Visitation Rites

Arthur Radio Voyage #7: Alien Receptor

Emilie Friedlander — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:08:02 +0000

Something I’ve discovered in my 25 years on this planet is that when life begins to feel like a tilt-a-whirl that you can’t jump off, contemplating the possibility of life on other planets is a great way to shuttle back down to earth. Case in point: if you take a moment or two out of your day to consider the fact that somewhere, perhaps trillions of light-years away, there is another sentient creature sitting there wondering whether you exist, and if you in turn are thinking about him, then that swiftly approaching tax deadline or drunken romantic mishap really won’t seem all that important. You might even be able to say to yourself that in the grand scheme of things (and I’m talking the REALLY grand scheme of things), they don’t matter at all. After all, we should probably just be grateful that out of all the atoms in the solar system, the atoms inside our bodies just happen to have drifted into this here gravitational orb, and that the planet earth just happens to be endowed with a mysterious thing called life. Whatever that is. If you’d like to try this technique out sometime, Ivy Meadows, Harry Painter, and I recommend Arthur Radio Voyage #7 as a soundtrack. Just remember to bring your space goggles, and maybe some dehydrated ice-cream for a snack.

“Arthur Radio Voyage #7: Alien Receptor” (02.28.10)

Download the entire episode on Arthur Magazine.

This week’s playlist after the jump (we recommend listening before looking).

Doug Mesner – Good and Bad UFOs
The Electric Prunes – Holy Are You / Clara Rockmore – Vocalise
Baby Grandmothers – Somebody’s Calling My Name
Ivy Receptor – Solar Flare In
Roland P. Young – Curls
James Ferraro – Blacktop Tumble Weed / Headlines (Access Hollywood)
Rangers – Out Past Curfew
Axolotl – Bonds II (Excerpt)
Growing – Innit
Chmmr When Agitated – Epsilon
Salem – Red Lights
Jah Division – Dub Disorder
Lee “Scratch” Perry – Underground
Men’s Recovery Project – Normal Man
Vibracathedral Orchestra – Wearing Quid Frock
Frank O’Hara – Ode To Joy
Tone-Float Organization – Tone Float
Mick Jagger – Invocation of my Demon Brother
Tart – The Rabbits of Magtarau Pt. 2
Kwaku Baah & Ganoua – Trance
Saddar Bazaar – Sukoon
Amen Dunes – Diane
LSD March – Empty Rubius Red
Michael Bloomfield – Gonna Need Somebody On My Bond
Forest Swords – Hoylake Misst
Congregacion – Arrebol

Words: Emilie Friedlander
Sound Aggregators: Camilla Padgitt-Coles, Will Crowfoot, and Emilie Friedlander
GreenerMags Collage: Camilla Padgitt-Coles (click to scroll from left to right).

MICRO-PIXEL-RITES’ PRE-SXSW PUMP-UP SHOW

Emilie Friedlander — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:12:06 +0000

The ladies of PIXELHORSE, Microphone Memory Emotion, and Visitation Rites present you with an exclusive pre-SXSW house show this weekend. Alex Bleeker and the Freaks will be there, freakin’ out, playing first. Family Portrait will follow, kicking off their tour and playing with their recently restored, stellar lineup. Finally, there will be a suuuper special secret surprise guest performance*. (We’re so excited about this we could pee!) Come party with your fave bloguettes, bros and bands, and help fuel their trips down to Austin, TX for SXSW 2010 so thousands can benefit from their beautiful jams.

