Ultra-limited edition of 105 copies. This material has been substantially reworked from the original digital version. The vinyl (not lathe) sounds simply incredible, with hyper-crisp fidelity and intimidating bass response. This edition also comes with a Venus Flytrap seed for you to grow (grow instructions included in the liner notes). This release will bring years of enjoyment!
Recorded at Solid State Electronics Laboratory Studio, Chicago
September 2019-2020
All material re-worked 2022
Physical copy is packaged seeds for you to grow
With a total length of nineteen minutes, this is hardly an LP, but rather a 12". 'Take root' you could take literally, as the package contains grass seeds to grow, including instructions (sadly, no garden to put them in). Panicsville calls this "foraging further into psycho-ecological electronics" and the music was originally composed for an event called "Plantasia", in 2019, and had a digital release. However, the music here is radically reworked, and the LP is limited to 105 copies. Panicsville is the musical project of Andy Ortmann, who also works under that name. I easily admit that I don't know the finer differences between both projects, but there is certainly a plunderphonic element in the music of Panicsville. In the olden days, I believe this plundering happened using vinyl, but these days some of the manipulations may be with tape machines; although I admit (again) I have no evidence for that. For all I know, Panicsville might still use bits of vinyl and modular electronics. In his work (both names), Ortmann uses the vocabulary of musique concrète. There is a strong love for the cut-up technique, taking sounds apart, doing a full re-configuration, and in the meantime, slipping in some weird melodic bits and a broken rhythm, so it also owes to the world of industrial music (I am using that terms very broad here). In 'Swingin' Syphilis II', the longest of the three pieces, there is also a voice cut-up from some instruction record about animals and plants, but the precise character of the instructions is a bit lost. I thought I was well into the music, and it was all over. Boohoo! This is growth cut short to stay within the idea of the record. It should have blossomed in a few more pieces. Excellent stuff, that's sure. (FdW)
