RIP Arachnidiscs 1999-2019

Holding AD001 and AD200, both by BABEL

Halloween Is A Good Day To Die.

After twenty years of operation, and 200 releases, I am laying Arachnidiscs Recordings to rest. I talked about one of the reasons for doing so in this article I wrote for Now Magazine about how in the digital age a (mainly) CD-r micro-label simply doesn’t have as vital a role to play as it once did.

Tied up in that philosophical rationale were a myriad of more personal reasons I didn’t get into. To get to those, I have to first talk a little about why people, including myself, run music labels in the first.

The Four Motivations.

I see there being four basic motivations for a person to start a record label, be it a tiny underground micro-label or a larger cog in the capital-M, capital-I Music Industry.

1. To make money. This would be a more common motivation in the 70s or 80s when the possibility of making a living selling recorded music wasn’t so far-fetched. People still believe in the golden dream of the Music Industry’s pre-Napster heyday, but they often become disillusioned by the reality of the current industry landscape and they fold before ever releasing any product.

2. To feed the ego. Similar to motivation #1, but with less of an emphasis on monetary gain and more on status. To be the cool person running a cool label, hanging out with cool artists at cool places and be constantly told how cool they are. I’ve made this sound a little bit like a Studio 54 nightmare, but it exists in all music scenes from the executive working with pop megastars to someone running a DIY noise label. To adapt an idiom: Those who can, start bands — those who can’t, start labels.

3. Altruism. To help your scene, your community, your friends prosper and gain the recognition they deserve but may be eluding them. To add to the cultural landscape and clear a path for others to follow. You see this talked about a lot in the mission-statements on the “about” page of indie labels.

The tricky thing is Motivation #2 can seep into this laudable intention and taint the waters. And why not? If you’re doing important work and get praised for it, chances are your ego isn’t going to spit that out like it’s poison (unless you’re truly enlightened and then you’re probably not dabbling in worldly exploits like running a record label). Also—at risk of coming off as cynical, jaded, and pessimistic— on occasion you will run into those who claim Motivation #3 but are really exclusively #2, but dressed up to be more marketable to artists, music writers, and customers.

4. Fun. When you’re running a small indie, there’s truthfully not much in the way of reward. Whatever your motivation is, if your goal is to fill your tank on money, praise, or warm altruistic feelings, you’ll more likely than not find yourself running on empty. But whether your motivation is ostensibly 1, 2, or 3, having fun should be your overriding objective. And once it stops being fun, you should get out.

Before I talk about why I got out, let’s remember why I got in.

ArachniHistory.

Arachnidiscs Recordings was founded in 1999 as an extension of the cassette label No Love Records which I started ten years previous while still in high school. I started Arachnidiscs for the same reason I started No Love: to release my own music. In reality, I wasn’t launching a new label so much as re-branding a vanity press which had been dormant for a couple years at that time.

Having made the switch to the then new CD-r technology, I wanted a name which reflected the format. It’d always bothered me I’d named a cassette label No Love Records. So I came up with Arachnidiscs. The “arachnid” part was an ode to the iron spider’s web front gate at my parents’ rural property (where I often found myself living in my twenties), and the self-explanatory use of the word “discs” created a portmanteau inspired by Sloan’s Murderecords.

The first release on Arachnidiscs Recordings was the debut recording by my own BABEL project in late 1999. The CD-r album was sold from the Nanaimo, BC record store Blackball Records, which was like a second home to me at the time. Soon friends and associates of Blackball were given releases on Arachnidiscs and the label made the leap from vanity project to independent label. 

Not adherent to any one genre Arachnidiscs has released albums ranging from free-jazz to psychedelic rock to folk singers to electronic experimentalists (as well as more accessible electronic musicians) to harsh noise and any variation in-between. The common denominator has always been “music for and by weirdos” — the label’s slogan since around 2009.

And it was fun for a long time, until it wasn’t.

So What Happened?

It probably is obvious to anyone with a passing experience of human nature that my above four motivations are simplistic. To suggest only one of these motivations, or a combination of two, are all that comes into play when running a label would be reductive. In fact, shades of all four are always present and the ratios are ever-shifting.

Arachnidiscs, by design, has always hovered around the break-even point, often plunging into the red. This was part of my plan to keep it fun—I found it excruciatingly stressful trying to compensate artists fairly if there ever was profit (and keeping track of profits/losses was killing all enjoyment) so I budgeted and priced every release to break-even as a best case scenario.

About three years ago it wasn’t just becoming an expensive hobby, but all four factors began dipping into the red.

Ultimately, it was Motivation #4, to have fun, that had ceased to be sufficiently fulfilled. And since Arachnidiscs wasn’t breaking even—sales have steadily dropped every year since 2016, and production costs are steadily rising—it was only going to become a more expensive hobby.

