VA-The "Lullaby, Lullaby" Compilation CD: I Listen Close (Eighty North/This Heart Plays Records, Sept. 1999)

(Cover front, back, inside, insert, CD top, CD play-side)







VA-The "Lullaby, Lullaby" Compilation CD: I Listen Close
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


-Recorded by various artists at various times and places*

*The Microphones track was "Recorded to Mirah for her birthday, Sept. 1999"

-Release date: Unknown*

*I swear, so little info is out there about this CD. You'd never know it existed at all were it not for the "Song Islands" comp, or the fact that I am holding it in my hand. Based solely on my memory of when I first saw it and purchased it I would place it's release somewhere around 2001.

-Released by 80 North/This Heart Plays Records, no catalog number*

*According to the insert, which was a nice print on vellum, 80 North was in the process of changing its name to "This Heart Plays Records" at the time of this release, due to "some different people running it and others quiting". They list a web page here (www.geocities.com/thisheartplaysrecords) but, in searching for info I found it to be no longer in use. The insert also list a couple "upcoming" releases, one by The Badger King and one by Dave Longstreth, presumably pre-Dirty Projectors or at least at the very earliest of it's incarnations. I am assuming, based on the only other mentions of this label I can find (which are here http://usefulchamber.com/dirty-projectors-discography/) that this upcoming release was, in fact, the first DP release "The Graceful Fallen Mango" which was, at the time, considered to be a Dave Longstreth solo disc. And that's about all I can scrape up about this label or release timetable at this point in time.

-Here's an update to that web search, I stumbled across a new page for 80 North that seems to be more current- http://eightynorth.blogspot.com/

and the little I could find online:

http://www.answers.com/topic/lullaby-lullaby

There is a brief mention of the comp. on Dennis Driscoll's iTunes Music page:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/dennis-driscoll/id41379115

the google cache for this page shows some sort of info about the comp. but when you click on it, it's just some random guy's myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/bastardboymusic

However you will note in this picture what I'm talking about


-As far as I can tell this was only available on CD, no indication otherwise. Nor is there any indication how many were produced (I'd hazard to guess 500 or less) and there is no indication who designed to cover or packaging.*

And yes now that I'm updating this I've got a little back up on that. As you can see in the Google screencap above someone somewhere was claiming this thing had a print run of 500.

-IFPI number: 2F52

-It's worth noting that the track info is all mixed up when you put this CD into iTunes. For rhe most part the artist and track names were reversed.

-This song would appear in a slightly different form on the "Song Islands" CD

-There's a link to a zip of the entire comp. up in the downloads column.



................




And, ever onward with the "Song Islands" material. Here we have the "Lullaby, Lullaby" compilation CD from 80 North/This Heart Plays Records, circa 2000/1(?). This is another in a series of Microphones oddities I was fortunate enough to buy on a whim at the time that it came out. I remember, back in the day, at Newbury Comics, basically spending my entire paycheck on records as soon as I got it. I was the ideal employee in that way. But comps were always hard to pull the trigger on. The heartbreak of the completeist music fan, then as it is now. You know there's about a 90% chance that the songs by the couple artists you care about are not going to be anything great. But, there is the 10% of the time when you get a real lost gem (examples are escaping me at the moment) and that makes the gamble worth it. Still, it always comes down to that thing of spending ten to fifteen dollars for the sake of one song generally. Looking over the tracklist here, although it features a lot of good folks doing there steady best, it's hard for me to assume that I bought this for anything other than the Microphones track, which is strange since the time at which I would have got this was in my early, admittedly, trepid Microphones days (you know, like the time I had that copy of the "Blood" LP, limited to 300 copies, in my hand and said, eh, that's ok, I'll pass). But bought it I did, and thank God, because this seems to be one of the more impossible to find artifacts at this point in the Phil Elverum game.

To that end I am going to have to admit, once again, that I am not at all familiar with the rest of this comp, even though there are plenty of folks on it that I know to be plenty solid.

Anyway, here we have the original appearance of "I Listen Close", although, on the insert it is, in fact credited as "Listen Close", typo I guess. (Additional note on the insert, it is lovely and on vellum, which I am always a sucker for, and I have had a long history with this disc where I thought I had lost or misplaced the insert and thank God, for once, I have not. In coming to terms with my Phil thing it has become painfully clear that for me, in these cases, the artifact, the object is the thing. Usually I am only concerned about the music contained. But, for Phil, it is the whole actual recovered artifact, the entire anthropological piece.)

According to the liner notes for the "Song Islands" CD this song was recorded "to Mirah for her birthday, Sept. 1999" which makes it that much lovelier to me. And, speaking of "Song Islands", the version appearing on that CD is, though not credited, a different version than the one we get here. On "Song Islands" the track is 2:17 long and, around the :47 second mark, these pounding drums come in. The track continues on in this manner, ending in some ambient noise/wash and talking. As opposed to the version on this comp. which is only 1:28 long, features none of the pounding drums and simply comes to a close with some droning organ. I prefer this one. It's the one I came to know the song through I guess.
(--024)




