The story behind this ultra lo-fi and charming album is, itself, fascinating. Sent to us at Cyclic Defrost sometime in 2005 as an un-marked demo with a bizarre ‘hand-carved’ sleeve, it was handed over to Alex ollo for a sleeve review. Alex reviewed it, focussing on the sleeve in Cyclic Defrost 12 and hung on to the CD. Later when Sean Hocking from Metal Postcard was in town, Alex played him the CD, recommending it, but not knowing anything more about it. As Alex wrote in his initial review; “it can’ be long before he’ signed up. I just hope they don’ change much – just bring up some of the harmonics in the mix and master it”. Easier said than done when there is no contact details. Somehow Sean managed to track down Streaky Jake (Perth’s Sean Gorman) only to find the original recording had been lost – left in a car which had been sold to a new owner.
Anyway, here it is – widely available – and just as good as it was when it first arrived. Twelve tracks of under-produced acoustic guitar, minimal effects, the occasional patchy percussion and muted muffled vocals. It should be terrible and amateur but its not – instead it is an engrossing, lovely, naive, and one of the best headphone albums of recent times. If Cody Chestnutt hadn’t already coined it, it would be the headphone masterpiece.
Unfortunately it would have been impossible for Metal Postcard to reproduce the hard carved sleeve – so instead they have replicated its design on the inner sleeve, opting for a super plain ‘demo-like’ front cover.