I’ve worn many hats at Arachnidiscs: A&R/curator, recording and mastering engineer, graphic designer, shipping & receiving, producer, and promoter/publicist. The problem is I’m a truly terrible publicist and to continue the label it was clear to me I was going to need to hire a pro in order to keep sales at a reasonable volume. And when you’re dealing in terms of selling as few as 25-50 copies of a cassette (in the last year Arachnidiscs’ average run on a album has been a mere 18 CD-rs, 8 of which go to the artist), hiring a publicist or PR company is prohibitively expensive. An already expensive hobby was only going to get ludicrously expensive and it’s one I was no longer enjoying ludicrous amounts. I think there’s nothing wrong with dropping the majority of your disposable income on a hobby—be it golf, knitting, snowboarding, building dollhouses, or collecting comic books and records—but only if you’re actually enjoying it.

So why wasn’t I enjoying it? As I wrote in the aforementioned Now article, seeing the vital role of a micro-label to bring underground music out of the shadows, when Bandcamp can put it into the light as well or better, Motivation #3 (to be an altruistic community builder) no longer felt a fulfilling or necessary goal. And tied to that, I’m big enough to admit, was my ego—Motivation #2 rearing its ugly head—began to question why I was sacrificing my time and money for no purpose and no reward.

Once I came to this epiphany, it was impossible to keep having fun.

But I did have fun, for many years, and I did have the pleasure and honour to work with many talented people from across Canada and the world. And I think, for a time (roughly 2010-2016), Arachnidiscs did play a small but important role in the Canadian underground music community. I have no regrets in running the label for a few years longer than I should have (my slight OCD would not let me quit before reaching the tidy accomplishment of 20 years and 200 releases), and I have no regrets in putting it to bed.

The Future.

When I started letting people know I was ending Arachnidiscs, they all asked a variation on the same few questions.

Do you think you’ll start another label? Hard to say. Perhaps. But if I do it’ll be with a partner or partners and it’ll be run more like a business than a hobby.

That said, I’m not personally going to stop making and releasing my own music (though I’m planning on slowing that down too) and I’ll probably slap an imprint on anything I physically release. Maybe No Love Records? Maybe not.

What’s going to happen to the Bandcamp? It’s going to remain up and selling until there’s nothing left to sell. I’m considering re-branding it ArachniDistro for the purpose of selling any of my own music I personally release in the future or is released by other labels (for the purely opportunistic reason a lot of people subscribe to that account and I’d be a fool not to try and keep that revenue stream open). But this change will just be a new banner graphic, really.

Will you be selling off your stock? Yes, of course. I really want to clear out the basement of what’s left. But it’s not going in a landfill or being donated to a thrift store… yet. Watch for sales in the future around the usual capitalist sale seasons. Or, and this would be even better, don’t risk missing out on a some low-stock items and load up now. This would really help me recoup some of the costs of running this label. https://arachnidiscs.bandcamp.com/merch

Thank You.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading the nostalgic ramblings of navel-gazing hipster. If you’ve ever bought anything from Arachnidiscs, THANK YOU (see the liner notes for Thirteen Exquisite Corpses for specific shout-outs). If you’ve ever agreed to let Arachnidiscs put out your music, THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES.

Various Arachnids

Anthony Teeth (Frederick Brummer)
The Metrics
Cellar Doors (Jordan McKenzie)
Amarillo Stars/Gown (Andrew MacGregor)
Mr. Zap (Eli Konsorado)
Down With Everything / Everything is Geometry / The Clap
Rubacuori (Tony Pucci)
Robrobrob
Nicole Gauthier
Silent Land Time Machine
Theo Angell
Summer Amp
Healthy Animal
Andy Futreal
Aaron Lumley
The Knot (Storring/Lewis)
Nick Kuepfer
Khôra (Matthew Ramolo
Espvall/Szelag/Jakobsons
Mad/Mod; Totenbaum Träger/Projet Muet (Dominic Marion)
Partli Cloudi (Stephen Warren)
Muted Rainbow (Michelle Proksell)
Beard Closet (Phil Hamilton)
Primate Pyramid (Paul Manhas)
Ross Baker
Chik White (Darcy Spidle)
Holiday Rambler (D. Alex)
Téléphone Maison
Clara Engel
Uvesen
Rainboard
Nite Audit
(Colin) Fisher / (Mike) Gennaro
Unquiet Grave
Hazy Montagne Mystique (Chittakone Baccam)
Ylangylang (Catherine Debard)
A Sacred Cloud
Lost Trail
DOR
M. Mucci
Heraclitus Akimbo (Joe Strutt)
Lero
Erm + Nickname
CHOBO (Ben Boles / Jessica Cho)
Eschaton
Radio Samson Di Maria (Luca Capone)
Eiyn Sof (Melissa Boraski)
Sister Ray
Stargoon
Gad Whip
Richmond Avant Improv Collective
Forager
Flatbed
Dark Bird (Roan Bateman)
Smogma
Moth Bucket
Pyroclastical
Lusco e Fusco 13
Bullshit Dub Sound System
Eric Wong + Naturalismo + Sherman + Sin:Ned
Women of the Pore
The Side Eye
Dame Cook
Mira Martin-Grey
Lunakin (Quill Hardy)
Storyinsoil
A Half With Tinnitus
Soft Thoughts
Serpent Season
C_FA.PP
L’électrique brûlant
Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks
Brodie West (as part of the “Babel Ensemble”)

And anyone I missed, OMG, I’m so sorry.

