Co-produced by: Francisco, Branson, and Lou
Thank You

Boast

Yoshi Wada – Off The Wall (SLT-003)

First vinyl reissue of composer and Fluxus artist Yoshi Wada's second album, Off The Wall, originally released in 1985 by famed free jazz label FMP. Recorded in Berlin on May 11 and 12, 1984, by a quartet featuring Yoshi Wada and Wayne Hankin on bagpipes, Marilyn Bogerd on adapted organ (hand-built by Wada), and Andreas Schmidt Neri on percussion. Mastered by Rashad Becker and housed in old-style gatefold jackets printed by Stoughton.

"Off The Wall belongs somewhere between the exuberant harmolodic ritual of Ornette Coleman's Dancing In Your Head, a damp, medieval dirge and the inner ear soundings of composer Maryanne Amacher." – David Keenan, The Wire

"It may be more accurate to think of Wada as a sculptor than as a composer, because his music seems to be a physical reality, like wood or stone, and also because of the way he treats this material. Most composers work with ideas. Their basic interest is in melodies, harmonies, thematic relationships, tone rows, tonal centers, emotional qualities, and other rather abstract things, all of which can then be conveyed in sound, but none of which really are sound. Wada, on the other hand, works directly with the sound itself. His music would sound silly arranged for church organ for example. And if he prefers to preserve some improvisatory freedom rather than to notate specific musical ideas, this is at least partly because he is not so interested in the kinds of musical ideas that can be written down on paper. He wants to maintain direct contact with the physical reality of the sound." – Tom Johnson

Yoshi Wada – Off The Wall I (excerpt)

Beast Mode - Odd Thomas & Courtland Urbano

Faux Toes

Giraffever

On the hill

Basic Rappers is a response to the mediocrity and lowering of the bar that this new generation of MCs has set. It's not so much a diss to them, rather a call to step it up. Saying "Gucci Gang" through an entire verse doesn't count as bars. 

The song is also just a tongue and cheek statement of "I'm gay and I spit better than most of these rappers out here today," not to perpetuate the stigma that LGBTQs don't have a seat at hip-hop's table, but to continue to challenge the status quo of rap and further push queerness and the LGBTQ into spaces that haven't always been kind to us.

Basic Rappers

Check out part 2 of #SoulSundays Series. On Sundays I like to drop a live version of one of my deeper, more soulful tracks. This Song is Called "Be Back Soon." One of the most powerful lines is " Im A hypocrite at best, but a person in the flesh, and i gave it my best yes." Hope you enjoy it.

#SoulSundays Part 2 "Be Back Soon."

This is an improv jam session with Chris Conde and myself. An abrupt midnight hangout on a monday.

Chris Conde - Mandolin/Vocals
Isaac Duvon - Violin

Inauguration of new BFF's

Man, this is probably one of the deepest songs ive written in a while. Its called “One Day.” And just talks about stuff i think about every single day. I am nowhere near where i would like to be, but i do know that I will get there if i keep going. Wherever you are in your journey, just know that we will have it all one day. My favorite lyrics are “One day Imma be the man I wish my dad was/ hopping off stage getting mad love. One day imma sell out a stadium/and yell real loud for the people that were playing him.”

#Soulsundays Part 6 "One Day"

As an openly queer musician, Chris Conde combines the classically detached spheres of hip hop, indie rock and avant-garde experimental art punk of the drag variety. In his sometimes hysterical but always poignant bars, Conde strives to relate to his audience through an honest communication of his personal narrative of overcoming drug addiction and self-acceptance

His unflinchingly genuine persona is distributed evenly across a variety of melodious reincarnations,  -Diamond Daggerz the drag queen rapper whose obsessed with all things Occult, Chris Conde the banjo and guitar-playing folk singer and as the leader of numerous alternative-rap subsidiary projects. As a clever lyricist with an eccentric persona, Conde's performances resonate with any audience member who has ever felt jumbled up in a liminal state of ambiguity. He is constantly trying to obtain a sense of solace and understanding, a message of undeniable reliability. 

Whether rapping in full drag to a produced beat, singing with a fully-backed orchestration or simply crooning alongside a few acoustic instruments, Conde's unabashed dialogue of acceptance is luminous in these dark days