CHARLATAN

VAPOR TIDES

Releases: 6/28/24

ABOUT

I became a fan of Brad E. Rose in the early 2000s, the record labels, his immense body of journalism, and his music. As Debacle grew, I became an acquaintance from afar. Years later, a tossed-off idea threw us together into a silly two-year project where we became fast friends. We found out many of our strengths and foibles overlapped uncannily. We understood each other. Throughout I continued to be a fan of his output. One day, I and all his supporters on Patreon, received a few new Charlatan tracks in their inbox. A preview of something he was working on and a common occurrence. Immediately upon listening, I could feel something was different about this one. At this point, I had years of listening to Brad as a musician behind me. He had been speaking about “letting go” of some preconceived notions of workflow and instrument selection, but this was much more than just a shift in timbre. In Vapor Tides there was a freer approach to melody and soundscape than I had known from Brad. Also thematically It wore its heart on its sleeve. (Brad has never kept secret his love for the Breath of the Wild score, but also never channeled it as well as on “In the Reeds”.) As I kept returning to the album I eventually asked Brad if I could release it on Debacle. Now, Brad doesn’t need my help releasing music into the world. He has The Jewel Garden. He knows how to do this. The offer was a gesture to say to him and everyone else “I think this is important” So, everyone, I would like you to listen to Vapor Tides a keystone work from Brad E. Rose AKA Charlatan.

Sam Melancon

BRAD ROSE ON VAPOR TIDES

There’s usually a moment in the latter stages of a project where it begins to make sense to me. With Vapor Tides, that got flipped. I was buried under a mountain of contract work, and sort of flailing with a couple of different projects. We had spent a couple weeks in Seattle a few months prior, and it had been the most relaxing vacation of my adult life. I couldn’t stop dreaming about it. On that trip, we took our daughter to the ocean for the first time. It’s become such a core memory that it’s spawned multiple projects, but in an attempt to pull myself out of whatever funk was clouding my mind, I started composing music that took me back to those two weeks. Ocean sounds. The beach. Sea birds. I also used a lot of instrument samples that have rarely (maybe never) found their way into my work. In many ways, Vapor Tides became a turning point. Doing my best to let go of preconceived notions I have about my various projects and my work, in general, opened up a wider landscape. This album sounds like none that have come before and has left its mark on many projects that I’ve worked on since (The Starless Oracle, a lot of my eco-focused installation and exhibition work, etc). Vapor Tides didn’t end up being so much an escape as it did a launch pad

Credits

All music was written and recorded by Brad E. Rose at The Jewel Garden, in late summer and early fall 2022.

POST MOVES

GROUND ECHO DUST

Releases: May 24th, 2024

ABOUT

I was turned on to Sam Wenc’s music only recently. Brad Rose of Foxy Digitalis had been impressed by some recent works and Sam’s hustle with his label Lobby Art. Brad was correct that I was very much into what Sam was cooking up under this guise of Post Moves. To be reductive it felt like a deeply American counterpoint to the works of the Necks, various VHF bands, or the run that Oren Ambarchi has been on. Said another way, exactly where Debacle wants to be. When Sam reached out to me about this new one I was instantly on board. It was even more than I could have hoped for.

A spinning whirling trip informed by Cosmic Jazz, Modern Composition, and broken Americana. Sometimes the pieces are freed from gravity allowed to float and figure and others nailed down by a psychedelic propulsion aimed firmly at the vanishing point.

I couldn’t be more excited to release this into the world.

-Sam (Melancon)

Credits

Harbor Ripple Blue

Julian Morris - Vocals

Ben Varian - Drums

Dark Air Quiet

Rye Warner - Vocals

Ben Varian - Drums

Mixed by Sam Wenc

Mastered by Andrew Weathers

NICK SCHILLACE

A RICH BOY’S MEASURED BLUES

Release: April 19th, 2024

ABOUT

Nick Schillace’s third album of acoustic solo guitar is a phenomenal record of all original works, recorded live without overdubs. On tracks like “Soft as a Flame” and “Exponential Love,” strands of melody unravel themselves and wrap around competing strains like proteins in an RNA chain—all in an effort to give nothing so much as pure joy to the listener. Other tracks on A Rich Boy’s Measured Blues are more lilting and simple, to great effect. “Gold Dusted” or “My Side of the Mountain” might be stuck inside your brain for days, but you won’t mind. Schillace gets a little weird and deep in a raga style, too, notably on the eight-minute “Blood Meridian.” This is not a manifesto, because 50-year-olds don’t need to write manifestos. But it is such a powerfully woven-together record that it has all the power of one.

Already a successful educator (with his own music school, Orion Music Studio, and the Detroit Folk Workshop), Schillace is a master of styles, tones, and approaches to playing the guitar, banjo—and, yes, his own guitar-banjo hybrid. He first studied fingerpicking techniques at the 1984 Augusta Heritage Workshop in West Virginia with artists like John Jackson and John Cephas. He also is a member of Lac La Belle and the Post Imperial Jazz Band. An expert on how vernacular forms intersect with each other and the music of John Fahey, a copy of his 2002 graduate thesis on Fahey is available as a free PDF on his website. Schillace has toured the US and Europe extensively but remains best known in Detroit. We expect that to change with this record.

Credits

All Songs Nick Schillace/Double Lot Music

Recorded by Nick Schillace at Double Lot
Mixed by Eric Carbonara at Nada Sound Studio
Mastered by Chuck Johnson at Cirrus Oxide Studio

Artwork "Blue #1" 1978 by Isabel Schillace

Special thanks to Jennie Knaggs

Derek Monypeny

The Oppositional Imagination

Release: 3/22/2024

Derek Monypeny's The Oppositional Imagination is a record that plays out like the horizontal slices of a very alien body put through an MRI machine. Disparate approaches to sound and stringed instruments stacked together in a neat package that seems to work as a whole, but you are not sure how. On any one track, you may be confronted with Bishiop-ian guitar smirks, whispered reversed scratches, a desert rock intro that suddenly freezes into an unmoving drone, or a sun-drenched guitar played so delicately if any lighter it would float away. 

