The Tattooed Date of the Earthquake Across the Abdomen
(Chocolate Monk) CDR $8.00
Crozier Lathrop at the controls: “Do you remember the first gasp of air you ever sucked down, abjectly sensing that things outside you can go inside you, as you crawled out from inside into the outside unknown: still-born at the still-lodge reflecting still-waters, perpetually distilling your daily boils, bils, dungs, romans, and countryfolk throughout the last half of adolescence, more-or-less mute, and then those who didn’t already live there all migrated down river to a Kentucky city-town and blurred into the salon-saloon weekly-gatherings held in foreign-tongues, obliterating toward no-known-object, only, for those who survived, to wake up decades later to a set of Pappy Van Winkle-wrinkles, and a good-enough smile? The two general rules for Kark— and what distinguishes Kark from their sibling-limb Sapat—are that there are no amps and no guitars allowed. The 19 tracks and 79 minutes of sound on this album were recorded over a 21-year period and co-created between 47 people in Louisville, Kentucky. Membership overlaps with too many bands to list here, but some highlights include The Cherry Blossoms, The Magik Markers and Ron Pate, big band leader of Tuscaloosa, Alabama’s 1970’s Dada-heavies Rev. Fred Lane. Arkestrial Moondogs soak Kenny G’s jazz-concrète saxophone reeds in a Xenakis-Joujouka urinal cake. Secret agreements between past and present selves flash-form into a joyful body of outsider music.” Edition of 60