Mister Lies & Different Sleep - Vermont (Baptism)
A baptism for the masses under slivered silver rain, on a melting mountain the baptism took place. “Vermont (Baptism)” is the point of departure on Mister Lies & Different Sleep’s four-track exploratory Mass EP. Mass EP was released yesterday by my and Flashlight Tag’s label Absent Fever, find it here.
A black hole was in the making, pressed in like pressed pencil led, silver slivers of dusty rain swarmed the mountain top tidal pool. The barely borns and the barely livings sunk their toes into the melting mountain. The mothers and the dirty dishes, the babies weeping in the raining park, the barely’s weeping in the raining park, the synthetic juveniles together fleshed in backyard pools, the inward between the wall hiders scrubbing between their ring finger and the middle every hour… this dunk in the sprinkling splintering silver rain was their baptism. Their toes crawled into the melting greenery. Mud went to their knees and the liquid dust rain met it there. The mountain melted with them.
The noise chirps and whistles at you to come over, into your own wired cellar of a mind. Enter into an endlessness you’d only imagine to be somewhere outside. All in a small breadth, “In My Head”. Eliot is one of many who plays a role in the developing music community of LA—an atmosphere that’s abundant with the creations of the young generation.
Absent Fever and the physical label JAXART Records have teamed up to present a compilation of 7 artists of LA up-comers and explorers. The compilation, called Generation Y Not, will be made into 1,000 CD’s distributed and given away for free around the US. To introduce you to the artists of Generation Y Not, 7 videos were made by the even younger videographer pxl, the fourth of which with Eliot (who also runs the collective 6bit).
Generation Y Not is available digitally on Absent Fever’s bandcamp, with more details regarding the physical release coming soon, and 3 more videos on their way.
/// Video by pxl ///
Honeydrip - Dull Tydes Bring Us All Down Sometimes
“Dull Tydes Bring Us All Down Sometimes” is one of seven tracks on Generation Y Not. Generation Y Not is a compilation of seven young LA based musicians (Honeydrip included) that is being released tomorrow digitally via Absent Fever and on 1,000 free CD’s via JAXART Records.
Seduced by the dirty-minded, spoiled, cynical animals. The dirty-doers that seduced us past any slept-with sort of seduction. It was a seduction like a childhood sweetheart - though we were trying too hard to be all but childlike. The friendless friends and the backs of the cars that bragged ironic maturity. We were a miserable crew with black and blue backs of eyes and knuckle alps, with a sex induced drowsiness, and half-dark politics. Mouths pale and poisoned, talkative enough to soon be the seducers ourselves. Surely we were to blame, but wouldn’t want it any other way.
Absent Fever: One Year Anniversary
(Artwork by Beth Hoeckel)
The footprints and fingerprints of the incongruous crew are suspended in the everywhere; from the mosaic crumblings of the many moons to the sand rink deserts, the metal city speed to the diamond glaciers of the heaven reachers, their trail has tracked further than they could tell you. In now a single year of musical voyage, Absent Fever has released 98 songs, 14 collections of sound, and has worked with 10 artists. In a single year of existence, Absent Fever has come to build creations with our most admired musicians, and collaborate with our most beloved artists and friends. Take a tour of our travels with this 10 song compilation, which features our favorite song from each artist we’ve had the fortune of working with. Allow this tour to not only be a tour of Absent Fever, but depths of this musical sphere we’re all a part of.
Thank you to the musicians who have allowed us to be involved with the making of our most beloved sounds, to the visual artists and creators who have made such beloved sounds come to life, to the bloggers and communities who have shared them, and to the listeners who have experienced this voyage with us. Our travels are not yet over - much more is to come of Absent Fever, and this year merely marks the first of many.
Embark on your tour:
Download here. Stream below:
Caves - Eleven Twenty
They shook with shame, bruised knees, black magic, and ghostly fake gold ring finger rings. When You Were Partying, I Was Dying. “Eleven Twenty” is one of four tracks off of Caves’ When You Were Partying, I Was Dying. released today via Absent Fever.
They stripped their saintly ring finger rings with their teeth and spit at the shrew snake of dawn - they faded out of dreams and migraines and woke with the stench of hometown alleyways. They had run icy street ice-skating city rinks, knees bruised purple and black magic. The ghostly rings were fake gold - they confessed.