Interred Views: Lero

Based out of Hamilton, Ontario, LERO (aka Ben Dyment) is a solo project in operation since 2012. Shiftless, transient – secret gardens, slow drones and static hiss/hum, influence into expression. Plain hymns honest with pure truth airs. We’re releasing his album Trichomes on August 28th, 2015, so we had a chat about The Hammer vs. The Big Smoke, inspiration and suede desert boots. You can order the limited edition CD HERE.

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Arachnidiscs Recordings: Trichomes strikes me as having a ’90s bent. Perhaps not in the way many people think of ’90s music, but in the  abstract dream-pop style of a band like His Name Is Alive or Labradford’s ambient post-rock. And, to me, “Cattleya” has bit of a Mellow Gold era Beck feel.  Are you influenced by that era or those kinds of bands?

Lero: Not at all, but I find it really interesting that you’d make that connection. A lot of my influences from that era are probably closer to that general assumption of ’90s music, actually — bands like Unwound, Royal Trux, Joan of Arc, etc. I think I get where you’re coming from with Mellow Gold on “Cattleya” though, but for what it’s worth at the time I recorded that I was listening to a lot of SMiLE-era Beach Boys.

ADR: I’d be pretty surprised if Beck wasn’t listening to a lot of SMiLE-era Beach Boys back then, actually.

Lero: That’s a good point, yeah. I think everybody goes through a SMiLE phase at some point.

ADR: I’ve never gone through a SMiLE phase. Or Pet Sounds, even. I don’t get the Brian Wilson worship at all.

Lero: I think if you strip Brian from the band identity and really view his work during that mid ’60s period, you see someone with a lot of the same ideals that you find in current tape culture/weird music scenes. All the improvisational and avant methods that say you or I might employ in our work, he was doing in a studio setting with a full group of professional session musicians and a major label budget at his disposal. He tried to advance pop music into a higher art, but it was too complicated — his audience wasn’t willing to move with him in a way he understood, and I don’t think he even fully understood where he was looking to end up. What appeals to me about his music is that sense of abandonment; he’s pushing as hard as he can to get somewhere further away from his origins and closer to his ideals, and when it works it’s fantastic.

ADR: See, that’s what people always say. I’ve tried to listen to his music from that angle for years but just don’t hear it. It makes me feel like part of my brain is missing. Because all these people whose opinions I respect can’t be completely off-track, right? I think it’s something basic like I just don’t like his chord progressions and melodies.

Lero: I know what you mean. I think with Brian and musicians of his stature most people insist “you HAVE to like them!!!” which is the wrong approach.

ADR: Any other ’60s musicians you particularly respect?

Lero: There’s a lot of people [from that era] that I like. I listen to a lot of East Coast and West Coast bands from that period on an equal level, which is still seen as taboo by some people — the whole ‘if you like the Velvets you have to hate the Airplane’ bullshit. It’s my favourite decade for jazz, too — people like Pharoh Sanders, John and Alice Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler. Impulse is one of my favourite labels, and almost everything they put out then was great, which is a pretty impressive track record.

ADR: I didn’t know I was supposed to hate Airplane. That hip-hop feud goes back further than I thought. But yeah, that 1966-72 period for exploratory jazz is pretty infallible — whatever the record label. It’s hard to go wrong just randomly buying a jazz record with that copyright date on it. The profile photo on your Bandcamp is a picture of your guitar with an Impulse sticker on it.  I noticed because I have one on my guitar too.

Lero: I was actually going to bring the sticker up — I saw yours when I was looking up Arachnidiscs online a while back.

ADR: We’re like sisters. I don’t hear a lot of actual “jazz” on your recordings. Does it represent more of an approach for you?

Lero: I think it represents more of an inspiration and influence on my thinking than my playing, and usually when it filters through it’s in a way that no one else would probably notice. Jazz makes up a large degree of my daily listening though, and the exploratory approach that you find in a lot of those records is something I try to always follow in my work, even if I’m not playing in an overt jazz style. “Ayler” is one of those tracks for me, how it sort of moves without a clear path and doesn’t wait for you to pick it up right away, hence the title homage. “Trellis” on Eye Hospital is another of those. I do want to get into a stronger jazz area with my work at some point, but I’d have to do it with other people—I wouldn’t be able to fully express myself in that way right now on my own.

ADR: When you’re recording, how conscious of influences are you? Is there a target you’re aiming for or do you just throw stuff against the wall?

