Mark Richardson

I'm the editor-in-chief of Pitchfork and I wrote Zaireeka, a book about the Flaming Lips album.

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November 8th 2010

Patch — Jeep Music

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This is a track from a project called Patch. I am calling this “Jeep Music” because that is the name of the tape it comes from, but the tracks on the tape have no titles. That is the cover art above. This tape was originally released in 1994. It’s from half of the duo called Sukpatch that eventually released albums on Slabco and an EP on Grand Royal. Very few people remember them now and that is OK. I am not sure if they did anything especially notable but I really liked them. I have thought of Sukpatch and Slabco and Land of the Loops (another artist on Slabco) a lot this year. What they were doing in the 1990s—lo-fi indie pop, heavy on samples, an overall outlook that drew a lot from nostalgia and childhood—seems connected to things going on now. But the way things were then, before the Internet, like 1,000 people on planet Earth probably knew they even existed. Which, again, was OK. This music seemed like it was meant for a smaller audience. 

But this tune: when I first heard it, which was I think in 1998, when I ordered re-pressings of these tapes from Slabco, it seemed to me really forward-thinking. The main rhythm part is from a rap track and it’s slowed down a little. Maybe someone can tell me what it is from. But hearing that loop against the ethereal vocal part of the main tune was the kind of thing that made me dream. I liked hearing how they met in the middle. The textural range of each genre seemed to extend when I heard this. It seemed to me like it probably took a lot of imagination in 1993 or 1994 when this was recorded.

I thought of this today because of a NY Times piece about Salem/witch house/slow music and Philip’s very interesting response to it. Marc encouraged me to share this after I sent it to him, and he also pointed out a connection to High Places, which I can hear, too. Ripped this from my tape so the fidelity isn’t great.

Posted at 12:28am and tagged with: sukpatch, audio, high places, land of the loops, slabco, writing,.

April 9th 2010

Land Of The Loops — Multi-family Garage Sale (Bargain-bin Mix)

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If I were going to compare it to anything in the past, I’d compare it to the acts I was talking about here, who had the same kind of sound, light trippiness, warmth, whimsy, nostalgia, the same digging through the past for hazy sounds to pair up with pleasant rolling beats: Casino Versus Japan, Flowchart, Darla’s “Bliss Out” series, etc. That’s always how I hear them, anyway.

That’s Nitsuh responding to a question about shoegaze vs. chillwave, and yes, I know what he is talking about, and I hear this music in that way, too.

Something that’s been on my mind is how there was music in the mid/late 90s that was in some ways related to chillwave but it existed for a very small audience, and how that level of exposure seemed organic to what the music was about and how it was created.

There is something slightly weird when this music gets “big” and fans pack shows in New York or Austin or wherever else to see people bring their bedroom projects to the stage. Some music, it seems to me, works best with not too many people watching. Not that you don’t wish every artist success, and hope that they will gain as large an audience as they hope for. But sometimes the aesthetic would seem to dictate a more modest scale, and a lot of this recent hazy bedroom pop feels that way to me.

This is something I’ve talked about a bit with Marc, and I’ve shared with him some of the music in this vein I listened to in the late-90s—esp. artists on the Slabco label, like Land of the Loops. The track above, “Multi-Family Garage Sale” (I think Marc posted it at one point), doesn’t sound “chillwave,” but it does share some  of the same concerns, including those Nitsuh articulated—warmth, whimsy, nostalgia—along with a focus on childhood and, through its title, an emphasis on middle class suburban life. It came out in 1996, it was great, not that many people heard it but some of them loved it (it was even used in a beer commercial I’ve never seen), and all of that worked out OK. Maybe Alan Sutherland would think differently.

Posted at 10:50pm and tagged with: Land of the Loops, chillwave, slabco, writing,.