My co-run digital label Absent Fever and the physical label JAXART are teaming up to present a compilation highlighting the enormous influx of young musicians in LA. On April 3rd, Absent Fever and JAXART will be releasing a pressing of 1,000 CD’s which will be given away for free across the US, and also available online digitally. The compilation is comprised of 7 songs, one from each of the 7 artists who represent the city’s music community. The artists involved in the project are:
Caves ((whose cover of “Didn’t I” is above))
Absent Fever and Jaxart are also presenting a number of shows in LA to support the compilation.
Today, February 3rd we’re presenting a show with Gangi, Tuesday Glass, and Honeydrip:
On February 16th we’re presenting a show with Dreams., Chrome Sparks, Pageants, and a DJ set by Travis Thatcher:
Be on the lookout for much more news to come.
Absent Fever + JAXART present:::
Gangi / Tuesday Glass / Honeydrip
February 3rd. 8-10 PM.
Free. All Ages.
@ Space 15 Twenty (Hollywood)
RSVP HERE.
A spherical view towards the neighborhood of home. Left Arm Single shot and edited this kaleidoscopic video to Birkwin Jersey’s “Orinoco” off of his Old Hands EP to be released Friday the 13th via Absent Fever.
Neighborhoods of sounds like the hollowing caves on a carousel ‘round where the church bell rings sound - scufflings of pruned palms greeting “how do you do?” to rotting railways or through the hair of little pat on the top people - nail galloping on bored old oak desks of bored old oak folk - the inside quarrels that had hardly sound and happened nearly exclusively in the lined up houses of neighborhoods that marched like a marching band to nearly always in need of repair dusty alarm clocks. And god-dammit being home hadn’t ever sounded so kind.
She didn’t have to see the water, she’d been dreaming it for years. Sobrenadar conceives an aquatic atmosphere. This video is an introduction to Sobrenadar, the Argentina based artist Paula Garcia. She documented the atmosphere which her music stems from through a chillingly warm performance of her track “Finales - filmed in Buenos Aires by Fernando Delssin. Her EP Physeos is available for free today via Absent Fever.
It is midday, low-pitched light outside; inside it isn’t. Dimness swallows her like a minnow as she steps into the water without footfall to introduce her. She didn’t have to see the water, she’d been dreaming it for years. Two dreams, rupturing and being swallowed. The people above didn’t hear a sound, but below them, outside, all around, the water went on and on and on. Amassing itself, engulfing itself. Steeper and deeper. Round and round, never changing direction.
Composed by impulse and the stream of consciousness, seven juxtaposed artists came in union to create a collective vision; distinct and furthermore one. Seven of the Absent Fever (mine and Flashlight Tag’s digital label) artists collaborated to create one 7 minute song. Each was given only the previous artists 1 minute to base their 1 minute off of, and was told to compose from solely initial creative reaction. In result is a 7 minute long guide through the soundscape of Absent Fever. Videographer Library Voices then interpreted the entire stream of consciousness into a visual depiction of the landscapes visited. It sounds almost like an afterthought of a global-travel, and looks like it too. As if the sounds are soaring between the ivory coasts of the equator, wrapping their presence around the sphere. The travelers collected grains of sand and salt, blizzard and air-currents from each dwelling passed. Country, to corner, city, to village, without realizing, they’d had pieces of everything. And somehow, the diversity compiled itself into something more together than they could anticipate. Each had a map of their travels ingrained in the palms of their hands and the wiring of their subconscious; when each sat to make song, the song was together. Their were seven travelers, and their retelling of their voyage was one.
Order of appearance (1 minute each):
KYNAN
Gracie
Birkwin Jersey
Wonder Bear
Ra Cailum
Galapagos
Guerre
Listen to the song alone here.
With a mix of live footage, and found, Chicago based Left Arm Single created a hypnotic depiction of “Feelings 4 U” in collaboration with Flashlight Tag. “Feelings 4 U” by Dreams is the title track off of the fresh LA-based beat-smith’s 10-track EP released today by my and Flashlight Tag’s free digital label Absent Fever.