Lero: I’m really conscious of influences when I’m recording, because I derive a lot of direct inspiration from whatever I’m soaking up at the time. There’s very specific targets, though I let them evolve as the process grows. I do try to keep each album fairly specific in its intent. If I come up with an idea that’s strong but really dissimilar to the other tracks, I’ll save it for a later project rather than force it in. I hope that the albums I’ve done carry the same sense of individuality in them that I feel when I’m making them.

ADR: Your Bandcamp displays a prolific output. In fact, you’ve released three albums since Trichomes. Are you one of those guys who’s never far away from a recording device?

Lero: You got me [haha]. I like to maintain a steady stream of output when I can. I’m the type of person who gets pretty obsessive with their interests, and I get inspired pretty easily, so I try to get as much as I can out of each area and see how I can adapt it into my own identity.

ADR: How do you see your identity?

Lero: I see identity as being something just slightly out of grasp, you know? If you reach too far it becomes intangible, but if you let it be it can surprise you with its strength. I hope that my music comes across as possessing some inherent traits and a healthy sense of personality at its core. Whenever I have to put down a genre I say ‘left-field folk’, which for me is a point of reference to the pure, weird sounds of Early American music. Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music compilation that he made for Folkways is an eternal well of influence for me, and it’s arguably the best source for what I’m talking about. Listening to those songs, you can hear everything filtered through the strange introversion of each performer. Each person sounds true to their own spirit, and that’s an element that I directly take as a guide for my own sense of self. The ‘left-field’ comes in with everything else that surrounds my music; you’d have to have a pretty obtuse sense of humour to take my lyrics as protest songs, and a lot of where I’m coming from is more Saturn than rural America, but that feeling of inward sustenance is what I strive for, no matter where I seem to be pushing the music towards stylistically.

ADR: Speaking of the American Folk tradition. In Canada it’s been an inescapable shadow since the 1950’s. Do you see there being a distinct Canadian musical identity?

Lero: Somewhat. I think it’s purity is usually either exported and distilled or else turned into a niche. I’ve never really been sure how to determine it, honestly. Do you see a clear identity?

ADR: I think it used to be more of a thing. Like Great Big Sea sound really Canadian. There’s no mistaking them for an American or UK band, even playing sort celtic music, they’re super Canadian sounding. And someone like Bryan Adams sounds distinctly Canadian somehow compared to his American counterparts Springsteen or Mellencamp or Tom Petty. But now it ‘s harder to pick out a Canadian artist out of a pile of new releases. So I don’t know anymore. I think that’s why I asked.

Lero: I agree with that a lot, yeah. A label like Arbutus is distinctly Canadian in its roster, but Braids or Grimes or anyone on there never really sounds ‘Canadian’.

ADR: No, Braids don’t sound Canadian. They sound Icelandic to me. Specifically, they sound like Björk.

Lero: Yeah, that’s an immediate relation to my ears as well.

ADR: Since we’re on the topic of geography, you’re based out of Hamilton, Ontario. For a few years now The Hammer’s been hyped as the “next Portland”, a sort of artistic oasis on the rise for creative types from Toronto who need to move somewhere less expensive. Does it live up to that hype yet?

Lero: I don’t think anyplace can really live up to its hype, especially when it’s coming from outside. To me there’s a clear delineation between the mindset of most people directly involved in the arts community here, and those just outside or far removed from it. The first group is focused on simply maintaining a level of creation/creativity, while the latter is eager to capitalize on it but a bit misguided (like when you have people proclaiming James Street North as an ’emerging arts scene’ for nearly 10 years now). It’s like any other city of its size, really — there’s a handful of good venues and good artists and a dedicated community to keep it going. I have noticed an influx of Toronto influence seeping into the general environment over the last few years, which can be a bit of a grey area, but then again there’s always been a bit of a complex relationship between Hamilton and Toronto.

ADR: Yeah, anywhere there’s always the capita-A “Arts” and then everything else that’s actually going on. In Hamilton is the scene the sort that allows for anyone who’s interested in taking part by just getting out there an doing it? As opposed to, say, Toronto where due to the sheer amount of competition in a huge city it can be pretty hard for a new band to get gigs when they start out. Is Hamilton a tough nut to crack?

Lero: No, nowhere near what Toronto seems to be like. Anyone can generally get something going here pretty easily, and people help each other out on a regular basis. What’s great is when the ‘weirder’ bands play bills together out of necessity/overlap and you get shows with a lot of diversity, rather than seeing 18 hardcore bands that all sound identical.

ADR: The other problem with Toronto—here’s where I inevitably get on my negativity soapbox—is there seems to be about a pool of 200 people into the weird music scene (perhaps more for the bands that skew punk). Recognizable faces you see at all the shows. But any given night there’s no less than three great shows drawing from that pool so everyone ends up with 17 attendees. Especially if you have the bad luck (or lack of foresight) to have your show booked the same night as something like Feast In The East. My feeling about smaller centers is maybe there’s fewer heads in the scene but you get them all out to your show because it’s the only thing going on that night. Or maybe I’m looking back at small-town life with rose-tinted glasses.