Alex Bleeker and the Freaks 8:00
Family Portrait 9:00
Surprise Guests* 10:00

Saturday, March 6th 8pm
59 Jefferson St, #402
Brooklyn, NY
21+ $8

*(feat. members of Ducktails, Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, Predator Vision, and more…)

Words: PIXELHORSE (Elise OH)

MICRO-PIXEL-RITES PRESENTS: OFFICIAL POSTER FOR AN UNOFFICIAL SXSW HOUSE PARTY

Emilie Friedlander — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:55:47 +0000

Sightings: “Portraits of the Inspired – Pill Wonder Lights the World”

Emilie Friedlander — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:46:30 +0000

A two-foot blanket of bright white snow is probably one of the best things that can happen to this here Big Apple, especially when it takes us New Yorkers by surprise. Whether we are gainfully employed or freelancing on food stamps, we all get a good excuse to step away from the computer for a minute, frolic in the snow, and relive the wide-eyed rapture of our first remembered “snow day.” (Editors note: If you weren’t here to experience the big whopper that hit the Tri-State this week, listening to Real Estate’s “Snow Days” will probably do the trick). Something I’ve noticed about Brooklynites in particular is that rather than retreat into their private bunkers during inclement weather, they tend to descend upon the cafés, eager to wile away the entire afternoon gripping aromatic brews and catching up with the folks in the neighborhood. Maybe it’s just the herd instinct kicking in, but I really think that unusual natural phenomena have a way of making us crave real-time interaction with real human beings. Avatars just aren’t enough.

Flash forward to the day after the storm, however, and you get a whole different story: the plows have cleared out the streets, the snow that remains is already black with soot, and when you return to the café all you see is a couple regulars with laptops. That fellow music blogger that you spy from time to time sits down at the table next to you without a word, but you notice his status update before you notice him. Business as usual; a good slogan for Cho’s Variety, another regular tells me, would probably be “Where Every Day is Like Yesterday.”

And then it hits you: not your second caffeine rush of the day, but the kind of pick-me-up you can only experience when somebody tells you exactly what you’ve been needing to hear. “Portraits of the Inspired – Pill Wonder Lights the World,” the first two “episodes” of which I am reposting below, is much more than a promotional video for Pill Wonder’s new Jungle/Surf l.p.; it is an inspirational promotional video, and is probably the only “commercial” that I can honestly say has touched me since MasterCard’s “Priceless” campaign made me shed my first adult tear. If you’re like me, it will probably lead you to believe that Underwater Peoples Records, the market entity that dropped it in my inbox this week, is much more than just a record label, and that Jungle/Surf is much more than an l.p. Either way, all three are definitely bringing back that loving feeling I lost when the snowstorm ended:

“Portraits of the Inspired – Pill Wonder Lights the World”: Episode One

“Portraits of the Inspired – Pill Wonder Lights the World”: Episode Two

Words: Emilie Friedlander

Pill Wonder’s William Murdoch recorded Jungle/Surf using an old Dell desktop computer, illegally downloaded Adobe Audition software, mac n’ cheese boxes, a toy drum set, a Fender guitar, a 3rd grader’s recorder, “some sort of cheap keyboard,” and a Shure SM 57 microphone. The record drops tomorrow (February 28th) and can be purchased from the Underwater Peoples Store. Sawyer Carter Jacobs, the label’s “Head of Friendship,” made “Portraits of the Inspired – Pill Wonder Lights the World” out of memories from his extended sojourn in China last year.

Micro-Pixel-Rites Presents: Unofficial SXSW SHOWCASE and BBQ

Emilie Friedlander — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:46:54 +0000

MICRO-PIXEL-RITES’ SXSW PARTY from Elise Oh on Vimeo.

