John W FAIL

november 2009 release ; pristine electro-acoustic work from cenotaph’s john w. fail (responsible for both a criminally under-appreciated quadruple tape-box on c. spencer yeh’s dronedisco &, partially, the “lied music vs. boy-band tax returns” lp on ultra eczema ... as well as full-length collaborations with spiral joy band & ben reynolds) ...

inhabiting similar head-space as graham lambkin’s recent “softly softly copy copy,” the piece in question here takes it source material from live-played instrumentation (guitar, accordion, violin, casio, xylophone, voice) arranged in increasingly sparse, yet episodic aggregations throughout the a-side (listen to the sound-sample for a few different “chunks”) ... the b-side starts off with a great bit of reed drones & dry, muffled drumming with behind-the-neck guitarisms which gradually receded into a long section of “small sounds” before reconnecting with the piece’s drone-core ...

much of the assembly methods remind me of john clyde-evans’ (né tirath singh nirmala) often aleatoric-feeling loop-constructs, yet here everything’s precise & perfectly measured ... despite the (outrageous, sorry !!! if you only knew what it cost to reliably import italian records these days ...) price, i wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone wishing to hear an impeccably “personal” take on contemporary improv-concrète modes ...(Mimaroglu)

Massive nautical-style silkscreened artwork and inserts by Cavalo Branco.
Handnumbered and limited to 300 copies.