Derek Monypeny on the album: 

"When I was first coming into musical consciousness, the records that had the strongest impact on me were the ones that felt like each track was its own self-contained universe. It was exhilarating to put these records on the first few times, hear the first track, and have NO idea or preparation for what might come next.  I'm not talking about "eclectic" genre-hopping. Human beings are multi-faceted, complicated, beautiful, sometimes ugly - so records made by human beings should be all those things too. 

With "The Oppositional Imagination," I tried to make a record like this. The only thing these tracks have in common, besides instrumentation, is that I made them. And on this record, I'm making them all sit together, like kids squirming through their class picture. "

-Derek Monypeny, Yucca Valley, CA, January 2024   

credits

Derek Monypeny - Electric Guitar, Electric Oud (Track 3)

Recorded, Edited, and Mixed by Derek Monypeny
at Studio Pendejo. Yucca Valley, CA, in early 2022

Mastered by Mark Gergis

Artwork by John Hubbard
Derek Monypeny BMI

Ecstatic Music Band

Neon Love Devotionals

Release: 2/16/2024

The Ecstatic Music Band is a trance-psych collective from the US West Coast. For the last thirteen years, the group has been performing and recording long-durational, high-volume, maximalist dronewerks on amplified acoustic and electric stringed instruments, employing tuning systems derived from the overtone series.

A rotating posse of musicians has been the customary model since EMB's formation, with this newest recording finding the group in quartet configuration. Mainstay John Krausbauer along with his partner and frequent collaborator, Kaori Suzuki, are joined by close associate and polymath Jamie Green, as well as LAFMS’ purveyor of trance-weirdness, Joseph Hammer. 

“Neon Love Devotionals” is the group’s third recording (and first for Debacle Records), following their 2017 release, “Approaching the Infinite” (Fabrica) and 2020 release, “Transmissions of the Sacred and Profane” (Beacon Sound). The music’s dense and dynamic fields of harmonic interference and reinforcement make for an immersive sound-field of complex emergent phenomena amid a flux of microtonal shading, beating tones, difference tones, and varied psychoacoustica. 

Sonic veramusement of the radiating OM

credits

John Krausbauer - Violin
Jamie Green - Violin
Kaori Suzuki - Cello
Joseph Hammer - Guitar

Recorded 2021, Los Angeles

Art by Sarah La Puerta

FIBRIL

The Rot

Release: 8/4/2023

THE ROT is the follow-up release from Mari Maurice’s (More Eaze) FIBRIL project after a debut on Already Dead and reissued by Debacle Records earlier this year. Now a full band project the rot trades in the same love of 90s alt-rock, nu-metal and bedroom pop as the debut but leans heavily towards digital decay and the textures of blackened noise and industrial.

The self-titled fibril, which was a solo effort, focused on the feelings of burnout Mari was experiencing at the time. After a positive reception to the project, she attempted to form a band around those ideas. The initial line-up formed and they were set to start playing live shows and working on the follow-up, but as with many things the pandemic had other plans and Mari was forced to shelve the record for years.

Eventually, Mari reconnected with Matthew Seidel who helped to flesh out the new songs by co-arranging and mixing the record. Alton Jenkins provided drums on the record and Matt Hudson has since joined the band as well. Over two years later, the plan to expand to a full band and play live shows is back on.

Decay and rot is a well-trod path in metal and industrial but is most commonly seen as a force of nature and bacteria. Fibril presents a rot that is very familiar to those of us who came of age on the millennial internet. Living in post-pandemic America rotting under private equity, extreme weather, and food deserts. Our memories are stuck on flaking CD-Rs, 240p video files, and abandoned phpbb’s. The sounds and feelings underlying these songs are purposefully out of reach and not coming back. This isn't just lost youth, this is rotted memory.

The Rot is also an achingly beautiful record and an exhilarating rock record that re-contextualizes nu-metal and femme emo-ambient under the same roof and reclaims the power of the rushing down-tuned riff as an emotional lever. 

credits

fibril is alton jenkins, mari maurice, and matthew seidel.
mastered by andrew weathers
mixed by matthew seidel
written by mari maurice
art by pame santiago

Garek Druss

OHR EYN SOF - Youth Eternal

Release: 6/23/2023

Debacle Records proudly presents "OHR EYN SOF - Youth Eternal" the latest from multi-media artist Garek Druss. Created during a fateful period of his life, the album is a testament to the power of little joys.

While the album was written during Garek Druss's cancer treatment, it is essential to emphasize that this is not a holistic record of his time with cancer. Instead, it focuses on the creative journey that emerged as a response to the treatment itself. "Youth Eternal" serves as a personal endeavor to counteract the difficulties of treatment and cultivate a sense of warmth and happiness in his time at home reeling from the effects of the neurotoxic alkylating agents. Sounds to make himself happy as he puts it. Though I do believe there is an element of cathartic processing this time as many of the tracks have sounds from the treatment facilities woven throughout.

While his previous album on Debacle Records "Soft Fascination" showed a new side to his work, a gradual softening and expanding of his sound, this album takes that and blooms and uplifts. It sits in the daylight, moving listeners into a world humming and buzzing with both gloom and novelty.

What I love about the album is for its heavy context the resulting tracks have seemingly low stakes, these are little tiny polished stones at the bottom of a river, machines made from found objects that spin and impress but have no other purpose. Garek is working with new instruments, new sounds, and lower concepts here, and as such he made his most confident record. 

credits

Written and Recorded by Garek Druss, 2021 - 2022
Mastered by Sean McCann

Cover Image, Sculpture by Anna Telcs

Aquarelle

Verdant Machine

Release: 5/26/2023

Verdant Machine is Ryan Potts' latest album as Aquarelle since 2017's Leave Corners, and it showcases his interest in using a narrow set of tools to create a wider soundscape than in the past. With a focus on fewer tools but longer duration, Potts has created two side-long pieces that utilize the full length of the vinyl format to play with perception and expectation.