Elise Oh, Georgia Kral, and I had been contemplating throwing a joint SXSW showcase for some time when we stumbled upon this insano musical collab between Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin over at the Pixelhorse headquarters the other day. Needless to say, we realized that we, too, were capable of making our dreams come true. Visitation Rites, in collaboration with fellow lady-run blogs Pixelhorse and Microphone Memory Emotion, is proud to announce a sunny Austin afternoon of beer, barbecue, and babes — not to mention 10 of our favorite acts in independent music right now. The party will drop on the 18th of March into the same grassy backyard where After the Jump Fest hosted its own unofficial party in 2008 and 2009, and will feature the following friends, in no particular order:

Campfires
Cloud Nothings
Rangers
Pill Wonder
Alex Bleeker and the Freaks
Coasting
Twin Sister
Big Troubles
Family Portrait
+ Surprise Guests

Micro-Pixel-Rites Unofficial SXSW Showcase & BBQ
Thursday, March 18th, 1-8pm
1204 Salina Street
Austin, TX 78702

Arthur Radio Transmission #6: The Excepter Episode

Emilie Friedlander — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:31:39 +0000

Sunday was a very special day for Arthur Radio. We never thought that co-host Hairy Painter would return to Brooklyn after spending a month building Mardi Gras floats and dancing to “sissy bounce” music in Nola, but he surprised us at the station door — out of breath, suitcase in hand — right when we were about to go on. And we never thought we would be able to cram one sound engineer, one baby, five DJs, half a dozen synthesizers, and all six members of Excepter inside the Newtown Radio studio, but somehow we pulled the whole production off without a hitch. Following the release of their new double album Presidence on Paw Tracks last Tuesday, (“Presidence Day observed”), Excepter graced the Arthur airwaves with a set so on point it caused unnoticed seismic shifts beneath a 24-hour techno-rave in Istanbul. Visitation Rites engaged Jon Fell Ryan in a wobbly Q&A, and Ivy Meadows and Hairy Painter piled on layer upon layer of wax ellipses to set the scene…

“Arthur Radio Transmission #6: The Excepter Episode”

Download it on Arthur Magazine.

Words: Emilie Friedlander
GreenerMags package: Camilla Padgitt-Coles

Dream Magazine Comp – The Radio is Dead
Martin Rev – Island
Medio Mutante – Another Land (played at 33rpm)
Wicked Witch – Under Your Spell / Liquid Sky – Me and My Rhythm Box
COIL – Where Even The Darkness is Something to See
Sensations Fix – Astride a Vibration

[LIVE INTERVIEW WITH JFR of EXCEPTER]

Birdsongs of the Mesozoic – Sound Valentine
Shits and Giggles – Spellcaster (clip)
Mazing Vids – Cowrie Bells

[LIVE SET BY EXCEPTER]

Steve Hillage – Garden of Paradise
In Aeternam Vale – The Next Step
Shits and Giggles – More Valium on the Mellotron

Earth – Teeth of Lions Rule The Divine Part 1 / Moo-lah – terror is Real / Yat-Kha – Kargyram / Erzulie – Ti-jean (Spirits of Life – Haitian Voodoo)
Sounds of The Indian Snake Charmer
Tony Conrad / Genesis P-Orridge
The Congos – Fisherman
Yoko Ono – Mind Train
Voice of the Seven Woods – Fire in my Head
Edgar Broughton Band – Out Demons Out

The Advancement – Stone Folk
Fleetwood Mac – Albatross

Reviews: Douglas Mesner, “Good and Bad UFOs” Cassette

Emilie Friedlander — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:35:15 +0000

As a child, I had a strong interest in the history and mythology of UFOs and aliens. Despite the many phobias that can afflict a young kid, I was never afraid of ghosts, bogeymen, or monsters — or even the supposedly very real threat of child predators, kidnappers, and serial killers. Instead, I was fascinated and terrified by the prospect of being abducted by aliens and experimented on. Why this terror developed — leading to many sleepless nights and pleadings with my parents to sleep in their room — is not clear to me. Probably a combination of the countless hours I spent watching syndicated episodes of “Unsolved Mysteries” and my youth reading list, which leaned heavily on science fiction. My appetite for material relating to UFOs was as insatiable as it was damaging to my young psyche; and to this day, although I’m a well-adjusted adult, the prospect of alien abduction still stirs deep emotions.