Invitation accepted. The electric currents were bending, drifting and swelling. Flashbacks in motion. What a tease. It seemed like any minute now that we might be hypnotized. The fantasy is all we know, a chairlift into the peaks suspended over reality. The fireworks were too spastic and scattered, so we collected them all, plotted them into a grid form, and stormed away on our fireworks fantasy floor. Floored. The bulletproof neon stream ticked with our heart beats.
KYNAN - Happy When You’re High
Looking through the windshield, with the neglectability of the ahead feeling immeasurably high. Its as if afloat inside of a kaleidoscope, no compass is fastened inside, and in fact you don’t feel fastened at all [afloat inside]. A dead-pan delivery of the tide of dreams. Washing ashore with the fluctuation of sedated mystery, hovering tirelessly above sinking. The flip side to summer ebb and flow, cringing and squinting towards sun highs. The 10th piece found by the metal detectors of Absent Fever is KYNAN’s Garbage Beach. Garbage Beach is available for free devouring as of today via Absent Fever’s bandcamp. Garbage Beach visuals be found by the stadiums and the shrines (by Dave Sutton).
Then in the night the highway reds and whites took a spin through my moon-roof, twirling like the fools at the dance I didn’t go to. Crooning out of context, the engines roared by like rockets playing battleship with constellations. My windshield smeared dewy liquid across my vision board; and I drove through a menacing kaleidoscope in motion. The neglectability of eyesight made it easy for my nerves to jump into shotgun, pressing the petal with no sense of how heavy my foot pressed. Driving through a smeared kaleidoscope of reds, whites, and the in betweens, with only the ability to see through the rear view, and neglect the onward as easily as it was to keep a blink shut. And so I steered through the moon-roof, guided by the constellations of spherical highway reds and whites.
It is rain in my face. - Down in the Town
With an ease at navigation and a keen eye towards the skyline, Matthew Jones traverses sound ranges. Plucking strings as he climbs winding trails, he sings along in a hypnotic humble hike towards sundown skylines. The white blanket of clouds so entranced they round down beneath his ground, until they too become part of his hilly range. “Down in the Town” gives a peek into his sunset terrain, now in full view as my co-run label Absent Fever released It is rain in my face.’s Wishbone EP today, available for free download on our bandcamp.
And the sun struck my skin like it was sprinkling me with a shower of rain. Above me it was nude, with the white sheets neighbors to the hills. From afar I heard a train, down in the town.
Together confused in our contrasting hues. Though who are we to question why one is red and the other blue, maybe we can only see one color of a color made of shades. “Opposing yet not opposite. Two aspects of a single reality.” As said by Nathaniel Whitcomb, the visionary of this video for Birkwin Jersey’s ”Sixes and Nines”. “Sixes and Nines” is the first track from artist Graeme Coop’s upcoming release Time Doesn’t Exist, Clocks Do. which will be released on the 11th via Absent Fever.
Around the fire we sat, as the embers cracked with empathy. The fire recognized its ability, how grand or small it could be. We all the same. How contradicting felt the empathy. Contrasting sympathy, how awful it felt for we. We unable to see how imbued we were in eachothers embers, and how trivial the embers are, to a fire who too cannot see its ability. Embers not here nor there, with the fire or apart. They unable to see their place, or the prominence of their placement. Who looked to the fire, in search of empathy, though could only see the blue in you and me. Fire red, eyes blue, collectively confused with the contrasting colors of their hues. Opposing, yet not opposite.
Gracie is the project of DC native Andrew Balasia. “Untitled” is the single from Gracie’s upcoming EP For Summer. The suitably named For Summer EP will be released on Monday (6/20) via Absent Fever.
I rolled with the hill, a hill that seemed like a cliff at the time. From one shoulder to the next, the grass branded our bodies with the stain of summer. The ground was giddy as we tickled our fickle glee upon its bed of chastity. From one to the next, we reached the end of our roll. Giggling with the giddy grass we looked up, towards each other, and back up again. Each noticed the way the clouds would brigade; transparent and with a merriment that resembled dancing. As curious as we were, we didn’t wonder why we could see through them, from one to the next, but I imagine it may have been because the sun wanted to see us more clearly. It felt indecisive, spontaneous, and for that reason, dreamy. We rolled mimicking the sky, without wonder of where they’d run or why. It was summertime.
