Étude in Black
(Chocolate Monk) CDR $8.00
Bent bleak monochrome “music” for misery guts. “Some significant personal events occurred,” admits l’artiste, “and I made some inept ‘faulk’ music in response (so emo). Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the work fails to convey much of anything about those events. After making stuff which was intentionally devoid of emotional resonance for years, this way of working felt pretty revealing and somewhat pathetic. Which is probably why, by the time I was done with it, I think I ended up burying most, if not all sentiment that might have been there.” Edition of 60
NONNAH
(Chocolate Monk - choc.523) CDR $8.00
Thinking of your fate? Mired down in a mortality wobble? Deep breaths and audio hum can alleviate them shakes, while tapes and tones keep the lizards at bay. After a considerable bout of radio silence from Spoils & Relics, Johnny Scarr gets his thumb out of his arse and dusts down the old four-track. What starts off trying to fool you into thinking of this as just another miserable Spoils & Relics record morphs into something more mellow and almost musical, like the tipsy leader of a cult of one trying to reel in some starseed. “It’s just another mopey, shitty, synth record,” according to Chuckles himself, “Which obviously the world needs more of.” Cognition blurred. Ears pleased. Edition of 50