The album marks a departure from Potts' previous work, as he stripped back his approach and did away with his standby instrument, the guitar. "For the first time in many years I mostly just played with the machines and electronics in my basement with no real thought of what the material would become"

The pieces, having more room to breathe, sound like quintessential Aquarelle layers of layers but present as both lighter and much heavier or at least more dynamic than ever before. The edges are being explored. "The whole album is quite layered because I can't help myself, but it's really just sine waves, simple string loops, and feedback (from many different sources -- electronics, tube amps, mixers, digital generators, baby monitors)."

Unquestionably this is the most minimal and outright "noisy" album in the Aquarelle discography. It is also the most assured and methodical. A slow deep breath through a thousand wires.

credits

Recorded, Arranged and Mixed by Ryan Potts
Mastered by Andrew Weathers
Photography by Ka_Nai
Layout by Bob Tiede

Fibril

Fibril

Release: 4/28/2023

Originally recorded during a period of deep depression in 2018-2019, when Mari Maurice was feeling burnt out on her life and work. Seeking solace in loud heavy guitar music, Mari found this influence spilling into her writing, she knew it was intrinsically different from her other work and required its own designated name and outlet. fibril's self-titled debut was released by Already Dead on cassette in August of 2019 and is presented remastered with new art on heavyweight vinyl and digital by Debacle Records.

Shortly after recording Fibril began playing shows in 2019, and quickly developed into a duo collaboration between Mari and Matthew K. Seidel. Eventually, the project grew into a full band lineup that began gaining traction right before everything shut down in 2020. Despite these setbacks, the project has come back to life with this reissue and a follow-up with an expanded line-up on Debacle out in June.

fibril to my ears fully embraces a love for things like Deftones, Hum, and Jesus & Mary Chain, but also bedroom 90's psych-pop, blackened metal, and the telltale Mari Maurice emotional layering that always accompanies her work. It is neither a straight-faced reconstruction of those alt-rock sounds nor a smarmy takedown held at arm's length. Instead, an inspired new sound that takes from those influences and makes something deeply moving and heavy.

"Listening to this material nearly 4-5 years after its initial conception is a surreal experience," Mari says. "ultimately, I think fibril for me constantly serves as an attempt to overwhelm through sustained tension, release, and (as silly as it sounds) rock." 

credits

All songs written and recorded
by Mari Maurice

Mastered by Andrew Weathers
Photos by R. Lee Dockery

Originally released on tape by ALREADY DEAD RECORDS

David VAN AUKEN

American Harmony

CD Release: 3/24/2023

David Van Auken's take on American country blues and finger-style guitar caught my attention immediately because of his varied and non-traditional accompaniments. His compositions grasp old traditions, conjuring the familiar while exploring new landscapes in synthetic textures that sit gingerly in the mix; never overpowering the simple guitar lines while adding worlds of depth and harmonic gravity.

Once we spoke about the record it became apparent this was the magic of his creative process. After studying early American guitar forms for over a decade, David wanted to approach his first collection of original material in a way that paid homage to the guitarists he'd loved and emulated, but from a perspective that also felt fresh and distinguished him from those he’s looked up to.

David: “At some point in early 2021 I realized I had about 17 original guitar pieces, and it occurred to me that maybe I should record an album. Most of the songs, while somewhat technical in playing style, are pretty simple structurally, so I thought it'd be fun to go into the studio and see what additional instrumentals I could come up with as a means of broadening them. I've always been a big fan of electronic/experimental music that leans towards the ambient realm and I thought it'd be cool to see if I could approach some of the sounds I'd heard in those styles to see how it'd blend with my guitar playing.

The engineer I worked with Benjamin Cleek focuses a lot on film scoring, so I thought he'd be a great fit for helping me to realize my vision.

I'd reference sounds I heard in music I'd love from Boards of Canada etc. etc. to all sorts of experimental music. And he always came up with a sound/synth/or original sample we'd create for me to explore on the keyboard in harmonizing with my guitar. In many ways, it was like the freedom I was allowed in exploring sounds on the piano as a kid.

All the acoustic guitar tracks on the album were recorded in just 4 quick sessions, and the additional instrumentals were created over the course of a year or so, visiting Ben's studio once a week. Man, it was a blast, yet a lot of hard and sometimes painstaking work too...luckily I kinda only remember the fun of it all.”

It's rare for a debut to have this incubation period and not come out overwrought and fussy. Luckily, David and his collaborators have such an ear for light-touch embellishments that the record always keeps it bright and focused.

CREDITS

Written and Produced by David Van Auken

Recorded and Mixed by Benjamin Cleek

Mastered by J.J. Golden

Guitar, Synths, Melodica, Squeezebox - David Van Auken

Cello - Benjamin Cleek

Sitar - J.J. Gregg

Photography by Robert Delahanty

Design by Estudio Oscuro

Brendan Glasson

"The Reality of People" and Other Works for Reed Organ

CD Release: 2/17/2023

Brendan is a musician from Providence, Rhode Island who currently resides in Oakland, California working as the Technical Director at Mills College, which continues to be a stalwart source of artists in the experimental and underground music scene. Previously he studied at Mills with renowned musicians Maggi Payne, John Bischoff, and William Winant.

Brendan's new album is a collection of pieces built around the reed organ, an instrument that was once ubiquitous in the United States around the turn of the 20th century. Brendan has a deep passion for reed organs and has acquired two of them, both of which he found on Craigslist. One is a Carl Fischer "Pipe Tone" folding reed organ made in 1904, and the other, which this album was recorded on, is an Estey "Model O" chapel organ made in 1912. He is also a member of the Reed Organ Society, a community of enthusiasts who love these historical instruments. He has a deep understanding of the mechanics and history of the reed organ and often does his own repairs, maintenance, and tuning. Brendan likens the organ to a synthesizer, with tone generators in the form of brass reeds and the "swell" that acts as a low-pass filter cutting off high frequencies as a gasket or door opens and closes.

