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HALF HANDED CLOUD

Half-Handed Cloud

Flutterama

    The (seventh) new Half-handed Cloud album, ‘Flutterama’, is a record of 18 jubilant indie-pop songs by John Ringhofer that investigate spiritual incompetence with lively arrangements and radiant melodies that skilfully dissolve into deterioration using herky-jerky tape manipulation, analogue wow-and-flutter, and an animated orchestra of homerecorded sound effects.

    Ringhofer’s work on ‘Flutterama’ was inspired by Frances Mary Hunter Gordon’s adolescent liturgies (recorded at Abbey Road during The Beatles era), turbid sights and sounds in Guy Maddin films, audaciously bold forms in Sister Corita Kent’s devotional printmaking, the exquisite brittleness of Elizabeth Cotten’s voice, Alberto Burri’s stitched wound burlap assemblages, Alvar Aalto church design, Andrea Büttner’s poverty-informed artwork, Lou Barlow/Dinosaur Jr’s lo-fi ‘Poledo’ sound collage (which namechecks Jesus), Julie Canlis book ‘A Theology of the Ordinary’, Wallace Berman’s visual collage, and The Raincoats’ magnificently shaky DIY aesthetic.

    The album’s tape-fiddled tunes - recorded on the very same 16-track recorder last serviced by a sound technician who also worked with The Beach Boys in their home studio - employ surprisingly little synthesizer (“it felt like cheating,” says Ringhofer) - he preferred to craft most of the album’s effects the long way, frequently going behind the back of rock instrumentation by hand-feeding ½” magnetic reel recordings of chord organs, deflating balloons, some guitars, piano (occasionally tracked with a baby on his lap), brass, tablecloth swipes, and a quickly-cranked half-speed music box. He was assisted by long-time Half-handed Cloud contributor Brandon Buckner on drums, and single song backing vocals from Anacortes, WA songsmith John Van Deusen.

    TRACK LISTING

    Bustin' Stronghodes
    Trickmonks
    Swallowing The Water You Walk On
    Can Shadows Praise You?
    The Netherworld Squints At The Sight Of
    You
    Trick Leash
    Anamnesis
    Asking For Fish
    I'm The Weakest Link
    Under Your Breath
    Handles 01:52
    What's Illumined Becomes Visible
    Someone You Can Use
    About Face
    Periodically Yours
    We Won't Survive This
    Project Yourself Alive Onto My Corpse
    We Belong To You, But How Now Is Soon?

    Following on from Volume 1 (featuring Munch Munch; Gay Against You; Lonely Ghosts; The Tumbledown Estate) comes OIB Records Split Series Volume. Limited to just 450 copies worldwide, with reversible gatefold sleeves, inserts, and one-inch badges. Features the following tracks:
    - SJ Esau: "Part of a Diagram". Hot off the heels of his second album proper for Anticon comes the new SJ Esau recording "Part of a Diagram". In just three and a half minutes SJ Esau delivers driving guitar riffs, hypnotic drum rhythms, multi-layered off-kilter chanting, and delicate piano, all wrapped around his distinctive yet humble vocal delivery.
    - Half-Handed Cloud: "When Overwhelmed With Dread". Marking his first release since the "Winding Currents On A Spool EP" in 2007, "When Overwhelmed With Dread" is Half-Handed Cloud at his absolute finest. John Ringhofer aka Half-Handed Cloud offers up a musically complex and joyful avant-pop track that's as thought-provoking as it is exciting. Half-Handed Cloud also plays in Danielson and Sufjan Steven's Illinoisemakers
    - Suburban Kids With Biblical Names: "God Save Roger Nichols". After a way too long hiatus, Sweden's finest electro-twee-pop outfit are back with the four minute pop opus "God Save Roger Nichols".
    - Kopek: "The Way You Are". Following their debut self-release "Lost At Sea EP", Kopek release "The Way You Are", a heart-warming two minute pop masterpiece.


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