Usually when we talk about having a personal reaction to a work of art, we mean something positive, as in the sense of pathos it elicits. But when I switched on Douglas Mesner’s Good and Bad UFOs cassette for the first time, I learned that one can have a personal reaction to art that is not entirely pleasant. Good and Bad UFOs is a cut-up tape collage, drawn primarily from a recording of a certified nutjob going on about his experiences with the occult. Though the speaker’s encounters with various representatives of alien intelligence form its central focus, the tape touches on every major occult trend of the last fifty years, from witchcraft to Jesus’ lost years to satanic ritual abuse. Mesner casts this material in sharp relief against a looped sample of a classic soul duet. The result is deeply unsettling, particularly when Mesner employs sparse sound manipulation and edits passages on top of each other to create an otherworldly sound. To me, Good and Bad UFOs represents the dark underbelly of nostalgia, vividly recalling some childhood memories that I’d rather forget.

The B-side of the tape continues in roughly the same vein, but Mesner ditches the soul sample and goes for an atonal backing track that makes the spoken word selections sound even creepier. Individual reactions to this one will will vary deeply. I’m sure that many listeners will find the ludicrous ramblings of a clearly disturbed individual hilarious, or even sad, but to me Good and Bad UFOs is an uncanny triumph that slots nicely on the spectrum of American weirdness — somewhere between “Coast to Coast AM”, Craig Baldwin’s experimental film collage narratives, and my own youthful experience of UFO paranoia. Another truly “out” missive from the fertile hotbed of the current cassette underground.

Doug Mesner, Side A of Good and Bad UFOs (As Above So Below Tapes, 2009)

Words: Max Burke

Good and Bad UFOS was released in 2009 by As Above So Below Tapes. Purchase the cassette via their MySpace, and be sure to check out the rest of their catalogue, which includes rare releases by Rangers and Sir Plastic Crimewave.

EXCEPTER, LIVE ON ARTHUR RADIO SUNDAY FEBRUARY 20

Emilie Friedlander — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:50:09 +0000

John Fell Ryan, aka Excepter’s “JFR”, on the above collection of three ink drawings, displayed last month among other visual sweat meats at Fingered Gallery in Bushwick:

“These are all from the Spring of 1998. I was living alone on the corner of Metropolitan and Driggs in Williamsburg, trying to merge cartooning and abstract design with concepts of American Folk mythology and Jungian sex magick. No real art world aim in mind; these were done for reasons of personal development.”

I can honestly say that there is nothing in this world that messes with my sense of time as much as an Excepter live show — not even marijuana, which I stopped partaking in a long ago because the feeling of getting trapped inside a split second for 100 years was simply too much to bear. But seriously: whether they play for 17 hours straight (as they did at their notorious Election Day show in November of 2008), or deliver a tight 45-minute song cycle (as they did this year at the Pawtracks showcase at CMJ), I always walk out of their shows a little confused as to what time of the day it will be and what year. In recent days, Excepter seem to be all about the long haul. Last month, John Fell Ryan took off his signature double Ray Bans, leafed through a forgotten haystack of old drawings, concert posters, and random scribblings dating even farther back than his No Neck days, and displayed his favorites at Harrison Owen’s Fingered Media space in Bushwick. The show’s closing last week coincided with Excepter’s equally retrospective Presidence release, a compendium of looooooong duration live performances spanning 2003-2008 in 130 minutes — or approximately 2.2 minutes per month.

After spinning a preview of the album last week, Arthur Radio is excited to announce an unbridled freeform Excepter transmission tomorrow afternoon on Newtown Radio, preceded by a live Q&A with the band. Visitation RItes, Hairy Painter, Ivy Meadows, and friends will be your hosts for the segment, and you’re all invited to come along for the ride. Just don’t forget to leave your wristwatches at home.

