WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS & JAMES JACKSON TOTH - 'UNDER STARS AND SMOKE'

Formats

• BRR305 - LP

Details

Under Stars and Smoke is the soundtrack to an imaginary landscape wherein various “actual” locales are thematically superimposed atop one another to suggest new, alien terrain. Both the New Mexico-based William Fowler Collins and the Kentucky-based James Jackson Toth find a great deal of inspiration in their adopted home regions: While Collins translates via mighty drones the vast, occasionally unforgiving mesas of the American southwest, Toth bends and blends the sounds and textures of traditional bluegrass and mountain music. Complete with frame-worthy “pastoral psychedelia” cover art by visual artist Claudia X. Valdes, Under Stars & Smoke is an album as explicitly American and distinctly postmodern as the maverick artists who created it. This is the debut collaborative release from the duo. James Jackson Toth appears under the moniker Wooden Wand, and in countless collaborations, on over a hundred records, and in 2015 founded, with his wife Leah, the experimental label Footfalls Records. William Fowler Collins is composer/musician and recording artist whose work explores and synthesizes both musical and extra-musical elements. Collins has released music on the SIGE, Type, Handmade Birds, Daymare, Digitalis and Root Strata labels. Current projects include collaborations with Aaron Bradford Turner and Raven Chacon (in Mesa Ritual). Under Stars and Smoke was mastered by James Plotkin, and is packaged in a full colour sleeve designed by Claudia X. Valdes. Pressed in an edition of 200 copies for the world on 180 gram black vinyl.

Tracks

Press

Audio & Video

CFM - 'STILL LIFE OF CITRUS & SLIME'

Formats

• ITR289 - LP

  759718528916

• ITR289CD - CD

  759718528923

Details

CFM is Charles Francis Moothart. He has been making records for the past decade, playing various instruments in various bands—bass in The Epsilons, drums in The Moonhearts, and guitar in The Ty Segall Band and, most recently, Fuzz. Still Life of Citrus and Slime is Moothart’s first solo effort and it’s a great one. Moothart says, “Still Life of Citrus and Slime—the idea of creating something outside of the comfort zone. Blending basic elements of necessity, release and escape. An attempt to fuse reality with the elusions of the possible. The music represents an elevation beyond the barriers of linear motion and self-doubt. It is similar to looking in a mirror and realizing that time trails itself constantly by just a millisecond. You cannot kill time, and you cannot exist on both sides of the reflex. Yet, to bridge the gap is to eliminate instinct and output in their purest forms. “This record is a portrait of a person navigating the mechanics of two distinct machines. The first—the brain. The second—the Tascam 388. Eight tracks and a quarter-inch path to maneuver to the summation. The songs simmer from rare to well done. No matter the cut, the meat is fresh and still vibrating with life. “Fast, slow, wonky and straight. There are moments of everything in these grooves. At times it feels like it could come apart at the seams, but it doesn’t. It grabs the thread, bites the end, pulls it tight and continues the experiment. It’s rock ’n’ roll, and that’s all. The greener grass is browning on the other side. The drought is here to stay. The only way out of this mess is to put your head down and do the right thing. Keep moving, keep trying, keep creating, and project any positivity possible. Of course it is much easier to succumb to the wolf. Just forget about it, and pretend it is out of your control. Thankfully the wolf let down his guard. Having found refuge in a blanket of heartache and a bottle of wine, he took a cat nap in a manger of confusion.”

Tracks

1. You Can?t Kill Time
2. Brain of Clay
3. Lunar Heroine
4. Street Car History
5. Glass Eye
6. Slack
7. Habit Creeps
8. Clearly Confusion
9. Purple Spine
10. The Wolf Behind My Eyes
11. Still Life of Citrus and Slime

Press

Audio & Video