RODMAN-MELCHIOR – ‘Melchior Rodman’ C70
Fabrica is honored to present this split cassette release pairing Letha Rodman-Melchior and Dan Melchior-Rodman, probably the most musically prolific and loving couple since Johnny and June. Letha’s side includes nearly 35 minutes of new music that builds on the work from her previous releases under her own name and the Tretatam moniker creating dream-like collages of sound made up of room ambience, films and songs playing in the distance, field recordings, and her own instrumentation. Dan Melchior’s side is an attempt to encapsulate a dream, or a journey, or any human experience that involves repetition and periods of incoherence (all of them?) Contains recordings of an ‘infamous’ outsider musician manipulated to the point where it ceases to matter who he is. Also contains a recording of Tom Lax saying ‘Yeah’. Play loud for maximum impact or don’t play at all. All sales from the 100 copies of this pro-dubbed cassette will be donated to the Letha Rodman-Melchior cancer fund.
DANE PATTERSON – ‘Ghosting’ C27
Fabrica presents new sounds by visual artist and musician Dane Patterson (of Plant Migration Records fame). Ghosting consists of two compositions with a focus on electro acoustic improvisation and sequenced sample arrangements. Off-kilter home-made lo-fi synths are augmented by sections of yard-sale drum machine and improvised percussion. Composed sample arrangements are paired against chance tape loops and over driven synth drone. These compositions are both demarcated by intervals of developing pattern and sharp and abrupt formal changes. Edition of 50 on pro-dubbed cassettes.
UNICORN – ‘Playing With Light’ LP
Issued a decade ago as a CD on Housepig, Unicorn’s beautiful and sinister album “Playing With Light” is re-introduced to listeners as a rearranged and remastered LP. Unicorn is WT Nelson, known previously as party to 90s avant-hardcore outfit Man is the Bastard and its spawn, the prolific Bastard Noise. “Playing With Light” features three tracks originally prepared to accompany short films by Stephanie Miller, and, interspersed with standalone compositions, works cohesively to limn a world where the alien oscilloscapes of Bastard Noise merge with earthy synths and electric mandocello. The album opens with a transfixing music box motif that wouldn’t be out of place ushering in the opening credits of a vintage thriller. In “Spots,” the 10-minute centerpiece track, a mostly unaccompanied synth melody uses syncopation to create the impression of stumbling through darkness. “Clay & Fire” threatens to burst into full-bore power electronics territory but doesn’t; the narration we hear is not a transgressive confession but instead a factory worker’s discovery of pottery as a respite from his labor. From there the record offers an electronic crescendo before resolving in the almost-comforting “Far Away; Close To You,” which trails off in Morse code blips clearly transmitted but only possibly received. “Playing With Light” is unique in Nelson’s discography and is entirely deserving of this vinyl reincarnation. “Rhodes, Electric Mandocello, Various Trogotronic Electronic / Electro Acoustics Prototypes & Field Recordings.”
Mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk and presented in an edition of 250 copies with download code.
LUCIERNAGA – ‘Collected Works 2008-2013’ CD
Luciernaga is the experimental ambient/noise project of Fabrica Records founder and co-owner Joao Da Silva. Luciernaga’s music has been described as more surreal than ethereal, dark and foreboding yet hopeful. Luciernaga tends to bypass melody in favor of complex layers of sounds and textures created through processed field recordings, treated acoustic/electric guitar, buddha machine, tibetan signing bowl, shruti box, mbira and voice.Fabrica Records was born in 2010 in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, NY with the release of “Life Passes Away Like Idle Chatter” by Luciernaga. A limited edition of 100 home-dubbed 44 minute long cassettes, with hand-painted covers (including an excerpt from an Octavio Paz poem on the flap) and labels, containing a collection of field recordings, tape loops, treated acoustic and electric guitar, synth drones, and sampled dialogues from a documentary on the history of U.S. interventions in Latin America recorded over a 2-year period. “Collected Works” includes compositions selected from the first four and now out-of-print Luciernaga cassettes plus unreleased material. The photographs used to decorate the insert and tray card of the CD were taken around the Gowanus neighborhood the day after Superstorm Sandy and serve as a tribute to the section of Brooklyn where both Fabrica and Luciernaga were born. CD Edition of 100, mastered by Eric Hardiman (Rambutan/Tape Drift).