Listen in on Sunday, February 21 from 4-6 EST on Newtown Radio. Some food for your eyes and ears in the meanwhile:

Excepter, “Teleportation: KAL” video, shot and edited by Harrison Owen

Words: Emilie Friedlander
Math: Jon Williams
GreenerMags Multimedia Package: Camilla Padgitt-Coles (Ivy Meadows)

Sightings: Matrix Metals, “Tanning Salon, Part Two” Video

Emilie Friedlander — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:21:04 +0000

MATRIX METALS “TANNING SALON, PART TWO” from OESB // FUTURE SOUND on Vimeo.

Sam Meringue’s Matrix Metals project has been the extra cheese for pizza-sticky blogger fingers everywhere since Not Not Fun dropped it as a tape last spring, and pretty much everybody who writes about it has been singing the same tune: if all the artists in David Keenan’s h-pop pantheon got together and threw a party in a Malibu Hilton Hotel lobby circa 1985, Flamingo Breeze is what that party would sound like — plastic Piña Colada glasses, lopsided Monet posters, hallucinated DJ “take-overs” and all. And I used to agree entirely, until this new video by Luke Wyatt made me realize that the album’s closing track kind of pulls that swirling neon vision right out from under you. “Tanning Salon” is the killer hangover that comes with the dawn: we are still at the Hilton, but the ice sculptures have collapsed into puddles, the guests have all come and gone, and the hallucinated 45-year-old trophy wife who glided through the ballroom like an extra in a David Lynch film is lying inside the sensory deprivation chamber of a tanning booth, alone with her darkest thoughts as her 97-year-old husband takes a dip in the pool. Memories can really be quite horrific, when the last five years of your life get jammed in the VCR. And I’m afraid, Lady in Red, that you only looked real with your make-up on.

This cookie just dropped from Olde English Spelling Bee vimeoland tonight. Purchase OESB’s vinyl reissue of Flamingo Breeze here.

Words: Emilie Friedlander

Sightings: Not Not Fun Publishes “Skull” Book by Jeremy Earl

Emilie Friedlander — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:28:20 +0000

Jeremy Earl is one busy guy. Not only is he the leader of Woods, but he also runs the associated labels Woodsist and Fuck it Tapes. You may have noticed that these labels have an instantly identifiable aesthetic, and that is due in large part to Earl’s artwork, which graces many a cassette and LP release. From the distinctive ink-drawn Woodsist logo to the elaborate collage work on the cover of Robedoor’s Endlessly Blazing, Earl’s artistic output is as identifiable as his lovely falsetto. It is therefore a cause for celebration that his art work is now available in a condensed and portable form — inside his new book Skull, that is, the first non-musical release on Los Angeles’ esteemed Not Not Fun label.

Skull is a glossy, 40-page, professionally bound catalog containing a selection of Earl’s work from 2006 – 2007. There are no titles, but fans will recognize alternate versions of drawings that have appeared on releases by Blues Control, Family Underground, Shepherds, Axolotl, Menguar, Pocahaunted, and Nonhorse, among others–all of which are associated with Woodsist, Fuck It Tapes or Not Not Fun. The artist’s choice of title is somewhat arbitrary, as the skull is just one of a number of visual motifs that Earl deploys frequently in his work. Other favorite themes include eyes, pyramids, and reptiles.

At the end of the day, Earl’s art reminds me of the kind of free-form doodles one might make while daydreaming in a boring high school science class–taken to the extremes of abstraction, of course. Skull is a nice snapshot of this work, but it leaves me wanting more. The first few pages feature rough sketches of some of the pieces he would go on to develop in his album artwork. And these, I think, are the collection’s most compelling artifacts, because they give greater insight into Earl’s working methods. Diehard fanatics of the underground releases he has graced with his felt-tipped pen probably own many of these cassettes and LPs already, and it’s hard to imagine a casual fan throwing down $15 for this wordless and seemingly arbitrary selection. Skull is rewarding as a quick browse, but it remains a curiosity for all but the most dedicated fans of Earl’s output.

Words: Max Burke