so they really take the name “dispersion” seriously, huh? if you missed it last week, the august Dispersion V event featured live performances from Foxtails, Waking Up Now, Similar Kind, Kim Normal, and Fatbeth. that’s a great line-up, but the folks that put the show together go to great lengths to make Dispersion special with elaborate staging and lights. the folks that put on that show also maintain the Prozac music collective, which is kind of like one of those Elephant 6 groups, where there are a variety of projects, all that have some common through-line, and members collaborate with each other and separately. and where the through-line for Elephant 6 was fuzzy alt-rock, the through-line for Prozac is consciousness-altering experimentation. and the event’s name suggests, music has dispersed from Prozac since the beginning of last week. three new releases in fact! let’s take a look.
Introjection – Mouthless Hymns
as the name of the album suggests, Mouthless Hymns is an instrumental work. two tracks long, each speeding past the 15-minute mark, these long ambient pieces were recorded with analog gear, giving the sounds a soothing warmth. with rarely any repetition, these tracks feel like midnight Brian Eno, or a blend between The Haxan Cloak and Tim Hecker. it’s music for the night, long after the sun has set. check out “Grecian Rug”.
Garth / New Social Gospel – We Need To Rent A Room For Our Party
released on the same day as Mouthless Hymns, this collaboration between New Social Gospel (Caleb Duval) and Garth (Noah Hart) combines improvisation/noise and avant-garde songwriting for a challenging release. with lyrics written by a random word generator, the appeal of We Need To Rent A Room For Our Party is kind of like the appeal of The Policeman’s Beard is Half-Constructed, the book of poetry written by an artificial intelligence. the noise arrangements combined with the bizarre lyrics often yield strange, compelling moments. check out: “if you like tuna and tomato sauce – try combining the two. it’s really not as bad as it sounds.” (editor’s note: we cannot verify this claim.)
New Social Gospel – Your Drugs Are Just As Powerful Of A Crutch As God Herself
Caleb Duval, fresh off the collaboration with Garth, has his own release here. and it feels like a middle-ground between the two above releases. elements of Your Drugs Are Just As Powerful… are seemingly improvised, and others are hypnotic interludes. check out “blue whale”, the longest track on the album, but the one that perhaps best incorporates all of New Social Gospel’s ideas. there are some traditional melodies here, but they’re shoulder-to-shoulder with noise (a prominent wheezing balloon sound recurs), field records, captured dialog, and near-ambient excursions.
