In April 2020 I dumped a collection of records into the garden of my shared home in Virginia––some buried in planters, left on the roof, hung out on the wash line, tucked away in shrubbery, covered in fallen leaves––for anywhere from a couple months to over a year. I began to take them from the garden, warped and dirty, to prune with knives, tape, and glue. Back on the record player I played them as they play themselves, the passage of time, the change of seasons. The rich noise of a shitty needle hitting Piedmont soil blanketed recordings of friends and fathers in a flowerpot out back. On a spectrum of intervention, tracks formed through digital and analog collage alongside a loosening attachment to purity of idea.
Music about its media, its materiality. Songs about instability, insecurity, and yearning for something that only postures as definite.
Composed between spring 2020 and spring 2023 in Charlottesville, Philadelphia, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Dortmund. Features by Jordan Perry and Kyle Hutchins. Mastered by Matias Vilaplana in Charlottesville, VA. 40 minutes.
Tape and digital available from Semibegun Tapes.
SIDE A
Kill Slay Always
The first track.
Kill Slay Bodies
Co-written and performed by Kyle Hutchins. Composed with a knife and lathe cut 7” containing an improvisation for baritone saxophone.
Kill Slay Better
Featuring a reoriented Webern Op. 11 and Serato control vinyl.Kill Slay Papa
A Ligeti Frankenstein with subtle trumpet additions by Grace Holleran.Kill Slay Witness
Co-written and performed by Jordan Perry. Composed with a knife and the album Witness Tree.
Kill Slay Mother
For four viols, performed by Science Ficta. Read more about the track here.
SIDE B
Kill Slay Needing
Charpentier and a loop salad.
Kill Slay Country
Chipmunks version of a country classic featuring Jordan Perry on fiddle.
Kill Slay Neither
Fiddling record performed on the turntable.
Kill Slay Nothing
Knife, records, voice, looper. “White pick-up in the snow.”
Kill Slay Never
A soup of media and mediation. For Carlos Castellanos. “Maybe we can go tomorrow, in a slurry of wool…”
Kill Slay Naked
The last track.