The pieces were built around the moments he found when playing the reed organ at home, where certain combinations of pitches would activate the instrument, and sometimes a prominent overtone would resonate, or a loose screw would start rattling, or the whole instrument would start vibrating sympathetically.

Conceptually, Brendan has drawn inspiration from Oliver Sacks' idea that one's sense of reality is constructed by "the reality of people" and Helen Keller's essays on sense perception. He aimed to make music that activates that kind of augmented deep sensory experience.

CREDITS

Recorded on a 1912 Estey "Style (O) 94" Reed Organ

Mixed at The Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College

Mastered by Xopher Davidson

Oakland, California

Danny Paul Grody

Other States (reissue)

LP Release: 11/4/2022

Previously released as a part of Geographic North’s wonderful “Sketch For Winter” series, Other States the LP edition stands alone with new cover art featuring art from Billy Joe Miller and a remaster by Chuck Johnson. 

Other States is a unique chapter in Danny’s discography, featuring some of the most direct drones absent his signature crisp guitar styles (Cloudhand), as well as leaning into site specific field recordings. At Debacle HQ we have become familar to the sounds of the album wafting around the house around 7-8PM as it became my son’s favorite album to self-calm and fall asleep to. Countless hours of hearing it waft down the halls. The power of the album is such that we never tired of hearing it ringing out and announcing the switch to a quiet evening house. 

The remastered reissue comes in white vinyl LP edition and a new digital remaster ONLY available directly from Debacle. Vinyl will be distributed via The Business and features a download code of the remaster.

Danny Paul Grody has released albums on such labels as Root Strata, Students of Decay, and Three Lobed. He was a founding member of Tarentel and The Drift. 

Press from the original release:

“Grody’s most potent effort yet, perfectly cataloguing the splendour of that wild Western terrain. 

Spools Out - The Quietus

“Other States is an "experimental" album, broadly speaking, but it requires no great work on the listener's behalf to enjoy. Its bounty lies in its immediate and accessible beauty.”

Chris Zaldua, SF Weekly

Danny Paul Grody on Other States

“This music was born from a spirit of collaboration. I may not have known it at the time, but a shift was redirecting my energy outward in search of new places and spaces to inhabit. Looking back now it all makes sense. I had been working solo for a while and longed for something outside myself for a change in perspective and to feel inspired by. 

The first sign of this shift was seeded back in 2013 when I was invited by longtime friend, Tarentel collaborator, and filmmaker, Paul Clipson, to join a program featuring his super 8mm film 'Other States' at Artist Television Access (ATA) in San Francisco, CA. This marked a rare opportunity to work as a duo outside the realm of Tarentel and it came exactly at the right moment. The title track is a slightly reworked version of what accompanied his film and would become a catalyst for the album to build from. Paul has since departed, but his generosity of spirit and boundless creativity continues to ripple and guide folks like myself lucky enough to have known him. This album stands as a testament to his impact and friendship.

Another thread connecting this music stems from my time working alongside visual artist James Sterling Pitt during an artist residency at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA in the summer of 2014. We shared a mutual interest in the idea of place (real and imagined) and started going on weekly outings taking advantage of many beautiful natural surroundings accessible to us in the San Francisco/Bay Area. Places like Mineral Springs in Tilden Park and Battery Townsley in the Marin Headlands became sights for source material that would later get reworked, built upon, and folded back on itself, culminating in a public exhibit and one-off performance timed with the summer solstice. Sharing that creative time together left a strong impression on the direction the album would take. Echoes of this can be heard on pieces like "Mineral Springs", which include field recordings captured in Tilden Park and "Cloudhand", where I layered and processed close-mic’d recordings of James drawing with pencil on paper.

When I was first approached by Geographic North to participate in their "Sketch for Winter" cassette series, it was not yet clear how these seemingly isolated moments would eventually be connected. Once I began sketching out ideas to create something resembling an album, the material took on a life of its own and started to make sense of itself. 

I'm grateful to both Paul and James for allowing me to join them and for expanding the creative possibilities that led me here. A big thanks also to Bobby Powers and Farbod Kokabi of Geographic North for providing an impetus to share this music in the first place, to Chuck Johnson for lending a careful and objective ear in the re-master, and to Samuel Melancon for giving the album a second life and new home on LP.  

CREDITS

All songs written, recorded and, mixed, at home by Danny Paul Grody between 2014 and '15

Except "Only" which was recorded by Trevor Montgomery many moons ago

Remastered for reissue by Chuck Johnson

Photos & Illustrations by Billy Joe Miller

Layout by Samuel Melancon

Originally released as Sketch for Winter VI: Other States on Geographic North #34 - Thanks to Farzad Moghaddam, Farbod Kokabi, and Bobby Power

Adam H.

Floods

LP Release: 10/7/2022

Adam H. returns to Debacle for a full-length ensemble record about the devastating impact of twin floods on the town of Louisville, KY-- one coming from a rageful Ohio River, and the other from the Sackler family's profit-driven opioid crisis. Recorded in nearly a single take and completed remotely between France and Queens during the first wave of COVID-19, an incredible group of folks gathered together to execute this record. The ensemble features Kid Millions (Oneida), Jim Sauter (Borbetomagus), Tim Dahl (Child Abuse, Lydia Lunch Retrovirus), Sarah Bernstein (duo w/Kid Millions, Veer Quartet), and Mark McAdam (an accomplished songwriter and composer). The album was recorded and mixed by Colin Marsten and mastered by Bob Bellerue.