Lero: It’s true that with a smaller area you tend to get a higher concentration of people to each show, but there’s still a lot of times I’ve been at shows with 17 people here too. I think all those little factors that have nothing to do with the music, like the weather, day, venue, hype, etc, have more of an influence than we’d like to admit.

ADR: I don’t know about Hamilton but the slightest bit of rain in Toronto means you go down from 17 to 10 or less. But I wouldn’t know. I try not to leave my house for anything so I don’t go to shows if it’s raining. I’m pretty ecstatic if it starts to rain. “Yes! I don’t have to go!” But maybe people congregate to get out of the rain. So, I guess I wouldn’t know.

Lero: Yeah, there’s a bit of that here too. I get that excuse mentality sometimes when I’m going to Toronto for shows, when distance is an added factor. Rain’s good once you accept it, or if you’re not wearing suede desert boots.

ADR: Having grown up on the west coast, I actually kinda love rain. I just use it as an excuse. But speaking of desert boots, what’s on the near or distant horizon for Lero?

Lero: I just finished up an album last month entitled In Sunset a Glow Glory that’s largely improvisational/instrumental and plays as a soundtrack of sorts. Beginning work on a new album called Sapid Origin that might bring out some new sounds to the melting pot. There might even be some live Lero on the horizon too, which could be pretty interesting…

ADR: Live is life.

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Interred Views is a series of interviews with Arachnidiscs Recordings artists. This interview was conducted by Jakob Rehlinger.

Interred Views: Lost Trail

I can’t remember how Zachary Corsa and I first got to know each other, but it had something to do with being lefty pinkos ganging up on someone we didn’t agree with on a Facebook thread. It probably had to do with gun control or same-sex marriage. Anyway, we became fast friends and there’s been this idea floating around I’d release something by Lost Trail, who I had this vague understanding was kind of a big deal. If you’re unfamiliar with them, this is from their website:

LOST TRAIL is the ambient/dronegaze/experimental noise project of husband-and-wife duo Zachary Corsa and Denny Wilkerson Corsa. Based in the mysterious small city of Burlington, NC, The Corsas utilize lo-fi and obsolete recording technology in their music, aiming to capture a sense of atmosphere and landscape in both man-made and wild environments. Working primarily with second-hand analog equipment, their work is a vivid patchwork collage of damaged cassette loops, field recordings, primitive percussion, layers of ethereal guitar drones, wailing feedback and static, and skeletal traces of antique piano and organ. The themes of Lost Trail’s work often include a sense of the otherworldly or supernatural, strong ties to nature, human calamity, and a fascination with the concept of passionate belief systems. The songs themselves are raw, broken, minimalist, imperfect, emotionally resounding and chaotically unpredictable, all composed in the spirit of reckless, heedless improvisation.

That all seems fairly reductive, not really capturing how Lost Trail winds through the wilderness and where it leads. But if called upon, I’d have to be even further reductive and just say: Magic.

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Arachnidiscs Recordings: Dude. What’s up with your country?

Zachary Corsa: Ha, I take no responsibility for the state of America at the moment. I think what’s important to remember is that a good 80 percent of people here are NOT total fucking lunatics, and we’re as dismayed by the current state of affairs here as anyone else. It’s a frightening place to be right now, especially if you have a love for this country and the landscape and most of its people. But these things go in cycles. If nothing else, right now its generating some awesome art.

ADR: Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the Kent State massacre. It does seem like things are going in cycles.

ZC: We’re definitely in a valley, but there’s peaks to be found. there’s people here committed to change and moving forward. It’s easy to forget that America is a beautiful country with a lot of great people and art. On the surface it just seems like an over-commercialized consumerist hell of stupidity, reality TV, megachurches and Best Buys. but there’s more here.

ADR: “Over-commercialized consumerist hell of stupidity, reality TV, megachurches and Best Buys.” That pretty much describes Canada right now. Only perhaps we have fewer actual mega-churches. So right now what are these peaks in American culture you mentioned?

ZC: Marriage equality, despite all desperate and petty efforts to stop it, is becoming a reality, for one. Ditto for marijuana legalization. I also think the current political and social climate is encouraging amazing art. The situation with North Carolina’s extreme rightward drift has resulted in a real banding together within the arts community here. People are united, people who weren’t politically conscious are allowing themselves to be arrested on the capitol steps if it means drawing attention to Pat McCrory and his cronies and what they’re doing to our state. People won’t put up with being pushed around like this, and I think there’s going to be some big paradigm shifts soon in this country.

People are also having their eyes opened to the current state of our law enforcement in this country, and to institutionalized racism they blithely ignored for years.

