirt. It is necessary to begin an album with a near-fifteen-minute extended sequence, an elaboration of one harmonic sequence in one key, motifs repeating again and again across time and instrument; it is necessary to listen through.
It was necessary to record this thing, as we did, mostly in one marathon, sweat-fueled session in the back of an old piano repair shop, to tape. Only a few shots to make it right. And again it was necessary to take the masters back to Brooklyn, to scour the city for a year working on this album, bit by bit, improving it, elaborating sentiments only exposed through recording, taking the time to think through arrangement, instrumentation, feel.
Records are cut all the time, but it's a rarity for so talented a songwriter to bring together so talented a band (this author excluded): the credits speak for themselves. And it's also a rarity for an album to maintain such a singular feeling throughout each song, a testament to the geniuses at Doctor Wu's. This record needs you to listen to it from start to finish, as loud as possible. Believe me: as time goes on, these things don't happen that often.
Entirely analog, lush melodic pop with a tender heart from L.A. artist Human Barbie sounds bigger than the bedroom project it is. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 22, 2020