Adam on Floods:

“The album itself is divided into two long pieces. The first, “The Flood of 1997”, is a snapshot of a city in crisis. In 1997, two major disasters occurred in Louisville, KY: the largest flood in sixty years and the arrival of OxyContin. Both would devastate the city, with the latter taking lives and ruining families up to the present day. Based on an acoustic loop of a gothic Southern waltz, it moves from ominous psych to a complete free meltdown to a weary drifting melody. The piece ends with a series of portraits of the many people I knew who were swept up in opiates and stands as a tribute to them as well as a condemnation of the sociocultural structures that led them to such tragic ends.

While “The Flood of 1997” immerses itself in the ruin of a specific time and place, “The Flood of 2064” emerges as a more universal space of ominous contemplation about our collective (un)future. As recent events in Kentucky have shown, these catastrophes will keep coming; and by the year 2064, who knows what will be left to flood.”

Credits

Adam H: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Synthesizers, Creative Direction

Kid Millions: Drums

Jim Sauter: Saxophone

Tim Dahl: Guitar, Double Bass

Sarah Berestein: Violin

Mark McAdam: Synthesizer

Music Composed Collaboratively

Lyrics by Hocker

Recorded and mixed by Colin Marston at Menegroth The Thousand Caves Recording Studios

Mastered by Bob Bellerue

Artwork by James J. Williams III

Garek Druss

Soft Fascination

LP Release: 9/2/2022

Garek Druss, the prolific visual artist and serial collaborator, returns to Debacle once again under his name. Originally conceived as a meditation on parenthood around the birth of his child, SOFT FASCINATION shows the crystalline synth sound he has developed over years stripped of the cloak of overdrive and laid bare. Whereas in the past a Garek album might evoke metallic sound art or a blackened noise missive, this bobs and floats on the ether nearly staining your ceilings, wafting into your windows, and spreading out into open spaces, just out of reach.

Features John Kolodij of High Aura’d guest appearances and the accomplished L.A. experimental opera singer Micaela Tobin (White Boy Scream). The album was mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering.

Credits

Written and Recorded by Garek J Druss (BMI)

Additional mixing by Josh Berg.

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering, Bonn Germany.

Guitar on The Narrow Spaces by John Kolodij

Vocals on Duty as Devotion by Micaela Tobin

Limited edition art prints are included with the first 10 orders of the album or from Garek directly.

Adam H

Elements

CD Release:11/26/2021

Adam H. turns in a dueling view of the climate terror we humans are facing. Elements is a two track focus. Taking an almost Carpenter-ian approach to the horrors of mass wildfires, specifically the Paradise blaze, and a more muted existential view of the power of the oceans currents and the impact if they suddenly change course in our lifetime. Adam Hocker and his collaborators create a soundtrack to our new normal. While the fear of failure and insurmountable odds is present here, there is a twinge of motivation hiding behind the rolling waves of strings effects and piano.

Recorded at Menegroth / The Thousand Caves in Queens by Krallice's Colin Marston, Elements is the first of two release coming soon from Adam H. and Debacle Records.

Adam on Elements:

"These pieces are humbly intended to serve as spaces for meditation on two instances of environmental catastrophe. Like climate change itself, they are slow-moving, vast, open, borderless, and capable of sizable destructive power. As representation can sometimes provide the illusory consolation of control, they are meant to both comfort and motivate the listener."

Credits

Adam H. - Vocals, Piano, Loops, Creative Direction
Tim Dahl - Bass Guitar, Effects
Bob Bellerue - Electronics, Effects
Mark McAdam - Loops
Marion Duvert - Vocals, Firestarter

Music composed collaboratively. Lyrics by Hocker.

All rights reserved

Recorded, Mixed and Mastered
Colin Marston - Menegroth / The Thousand Caves in Queens, NY

Additional recording by Mark McAdam

Ocean Storm Photo by Matt Hardy
Burning Forrest Photo by Matt Howard


Thanks to Alec, Burton, and the Hocker family

Special thanks to Marion and Lou

R.Keenan Lawler & John KRausbauer

Spinnan

CD Release: 11/12/2021

John Krausbauer on Spinnan:

I had been following Keenan's music through the mid-late aughts, after becoming aware of his recordings around that time. Whether it was the "Music for the Bluegrass States" (Table of the Elements) album or the "Harmonic Series" (Important Records) compilation I came across first, I can't quite remember, but was struck by both the instrument (steel bodied resonator guitar) he mainly performs on and the extended techniques he employs to draw out rich, textured, alien-like, complex harmonies. The music was right up my alley and was one of the few voices in the American Underground I felt a close kinship towards. It wasn't until many years later that I would finally reach out to him to both express my interest in his work and suggest a tour around the U.S. Midwest - Keenan's birthplace and lifelong residence and my birthplace and place of upbringing.

The tour was scheduled for solo performances, which we did for the first three or so shows, but after an impromptu collaboration in Lexington, KY, we decided we were onto something with our 'just'-tuned, long durational, bowing music. They were techniques I had employed and used many times, specifically in my amplified strings ensemble - Ecstatic Music Band, but unique with the instrumentation of Keenan's steel bodied resonator (and my banjo) and without the saturated overdrive of the EMB, but instead a mellow amplified-only (no OD) sound of the acoustic instruments, which in turn draw out particular sonic detail in the bowing and resonation. Something that was more akin to the zones Keenan had explored, himself, with his collaborations as a satellite member of PELT, in the early-aughts.

Although we hadn't planned on any live collaboration, we had agreed to set some dates for recording in the middle of tour, while on break in Louisville, KY (Keenan's hometown). After running into numerous technical problems with the available recording equipment, we decided we would reconvene the following summer in Indianapolis, IN (my hometown) to record at my mother's house with my wife (Kaori Suzuki) engineering the session. After some time away from the initial music making I decided to switch from my violin to banjo, producing a sound more similar to that of the steel body resonator and bringing the two voicings of the music closer together. Two compositions came out of the session - "Spectre of Radiants" (ANTS, Italy) and "Spinnan" (Debacle, USA). The most significant difference to be found between the two recs is with the additional instrumentation of bells and oscillators I also play on "Spinnan". Otherwise, the main focus remains very determined and similar on the two recordings - long, slow, unfolding, harmonically dense three-dimensional sonics.