ADR: Yeah, that’s something I wonder about when you watch the news, or go online or whatever people do now, things seem so dark. The perception is it feels like things have gotten a lot nastier since the ’80s and ’90s. But if you watch comedies from that period, they’re rife with homophobic humour. It was just rote to make fun of effeminate men and butchy women. Whereas now that’s more often seen as not OK. So maybe things are a bit better now, but it’s just that people are less willing to accept such a low bar of enlightenment. Same with “dirty cops” killing kids. That was just an okay thing for cops to do in those films.

ZC: There’s always going to be an element of hero and vigilante worship in western culture. We always need an “other” to demonize and scapegoat for our own issues. It’s never going to go away. But it helps to look at individual interactions and smaller communities. On the whole, people still treat each other decently here. The flipside of that is that my perspective is that of a white middle-class male. Living in a mostly-minority neighborhood, I see the dark side of that reality all too often.

ADR: Let’s set the larger scope of society aside and focus on your neighborhood. Tell us about about where you live and the scene there.

ZC: Burlington is a small city that was once one of the textile and hosiery capitals of the country. It’s a typical story in America, though. The jobs have gone overseas, the mills are abandoned, and the city’s become a place of drug use, poverty, blight, gangs, etc. Burlington is halfway between two larger metropolitan areas (Greensboro & Winston-Salem to the west, Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill to the east), so its always a bit orphaned and shunned. It doesn’t have the cultural currency those other towns have. Our university, Elon, is far enough outside of town that student life doesn’t intersect with city life.

The other side of that is that there’s a beautiful downtown that’s being revitalized, and a great arts scene. Visual art especially, folks like Stewart Sineath, Gary Smith, and Albert Kauslick. Music-wise, there’s some really great bands, too. Nathan Arizona, Crumb Catcher. Not much in the way of experimental stuff that I know of, mostly just us and our friend Tim Collapse, who makes great stuff as Animals Like Earthquakes. We moved here because we could find a big old house (in our case, 1910) to record in for cheap.

Burlington also has a fascinating history. It’s a strange place. The vibe here is Lynchian and otherworldly at times. The city history is full of unsolved murders, rumors of demon worship, hauntings, serial killers, mythical monsters, unexplained fires and explosions, secret government work… It’s not like anywhere else I’ve ever been.

ADR:  That sounds amazing. What’s the weather like?

ZC:  Central NC is usually hot summers and very mild winters, but the last couple of winters have been rough. Of course, rough for us is ten-fifteen degree days. Usually the winters are just rainy and a little nippy.

ADR: That’s about -10 in Canadian degrees, not bad. When you say hot, how hot does it get? Toronto’s winters are beginning to get me down.

ZC:  Upwards of 110-112 that I can remember. The humidity is what really gets to you. sticking to everything. Driving is a herculean exercise in tolerance.

ADR:  Holy crap. That’s 44 in Canadian, plus humidity… Yeah, I’m staying put. Not that your government would let me move down there anyway.

ZC: And yet Canada is Xanadu to so many of us disillusioned American progressives.

ADR:  Canada and it’s ongoing state mandated genocide of the First Nations peoples? We’re basically starving the Inuit to death. Canada is secretly barbaric.

ZC: Grass is always greener, I suppose, even Genocide Grass

ADR:  That is a GOOD band name. Well, sort of.

ZC: The folks who are so far to the left that every single thing offends them would never let you tour.

ADR:  And the far right would claim I was infringing on their religious freedom somehow.

ZC: Yep! They think criticism equals persecution.

ADR:  That’s one thing about Canada, Genocide Grass would probably be allowed to tour. The left-wing knee-jerk censorship grass is probably greener here. So, when we talked before, you didn’t have much info on the mysterious DOR. Any new information?

ZC: DOR are shady. Two dudes (John Rutherford, Jacob Worden) near Charlotte that churn out the good stuff. Charlotte’s our biggest city, about 90 minutes south of where Denny and I live and that’s about all I know about ’em! They’re mysterious. I’ve not met either of them in person. I was frankly surprised at their location when I discovered their music. Charlotte has a reputation as a cultural wasteland to the rest of North Carolina, despite being such a huge city. Probably unfair. But we’ve never played in Charlotte despite being 90 minutes up the road. Charlotte is pretty into malls and Nascar.

ADR: I wonder if the royal baby was named after Charlotte?

ZC: Should’ve named her Dale Jr.

ADR: I would’ve won the office pool then.

ZC:  I’ll never grasp the appeal of seeing cars drive around an oval for three hours

ADR: Sometimes they spin-out and burst into flame, I think.

ZC: Maybe there’s YouTube compilations. I’d be fine with just watching that for a few hours. Do they have roller derbies in Canada?

ADR: Oh yeah. I went to one a couple years ago. They weren’t very fast though. Not like in the movies.

ZC: Languid roller derby. I cant think of anything sadder

ADR: It was like they were falling down in bullet-time.

