soft variate

Brixton Rain

Echolocations: Canyon

The Canyon Wants To Hear C Sharp

Artist: Paul de Jong
Title: Auction Block
Album: IF
Release Date: April 28, 2015

Paul de Jong is best known as the cofounder, cellist and resident found sound savant of the beloved, defunct collage-pop duo, the Books. Five years after that band delivered their final album, The Way Out, to much acclaim, de Jong delivers his first solo album, IF.

IF sets the Books' early albums (particularly The Lemon of Pink) as a starting point, and elevates that beguiling sense of wonder and amazement to genuinely transcendent new heights. De Jong's ability to find the musical in the mundane has always been uncanny — it is part of what made the Books so magical – and that gift is what makes IF such a marvelous curiosity, and such a true pleasure to hear. In de Jong’s world, everything around him is a potential instrument: his mind-bogglingly vast collection of forgotten private press regional folk records, spoken-word oddities of indeterminate origin unearthed in discarded thrift store piles, and various everyday household utensils that we tend to take for granted. One man’s trash is de Jong’s tool to craft yet another treasure.

Featuring a handful of friends and family as musical guests, IF steers a course from joyously eccentric folk-pop to humorously inside-out jazz, resulting in a refreshing piece of outsider art with a replay value that's off the charts.

©2015 Temporary Residence Ltd.

Pre-Order LP/CD

Paul de Jong – Auction Block

A 1972 track off Ba Da Bing’s upcoming "Jackson C. Frank: The Complete Recordings" - a 3xCD/6xLP (LP is split into 3 2xLP volumes) with 24 tracks never before heard. Everything completely remastered, including Jackson's classic debut album from 1965. Out August 4th, 2015.

Track listing: http://www.badabingrecords.com/jackson-c-frank-the-complete-recordings-track-listing/

Order: grapefruitrecordclub.com/t/jackson-c-frank

Released in conjunction with Jim Abbott’s book, Jackson C. Frank: The Clear Hard Light Of Genius, The Complete Recordings contains a total of 67 tracks. Every song has been mastered or remastered, many straight from the original, brittle reel-to-reels.
 A life plagued by tragedy with the most haunting music to show for it, Frank’s story can be heard through his music, which has been covered by the likes of Nick Drake, Simon & Garfunkel, Fairport Convention, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, South Korean jazz singer Nah Youn Sun, French singer Graeme Allwright, sampled by Nas for “Undying Love.” While never gaining full recognition as one of the great musicians of the sixties, Jackson C. Frank clearly had his fans. Frank’s story is a cautionary tale for the dangerous pitfalls of a life lived. At the age of eleven, he was the victim of the infamous Cleveland Hill School Fire in a New York suburb, leaving him burned and disabled, and killing 15 of his classmates. He spent an agonizing eight months in the hospital, during which time he picked up a guitar for the first time. Scarred both physically and psychologically by the first, and left a shell of his former self, Frank would never fully recover from the wounds. His never-released second album was to include the song “Marlene”, which honors his childhood girlfriend lost in the fire. 
Jackson soon found himself making the rounds of the London folk clubs and rubbed shoulders with Bert Jansch, Roy Harper, John Renbourn, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Paxton, Mike Seeger and Sandy Denny (who became Jackson’s girlfriend and later wrote the somber song “Next Time Around” about him). Jackson’s music caught the interest of another young American songwriter in London named Paul Simon, who offered to record and produce his eponymous album Jackson C. Frank in 1965. 
After recording his album, however, Jackson’s health took a turn for the worse and the following years were unkind. He met future wife Elaine Sedgwick, cousin of Edie Sedgwick, at a London party, and when his money began to run out he left London for Woodstock, where they married. The relationship was marked by a miscarriage and the death of their first-born son to cystic fibrosis, and Jackson’s subsequent mental unraveling. Jackson was later diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and battled excessive weight gain from a thyroid problem developed after the fire. Additionally, he went through bouts of intermittent homelessness between stays at various upstate shelters.  One day, while Jackson waited in a park to be moved to a new facility, he was shot and blinded in his left eye by neighborhood children with a BB gun. The light from this period of his life came from Jim Abbott, who looked after Jackson C. Frank until his death in 1999. Jackson’s recordings span four decades of a hard-lived life, and every experience, every trial, is reflected in his voice.. If ever a person’s individual journey could be traced through his music, it’s Jackson C. Frank’s, and The Complete Recordings is nothing less than a representative map of his life’s high points and deepest, most shadowed valleys. 
While Frank’s album has enjoyed numerous (official and unofficial) reissues, an expanded double CD edition appeared in 2003 from Sanctuary, with 33 songs that had never appeared before. Jackson C Frank: The Complete Recordings contains a total of 67 tracks, including all the Sanctuary material, plus 24 more songs.

China Blue by Jackson C. Frank

Written and Performed by Medicine Boy (Andre Leo and Lucy Kruger).

Mixed, Mastered and Engineered by Chris Tuck.

Electric Sugar

Melancholy and peace, wrapped in one fading moment.

As If We Never Were

Subtle Nuance

ordinary times

LOST DAWN - Electrify
Digital Single Released: 14 August
via Easy Action (LDEP001)

Written by Lost Dawn. Recorded by Lost Dawn with Samuel Stacpoole. Mastered by PSB Music


Electrify

Bonnie Prince Billy - Rider

My personal tribute to my hero. 
All the sounds you hear are made by saxophones played by me. 
"Subterraneans" was meant to invoke the misery of those in East Berlin during the Cold War. According to Bowie, people who "got caught in East Berlin after the separation - hence the faint jazz saxophones representing the memory of what it was."


David Bowie - Subterraneans (Saxophone Tribute Version)(2016)

From our split with Spoonboy, available here: https://colourmewednesday.bandcamp.com/album/spoonboy-colour-me-wednesday-split

Half A Life

St. Nick

Sleep Paralysis

The B-side to Posture's debut single 'I Just Can't Wait To See My Girl' / 'Dreamin'', released 27th May 2016 via Beech Coma.

Posture - Dreamin'

Music & Lyrics by Dear Criminals 

Produced by Philippe Brault 
Mixed by Sébastien Blais-Montpetit 
Mastered by Emily Lazar at The Lodge, assisted by Chris Allgood.

https://dearcriminals.bandcamp.com/album/another-picture

David Bowie - Subterraneans (Saxophone Tribute Version)(2016)

Christian Biegai

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