Credits

R. Keenan Lawler - National Steel Resonator Guitars
John Krausbauer - banjo, bells, oscillators

Recorded 2018 by Kaori Suzuki

Chord

Imperfect authentic cadence

LP Release: 6/4/2021

Chord, the longstanding powerambient collective of Kyle Benjamin (First Responder), Phil Dole (X-Bax, Grand Kali Ma), Jason Hoffman (Anatole, Interactive Network), Sean McCarthy (Underhand, Beaumont), and Trevor Shelley de Brauw (Pelican, RLYR), have returned for their fourth full length Imperfect Authentic Cadence. Their initial shared vision has remained remarkably consistent throughout their tenure: to arrange longform pieces that favor texture and dynamics over elements such as melody, exploiting and exploring the sonic depth of a single chord per composition. Whereas previous albums (Flora, 2009; Progression 2012; GMaj7 2013) were largely improvisational, the new record encompasses a much greater degree of composition and structure, even pulling off an unprecedented chord change (albeit approached *very* gradually). The result is a dense web of slowly unfurling ambience and mood, melancholic and droning, but also uplifting and cleansing at turns.

On the title Imperfect Authentic Cadence from the band:

This recording uses on of the most fundamental chord progressions in Western music. The three pieces on the album comprise a cadence, which is a sequence of chords that brings finality and resolution to a musical phrase, much like a sequence of words forms a concluding sentence that brings closure to a paragraph. The harmonic structure of these compositions demonstrates the intrinsic directionality -- the idea that certain notes in certain contexts have an innate sense of direction, a longing to move somewhere specific-- that lies within tonal music by taking advantage of the V-i progression, also known as the authentic cadence. The dominant chord of F-minor (the tonal center of this album) is technically C-minor, but a stronger resolution is achieved by raising the minor third to a major third, which then doubles as the leading tone of the tonic chord. Thus, the notes in the dominant chord are then either shared by the tonic or are a half-step away thereby guiding the listener inescapably back to the tonal center and completing the cadence. It should be noted, however, that because the final chord of this recording was voiced with the fifth on top and not the root, one of the conditions for a perfect authentic cadence was violated. Therefore, this cadence is imperfect.

Credits

Recorded by Greg Norman in the loving confines of Studio Greg Studios II, Chicago IL

Mastered by Phil Petrocelli

Artwork and Design by Billy Baumann for Delicious Design League

Arrangements composed and executed by Chord

Kyle Benjamin
Phil Dole
Jason Hoffman
Sean McCarthy
Trevor Shelley de Brauw

(c) 2019 Migratory Melodies (ASCAP) / Standard Deviation Music (ASCAP)

PRESS

“Chord’s practice of unpacking every last shift and interval in a single cadence feels borderline spiritual—especially in the way it transforms time, so that its most drawn-out processes seem to fly past”

The Chicago Reader

Andrew Weathers & Hayden Pedigo

BIg TEX, HERE WE COME

CD Release: 3/5/2021

Credits

Hayden Pedigo
acoustic and electric guitar, banjo, synthesizer

Andrew Weathers
acoustic guitar, banjo, synthesizer, electronics, piano, electric piano

Recorded at Hayden’s House,
Amarillo, TX and Wind Tide, Littlefield, TX

Mixed and Mastered by AW

Cover photo by Justin Rogersr

Press

“Two acoustic guitarists get their Windham Hill on, with some chill af synths throughout. Between this and Yasmin Williams' Urban Driftwood, I'm happy to see guitar music's earnest re-embrace of this once maligned mood setter. Easy listenin' ain't always easy to make. ”

Lars Gotrich - Vikings Choice

“The last tune on this excellent collection is called “Windham Hill Summer Bangers” — and believe me, that is exactly what our frozen world needs now. The debut full-length team-up between Andrew Weathers and Hayden Pedigo is a very sweet meeting of the minds, offering pastoral Popol Vuh vibes, gently intertwining guitars and banjos, drifty synths and more. A Lone Star State dreamscape! Unabashedly beautiful stuff that will melt the snow and send you into a springtime reverie.”

Doom and Gloom from the Tomb / Aquarium Drunkard

"There are some releases that pop up and you just know this is going to be an album that becomes a small piece of you for at least a little chunk of your time here. Big Tex, Here We Come is one of those no doubters from two artists who weave ambient guitar instrumentals masterfully....The album is an ode to places and ideals we hold sacred. Big Tex, Here We Come will become an album that people hold dear. It’s a vital expression of finding your own peaceful space in a maddening world."

Sound As Language

Ashley Bellouin & Ben Bracken

String Songs

LP & CD Release: 2/5/2021

Built around exploring a set of hand-built stringed instruments, this album has been more than 7 years in the making.

About the album in their own words:

"This album was constructed with the intention of exploring the musical possibilities of twin zither-like instruments which we hand-built. Each has thirty-five strings and are approximately five feet long. Twenty-four of the strings use a standard bridge, while the remaining eleven use a "javari" bridge similar to those found on Indian tanpuras. For each piece, we focused on a specific playing technique, which then informed the shape and contours of the rest of the composition. This led us to both natural and unexpected places; sometimes in opposition to, and sometimes in harmony with the highlighted playing technique. Many of the components of these pieces existed in some form or another, in countless iterations, explored during a particularly active period of live performance. What we now present to you is a distillation of that process, and, in some way, an ode to the instruments that have given us so much inspiration these past few years. As you listen to these compositions, we hope you can both imagine our journey with them, and completely forget that they exist at all." - A & B