ZC: That makes me think of dancing bears being cattle-prodded to get up and sway for a few precarious seconds before collapsing.

ADR: I think you just thought of something sadder.

You can pre-order the split cassette with LOST TRAIL and DOR at Arachnidiscs Recordings Bandcamp.

Pre-orders come with a magic claw foot talisman for good or bad luck (your choice).

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Interred Views is a series of interviews with Arachnidiscs Recordings artists. This interview was conducted by Jakob Rehlinger.

Interred Views: Partli Cloudi

Mild-mannered librarian by day, by late-afternoon Vancouver Island’s Stephen Wolf turns into the mild-mannered basement recordist named Partli Cloudi. A weaver of detailed audio tapestries, adding his own acoustic flourishes and electronic embellishments to a secret world of woozy found-sound, Wolf exudes the mystique of the mystical artiste who lives on the fringes. It’s the sort with a facade of eccentricity that people feel compelled to chip away at in order to discover the real person hiding within. Well, let me tell you, I’ve known Stephen for a long time and there is no end to the onion-like layers you could peel away. And if you did peel him down to the core, you’d find you were right back where you started because it’s not a facade. Stephen is one of those rare genuinely deep dudes whose zen-like demeanor and quiet wisdom isn’t an affectation.

I caught up with him (or, like always, tried to catch up to where he’s at) to discuss Watermelon Cauliflower, his second release on Arachnidiscs Recordings. And, of course, I forgot to ask him exactly what a “watermelon cauliflower” is.

Arachnidiscs Recordings: It’s been a while since I left Vancouver Island. There wasn’t much of a weirdo music scene there at the time, but what did exist was pretty tight-knit. What’s it like now?

Partli Cloudi:  I am probably the last person to ask about a scene of any kind, being somewhat socially inept and challenged geographically by living on the outskirts of a small town. But if by weirdo you mean music that is not based on peer acceptance and/or the pursuit of peanuts, then I don’t think there is any scene.

Not to say there aren’t interesting artists all over doing great things in isolation that zero to few people will ever hear. But when you typically have to wade through the dominant culture and dominant sub-culture just to hear music outside of the conventions of rock etc, then you quickly tire with the realization of how alone you are.

My brother and I went to hear David Behrman speak at the University of Victoria a few months ago and we were the only non-students, in other words the only non-mandated attendees. Gordon Mumma was sitting beside David and they reminisced while they presented a slide show of his old electronic contraptions and played some pre-recorded samples. That same night I went to an indie rock basement show and the place was packed full of free-range hipsters posing in front of each other, taking selfies, and talking over the music, was that a scene?

ADR: That would be the definition of a capital-S Scene. It’s interesting what you’re implying about “peer acceptance” being a factor even with people making weird music. I know when I write or record something, it’s often through the filter of “What would Stephen think of this?” which, although I trust your judgement, I know isn’t exactly a productive filter to have in place. I also usually completely ignore it. Anyway, are you saying, even if your peers are creative weirdos, that the moment peer acceptance enters the equation the art is corrupted?

PC: For a weirdo to have peers would negate the weirdo’s weirdness, so it may technically be impossible. But it is not like art has ever been sacred and free from the corruption of getting paid, or getting laid or even just fed. I would concede that audiences essentially want to be entertained, but it is the duty of the artist to decide how far to pander and how far to challenge.

ADR: Watermelon Cauliflower, at first blush, seems to have zero discernible pandering. It’s one WTF moment after another. But it also doesn’t break from the forms people enjoyed about the previous album (Two Moron Ever Nose). Was that conscious? Were you giving the few people who bought Two Moron Ever Nose what they wanted?

PC: I would get nervous at the idea that someone is listening, so I probably would block any idea of audience out. Having no audience (perceived or otherwise) is more freeing. No consciousness was used in the making of this recording. I try to convert imagination into sound and back again, once I get to a freed state it begins to create itself, I might only awaken to clean up and hope that this time the tape machine was recording.

ADR: Okay, let’s maybe talk about about “the making of this recording” as you put it. I like to think I’m pretty well versed in this kind of thing, but I have trouble picking out what’s a sample, a found-sound and what is you actually playing an instrument. What’s your modus operandi?

PC: I do a lot of field recordings and have a huge collection of cassettes, many made on top of pre-recorded sources: music, audiobooks or thrift store mixtapes, then overdubbed with basement jams, old demos, or rhythms taken from rehearsals of other bands, with bits leaking into different surfaces and/or finally overdubbed by myself in my basement. Afterwards I wire up all my recorders into an ancient PC with an old version of Sound Forge you gave me 15 years ago, and essentially I play the 4-track recorders into it to make the end products. I like delay pedals as a means of time travel, but sampler technology is black hole that is already filled up. Since I stay away from most things digital, degredation and tape hiss can be a problem and an opportunity. It is super time consuming and does not lend itself to any precision, I really have no idea where anything is going to end up, no two takes are ever the same.

