A month ago, a young writer and trueblue head from the Bay Area extraordinarily named Wolfgang Mowry slipped into our DMs and said he’d like to interview us in depth for the rather legendary site Passion Weiss. We were and are flattered. The piece dropped last week. It prominently features a photo of 40% Foda/Maneiríssimo’s Gabriel Guerra and Lucas de Paiva DJing their little asses of in Rio. So, we thought we’d show our ugly mugs here.
It’s a long read, really allowing us to blather and jump topices — and ultimately covers a whole lotta what we do. My lady said I shouldn’t curse so much going forward in interviews.
ULYSSA Records Beams Warped Transmissions From the Heart(land)
This kinda gets at the center of The <1000 Lifestyle.
“John Williamson: I feel like discovering this world was kind of like showing up to a flea market with nothing but private press records that no one’s ever heard before. But in the record world, there’s already a whole network within a community, whereas I’m almost positive we’re the only people in this community, so it’s our little digital crate.
EO Deines: I’ll find something, and It’ll have two monthly listeners, and both of them will be from Bloomington, Indiana.”
Also, to celebrate the 2nd addition to our David Michael Moore Archival Series, the digital release of his percussion-heavy 1994 album Bird Head Birlando, we made our own percussion freakout playlist called DRUM CIRCLE PUNCH.
This one is for the obsessed child on her belly, mindlessly flicking the spring doorstop over and over. Yes mindless, but also mesmerized by the differences in the spring doorstop’s alien ffffffffdddddrrrrrrrrdrrrrrr. Any subtle difference in the pressure she applies to the flicking of said spring doorstop is followed immediately by a noticeable difference in the attack and sustain of the doorstop’s hypnotic ffffffffdddddrrrrrrrrdrrrrrr. That is, until some annoyed adult comes to stomp the holy magic out of her.
1994’s Bird Head Burlando is the second offering in Ulyssa’s David Michael Moore digital reissue series. It is for those of us who hear a multiverse of tones in a cookware set; who like our cymbals cracked in half; who own more than one croaking frog guiro wood block. To be honest, we had another, more songwriterly album on deck. But about a month ago, something about Bird Head Burlando began to speak to us. It’s a relentless album that showcases David’s slew of homemade percussive instruments. The purring ASMR of his wooden drum boxes. Wild journeys up and down David’s schizoid zithers. Buzz boxes of all shapes, sizes and cosmologies. Tin, titanium, aluminum and steel each with their own tone, touch and lyricism. Dog bones and ghost spokes. His army of bird recordings. You might recognize that Casio synth broiling in its own battery acid from his Adagio Fishing album. Bird Head Burlando takes that childhood realization that there is power in making a clatter and elevates it to the avant-garde. The power of crunching a plastic water bottle. Blowing into a Mexican Coke bottle. But shaped into an Om. Made into a happening. A physics lesson. It’s trance music. An expedition to the hinterland of percussive composition. Often, the ear will tune into the particular sizzle or rattle of a buzz box spoon. And its sound becomes a sort of onomatopoeia mantra looping through your mind. The title track (and therefore its return on the final song) is like Aaron Copland’s Hoe-down interpreted by Congo’s legendary Konono No. 1. It’s not all just freeform banging here. There are thrilling movements — intentional shifts and abrupt, ingenious key changes on par with Moondog. A whirling dervish straight outta Rosedale. Or fuck it, maybe this is just what Fat Albert’s junkyard band would have actually sounded like playing on bed springs, lead pipes and hubcaps. That’d be just fine with David too.
ALSO CONTRAHOUSE IS OUT IN THE WORLD. PLEASE STREAM AND ORDER.
STREAM: https://audiosalad.ffm.to/contrahouse
PREORDER:
cool man, about to cop some tunes for BCF