Album notes by Sarah Davachi:
"I've been privileged to know Ashley Bellouin and Ben Bracken for over a decade now, both as close friends and as musical collaborators, especially during my time at Mills College with Ashley when we were practically inseparable. In August of 2012, Tashi Wada and I accompanied them on harmonium in their debut performance with the intricate hand-built stringed instruments you hear throughout String Songs, up in the Marin Headlands overlooking the Pacific ocean. That was one of numerous shared musical experiences – the first public performance I ever gave was in a duo piece for pipe organ and a microtonal glass armonica that Ashley hand-built while at Mills, which is featured heavily on her beautiful 2016 album, Ballads. What inspired me as a collaborator back then, and what continues to move me as a listener and admirer of their output as a duo now, is the incredible care and consideration that they bring to their work and the passion that they share for sound as an intimate and experiential practice. I'm keenly aware of this not just when I encounter an entire piece or performance of theirs, but also in every recorded detail and at every moment of the sound as it develops. What I hear in this music is a truly affective process of listening and suspension, and that is a lesson that I've learned from watching them work that has always stuck with me. I can't think of many other musicians who strike such a balance between intention, as in designing and building their own instruments so as to engender a specific harmonic perspective, and experimentation, which you hear in the three vastly different landscapes of String Songs. For me, the side-long "Strung Strings" in particular is an absolutely astounding moment, and takes me straight back to the almost inarticulable but deeply transformative headspace that I have always associated with their music. Though they vary in texture, there is a complementary and more delicate complexity in "Sung Strings" and "Strummed Strings", all of which are once again recorded and presented here with a precise consideration for the psychoacoustic environments they've aimed to create for the listener."

= Sarah Davachi =

Credits

Composed, Performed, Recorded, and Mixed by Ashley Bellouin and Ben Bracken

Mastered by Xopher Davidson

Layout Design by Michael Elrod
Cover Image: Kelly Ording, Daytona, 2019, acrylic on paper

Press

“String Songs is a beautiful, impeccably crafted album.”

Foxy Digitalis

“The lilting hum and straining steel of String Songs pierces my ears, fills my lungs, and soothes my senses. The duo explores an instrument of their own creation, with astonishing dimensions and qualities”

Cerebus

Failings

failings

LP Release: 8/7/2020

Failings is a project founded by Ian Hawk of West Coast tone shakers Tecumseh. On this, his first full LP, he is joined by Debacle alum Garek Jon Druss and the mighty Greg Fox (Zs, Liturgy, Guardian Alien). Failings is a four track whip around various disparate zones from blackened wilds to hopeful synth rave ups and pounding crunchy drums. If you think you know what is coming next, I doubt it.

The first 80 copies come with a flat packed laser cut sculpture. An ode to Brion Gysin's Dream Machine by Garek and Ian. Just pop it out of the sprue and self assemble.

Credits

Ian Hawk
Garek Jon Druss
Greg Fox

Recorded by Billy Anderson
Mastered by Phil Petrocelli

Dream Machine design by Ian Hawk & Garek Jon Druss

Press

Blaine Todd

Every Road is A Good Road

LP Release: 5/24/2019

Every Road is a Good Road Blaine Todd May 10, 2019 LP/Cassette/Digital DBL108 / FS066 Full Spectrum & Debacle are pleased to announce the return of close friend, Real Life Rock & Roll aesthete and longtime purveyor of the Infinite Future, Blaine Todd. Todd breaks his silence with the expansive Every Road Is A Good Road , his third proper solo release and first to be pressed to vinyl.

Taking its title from a personal mantra that Blaine has relied upon through the years to mark his high points and weather the lows, Every Road Is A Good Road was written in a manic burst of creative energy over the course of a single week. It took him some time to finalize these songs in the form you see presented here, however.

In order to mold this collection of raw sketches into a cohesive statement, Blaine needed to sit with them and contextualize what it was that he was actually doing. Having grown accustomed to performing in a number of bands throughout the Bay Area, he suddenly found himself operating truly alone following a brief decampment to NYC. The album became something of a salve for this dearth of creative outlets in an unfamiliar city, as he sought to burn off the sway of external influences and refine his own inimitable voice.

While parts of the record were recorded alone at home in both Manhattan and Alameda, California – or with friends and Full Spectrum compatriots in both Tivoli, NY and Littlefield, TX – Every Road Is A Good Road is perhaps defined by Blaine’s insistence on making this his first release largely produced in a ‘professional’ recording studio. Somehow, Todd managed to capture basic tracking for the entire album in just 24 hours. Afterwards, he felt fucked. Walking home from the subway at 8am the following morning, Blaine expected to experience some sense of accomplishment. Instead, he met the Brooklyn dawn in a fried and anxious state. You can feel this energy coming across in the loose, dragged vibe that carries through the album’s duration, drawing you deeper into Blaine’s dogged pursuit of raw self expression and ecstatic self discovery. In the end – Every Road Is A Good Road embodies a ragged, tired psalms for the exhausted cowboy that lives within each of us.

Press

Free Form Freakout Reviews

Elkhorn

Self-Titled

LP Release: Mid-November 2018

Elkhorns Self-Titled was originally released as a limited edition cassette on the wonderful Beyond Beyond is Beyond. Recorded after the The Black River (Debacle Records) but released as their debut artifact, the album serves as a midpoint between the songforms of The Black River and the wild explorations of the recent Lionfish tape on Eiderdown Records. We had our wizard in residence Phil Petrocelli remaster the whole thing for vinyl, reworked the stunning art and sprung for some heavy wax to present a definitive edition for the true heads. Out mid-November, preorders open now, this one could go fast. This is a limited edition pressing of only 100 copies once they are gone, they are gone.