ADR: One of those situations where technological limitations leads to inspiration?

PC: Yeah, but I feel like I have way more technology than I can handle.

ADR: Getting back to what you were saying about not recording for an audience. It reminded me of some things I’ve be thinking about lately. About why we do this at all. What’s the point of making our music available to an audience? Why do you make these recordings and why do you make them public?

PC: I guess it is same question as to why we are here? Why exist? I was born into a fragile body that has an intense need to eat, breathe, paint and create rickety rotten soundscapes. I cannot escape it, and feel like I am dying inside if I try to stop. The process is not all sunshine and kittens and in fact is probably detrimental to my health and prosperity — I pray somebody somewhere in the vast continuum of time and space needs a Partli Cloudi recording for a some mysterious divine purpose, otherwise it is all for nothing.

Watermelon Cauliflower releases on May 1st, 2015. You can buy it here.

If you’re interested in more of Stephen’s views on music, his blog Shelf Dwindle is one of the best repositories of music writing alive today. Also, you can listen to the below podcast episode where we sat down to discuss (and  slaughter) the “sacred cows” of rock’n’roll.

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Interred Views is a series of interviews with Arachnidiscs Recordings artists. This interview was conducted by Jakob Rehlinger.

Clara Engel: Ashes and Tangerines

C56 / 11 tracks § edition of 50 § smokey cassette shells § burlap sleeve § stamped and numbered tags § fold-out poster/lyric sheet § download code

Release date: April 28th, 2014

Order here: $8.00 (+plus regional shipping)

Burlap. It conjures the innocent fun of potatoes sack races. It evokes the scents of coffee beans or even its own rustic spice. And it haunts us with the cruel tragedy of kittens, drowned in a sack at the first light of dawn.

Clara Engel‘s enchanting Ashes & Tangerines is infused with the dark heart of the Nick Cave, the gruff sensuality of PJ Harvey, and the storied lyricism of the Cohens and Dylans of the world.  It was a pleasure to put together the packaging for this album; an album which is every bit as smokey as the noir-tinted cassette shell and coarse and earthy as the burlap it comes wrapped in.

“Clara Engel’s voice comes to me from that deepest of all places, imaginative space, from which she visually retrieves an inner landscape converted by breath into the rock equivalent of poetry. Rarely has a voice sounded so authoritative, so unapologetic in its disclosures, so sure of its direction in going home into song.” ~ Jeremy Reed (UK poet) 

“The album’s production blends Clara’s poetry with her music, so as to produce a very interesting mixture of strong senses. “Ashes and Tangerines”; destruction and reboot. Now and never. Everything exists in her fantasy, inside the forest of the tale where she landed, stayed and perceived, among other stuff, the rare blending of fantastic and real things … She introduces herself and invites you to enter the world the way she perceives it. It is a fairy tale experience for grownups. One you definitely should not lose.” ~ Metacapsule Says

Beard Closet / Primate Pyramid (ADR split tape vol. 9)

Sides 17 and 18 of the Arachnidiscs Recordings Split Tape Series.

$7.00 Order Here

Toronto’s Beard Closet and Primate Pyramid administer 40 minutes of essential Skullflower-esque doom-gaze guitar improvisations. White noise bliss. Harmonic reverberations. Avant post-rock drone. Ambient guitar experimentation. Hypnagogic feedback dreams.

High-bias cassette tape. Gold cassette shells. Hand assembled, fur-covered cassette boxes.

Revised 2013 Release Schedule + Submissions

Since we just dispatched the pre-orders for the BEARD CLOSET / PRIMATE PYRAMID tape, and it’s official release is tomorrow, we figured it’s a good time to post our revised release schedule that will bring us up to the end of 2013.

• Oct. 31: BEARD CLOSET / PRIMATE PYRAMID tape
• Nov. 11: PARTLI CLOUDI “Two Moron Ever Nose” CD
• Nov. 25: BABEL “Sturm und Drang” CDEP
• Dec. 02: MUTED RAINBOW “Intuitions” CD
• Dec. 16: ROSS BAKER / TRANZMIT tape
• Dec. 30: BABEL “Rillingen” CD

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Also, now is a good time to put out a call for 2014 releases. If any of you have a project without a home, and it’s sufficiently weird (or at least insufficiently normal), and you’d like to see it get a small, ridiculously packed, run (50 copies, tops) drop us a line: arachnidiscs@hotmail.com

Or if you know a weirdo whose music needs a home, send them our way.

And if you’re someone who we’ve been discussing a release with, this is a friendly reminder to send us those files!

We plan to do up to a maximum of 12 releases (cassette / CD / CDEP / maybe a 7″?!?) next year, ideally on a monthly basis. Also, there’s a very specific (yet completely undefined) label aesthetic (and limited budget), so let that be a caveat that we reserve the right to be beggars and picky choosers.