Tracklist
----------------
I Am The World Trade Center-Istambul
A Boy Named Thor-Hello Hawaii
The Player Piano-Milwaukee Mile
Dear Nora-Round n' Round
The Love Letter Band-I Knew You Knew
Jen Turrell-Pink Edged Bright
Brett Stubbs-The Cliffs Are Red
Vehicle Flips-The Encouragable Optomis's Song Book
The Intima-Song For Drones
Mirah-Special Death
The Microphones-Listen Close
Dennis Driscoll-Saturday Morning
Audio Armada-Obertin
The Album Leaf-Inbetween Lines
Drawing Number One-After A While
The Plan B-After 5 Years
Park-Red Coat Charmer
Camden-Soliterror
Maya Shore-Restless Times
The Galactic Heroes-Dale
Wolf Colonel-Fashionably Left Behind
Denniss Driscoll-Lullaby, Lullaby













xo

The Microphones: The Moon/The Moon (Version) 7" (K Records, 2001)

(7" cover, front, back, vinyl inner label, front, back, insert, front, back)










The Microphones: The Moon/The Moon (Version) 7"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



-Strangely little info available on this. No recording info. Not where, not when. Though, based on the timeline and release date we would have to assume it was recorded sometime in 2000.

-Released on Instatone Brand Records (IBR003) (again, conflicting addresses here. The 7" claims 203 Prospect Ave. SF, CA 94100. An internet site claims 1724 Ash St. Portland, OR 97214. The 7" also lists a website (run by a fellow named Aaron Cohen) which is no longer in operation: www.instatonerecords.com,)

-Cover designed by Khaela Maricich. "Copying"? by Frank R. Paul.

-As usual I am guessing this was pressed in an edition of maybe 500 based on the size of the label.

-All copies on black vinyl, as far as I know.

-Record plays at 33 1/3 rpms, both sides.

-These songs would later be collected (same versions) on the "Song Islands" CD.

-Inner groove info is that combo of obvious label stuff and indecipherable other numbers (IBR-003A and B, and then U-53305 M-A and B)

-Other details of note on this record:

We have, once again, the classic Phil inner label design, fully realized.

The back cover is, again, without info, only a blurry photo, reminiscent of other Microphones releases from around this time (Moon, Moon 7", It Was Hot... LP)

Once again there is an absence of "The" both on the 7" and on the inner label. It is only on the insert that they are referred to as "The Microphones".

This is the first Microphones vinyl to feature and actual insert. The first of many, featuring Phil's hand-written lyrics. Though, curiously, no other info. The insert only has the lyrics and the full name of the song (The Moon or "Constand reminder of your size, worth, place, girth, span, point, avoidance, fearsome view, lack."). A theme we will see many time throughout Phil's career. A song title with many alternate titles or expansions of the original title, added parenthetically, somewhere, usually on a 7" or an insert.




....................

This was a recent arrival in my collection, in fact "my collection" is a recent arrival in and of itself. I have always been a music dork and ravenous in my consumption but have never really codified with "record collectors", I have always felt a fascination for the music and not the product, however, there are a few exceptions, the most notable (as evidenced, in part, by this blog) being Phil Elverum and his lovely records. It seems fitting. Phil, more than most, seems to produce records that are actual physical artifacts, like heirlooms, pieces of important family import, preserved organs, tombs, distilled elements, spells, TALISMANS. And so here we are, with this blog and my own personal collecting obsession turned to actual physical objects, like religious sygils. The point of this rambling being that, "The Moon" as a song is one of my earliest favorites, one of my earliest and most ongoing touchstones with Phil and the people I know that love him, "The Moon" is just one of those songs we all come back to as a epoch making moment in both Phil's career and our own lives. Suffice to say once I finally laid hands to this it was hard to understand how I had lived without it for so long. It was also at one point an idea I kicked around to have the entirety of the lyrics tattooed on my body until it was explained to me that the verbosity of the song would require most of my body to hold it. It seemed completely apropos and impossible.

The versions featured here, an acoustic version of the one on the "Glow Pt.2" LP, which was, at one point, referred to, by someone I knew, as "that totally wussed-out version of The Moon" and a "Version" of the one from "The Glow Pt.2". The concept of "version" may be a little foreign to people who do not follow Studio One or Jamaican dub reggae at all. This is one of the most fascinating aspects of The Microphones and totally makes sense when you consider Phil's background as a drummer and percussionist and producer. He sometimes includes these "versions" on his releases, here, on the reissue of "The Glow Pt.2" etc...

From the Wikipedia page:

Dub music is characterized by a "version" or "double"[15] of an existing song, often instrumental, using B-sides of 45 RPM records and typically emphasizing the drums and bass for a sound popular in local sound systems. The instrumental tracks are typically drenched in sound effects such as echo, reverberation, with instruments and vocals dropping in and out of the mix. Another hallmark of the dub sound is the prominent use of bass guitar. The music sometimes features other noises, such as birds singing, thunder and lightning, water flowing, and producers shouting instructions at the musicians. It can be further augmented by live DJs. The many-layered sounds with varying echoes and volumes are often said to create soundscapes, or sound sculptures, drawing attention to the shape and depth of the space between sounds as well as to the sounds themselves. There is usually a distinctly organic feel to the music, even though the effects are electronically created.

(004/126)








Tracklist
---------------
Side A:

The Moon (or "Constant Reminder Of Your Size, Worth, Place, Girth, Span, Point, Avoidance, Fearsome View, Lack.")


Side B:

The Moon (Version)














xo