Press

Jam Base - Review

Fast ‘n Bulbous - Review

The Modern Folk - Review

Terrascope - Review

Psi Lab - Review

High Aura'd

No River Long Enough Doesn't Contain a Bend

LP Release: October 13th, 2017
Digital Release: October 27th, 2017

No River Long Enough Doesn’t Contain a Bend, the newest album from John Kolodij’s High Aura’d project, is a document of place. In 2015 the artist moved to Ohio from his familiar coasts of Rhode Island. In attempt to grapple with the marked difference in geography Kolodij dove into discovering the old forest and rivers of Steelhead Alley. The resulting album is a deeply Autumnal work. Calm, warm, bittersweet and resolute in the face of the coming changes. High Aura’d records previously have touched on the darkness and light of the American wilderness, but never in such an “Americana” form as this. This is a document of a guitarist as cartographer. Digging deeper and deeper into what he is capable of shaping in your mind. This is poetry, if not in form, at least in feeling. The album features an small army of longtime collaborators: including John Twells (Xela), the renowned trumpeter Greg Kelley, Glenna Van Nostrand (Omnivore), Ken Linehan,and Angel Olsen. Mastered by Helge Stien at Audio Virus LAB. Packaging and design by Kevin Gan Yuen (Sutekh Hexen, Viraloptic) with a hidden-in-plain-sight short story by William Cody Watson.

Press

Aquarium Drunkard - Review

NPR - Song Preview

Brainwashed - Review

WOSU Radio - Interview

DECODER - Song Preview

SON OF MARKETING - Song Preview

TINY MIX TAPES - Announcement

Aquarelle

Leave Corners

Digital Release: September 29th, 2017
LP Release: October 20th, 2017

An album many years in the making, Leave Corners is the 4th full length LP from Ryan Potts’ Aquarelle project. The album finds Potts developing his sound largely without the use of his standby instrument of the guitar, instead focusing on his interest in other stringed instruments and their interactions with feedback and distortion. Because of this new focus on sine waves, strings and feedback, the album opens with “Open Absence pt. 1” which serves as an overture of sorts. A peek into the new focus for the project. Then, almost as a nod to his past, the album bursts forth with the most “classic” Aquarelle track of the album “Open Absence pt. 2”. With its layered guitar and half buried crackling and rattling percussion it is almost the apotheosis of the styles from his previous stunner Sung in Broken Symmetry. The rest of the album expands the palette mightily, diving into saturated walls of subtly oscillating tones (“Cut Stone”), cyclical chimes and cello phrases (“Brass Logic”), and the haunting smoky strings of the closer “The Horse Has Run”.

The album artwork for Leave Corners, created by Hannah Devereux, features fine, intricate lines that collide in subtle fashion which Ryan felt resonated heavily with his own vision of the album. 

Press

ALCOHOL SEED - Review

ATTN MAGAZINE - Review

FLUID RADIO - Review

DUSTED - Review

TINY MIX TAPES - Announcement

CAN YOU EAR IT - Track Review

Camedor

En Ut / Alba

Release: Feb 27th, 2017

February brings us a release from a newcomer by the name of Camedor, one José Orozco Mora from Mexico. I recently received this EP as a demo and instantly fell in love with it. We are offering a very limited-edition run on clear blue vinyl with a screenprinted clear sleeve. Only 100 copies will be on offer, so pick it up today. The EP includes two sun worshipping tracks of looping layered guitar, including an arrangement of Terry Riley’s “In C”!

Press

TINY MIX TAPES - FIRST QUARTER FAVORITES 2017

TINY MIX TAPES - REVIEW

TINY MIX TAPES - BLOG

Chambers

Sigma Flare II

Release: May 27th, 2016

Ex Yellow Swans member, Gabriel Saloman, teams up with Vancouver, BC mainstain, Michael Red, for the spontaneous, yet congruent collaborative project, Chambers. DBL100 acts as the second in a two part piece by the adventurous experimentalists, and is the final iteration of the Sigma Flare sessions. 

Sigma Flare II is a narration of Saloman and Red’s minds, a manifestation of a journey marked by texture-heavy melodic arrangement and dub-style rhythms. This session captures the lush, natural beauty of the artists' Pacific Northwest home while simultaneously sketching its ominous yet vibrant urban sprawls -- a work full of thoughtful and spacious production that leads the listener through gentle corridors and meditative plateaus. Never has a moment been more shepherded by seemingly endless organic improv and exploration, while appearing to end so seamlessly at the very place it began. 

Sigma Flare II is the final piece in Chambers' inaugural session, a statement, that will soundtrack your headspace and internalizations for an indeterminate period to come. 

Chambers

Sigma Flare I

Release: May 27th, 2016

Chambers, a collaboration between Gabriel Saloman and Michael Red, debuts their EP Sigma Flare 1 October 2nd on Debacle Records. With a sound loosely described by the pair as “experimental dub,” derived by their mutual interest in the spacious hiss and tectonic bass of German outlet Rhythm & Sound, Chambers met for dusk-to-dawn exploratory recording and listening sessions in their home studios in downtown Vancouver and nearby Sunshine Coast. This mix of raw urban grime and sea-meets-mountain grandeur intuitively wove its way into the duo’s sound -- equal parts late night wanderings through abandoned streets and cold ocean waves crashing against stone.
 

Xua

Mekong Moon

Release: May 27th, 2016

Mekong Moon is the debut LP from Xua, aka Joshua Lee Vineyard, of Portland, Oregon’s space funk outfit Swahili. The genesis of Mekong Moon came during a hiatus for Swahili, during which Vineyard traveled across Southeast Asia. Like some strange combination of Alan Lomax and Anthony Bourdain, the album is the first in a series of “aural slideshow” records combining his love of ‘70s synth techniques, sci-fi retrofutures, and the field recordings of his travels.

In Xua's own words: “As a child in the '80s, the talk of an emerging Asian economy, during the transition between analog and digital, taking over the world had stuck with me. What would a future world sound like if eastern culture emerged as the world's dominating power? What unheard radio transmissions would emerge?”   

The result is an album that references '70s synth albums -- not the Germanic powerhouses of Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, but instead the “fourth world” pop of Brian Eno, Jon Hassell, and Moebius & Plank stewing in the humidity of a Southeast Asian sunrise.

Press

Revolt of the Apes

Redefine