Once again reminding you that I am going to be spinning records at the Bottle tonight (Monday the 21st of September) with Hélène Barbier, National Photo Committee and Answering Machines on stage. Just me in between, fore and aft. Free show, will start playing music at 8pm or so and you can sidle up to the bar, and maybe Peg will cross your path if you’re lucky. No venue has a better cat than Peg.

Only tell your friends about what you read here. That way it can be just for us, an unspoken trust — a commitment. Send them along if you like, tell them why it’s better if you get past the subscribe and into the whole thing. Especially since I had car trouble and I need to get it out of the garage. You have 500 friends who would pay $3 for this newsletter, right? tugs collar

Records like these should come to PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625 USA // [email protected].

MICK KELLY Kismet LP (JABS)

Expectations quickly fall away as the methods tighten up across this solo effort by one Wren Kriszten, f/k/a a member of Jane Doe Ensemble (who sent in a 7” years back that was honestly one of the last Still Single records I got/got to, actual independencies sending me their work the way it used to come in) – thought I was in for a singer-songwritten exploration across the first few songs, until the method of Kismet comes to bear. Low-slung sequencer/drum machine, loop pedals, sampler and guitar, treated vocals and electronics build this durable ground floor for the repetition of riffs and oscillations, clearly strummed and tight in the sort of Magic Eye sense that a third path might appear at any time. Hearing My Pit 4 trk wobble, hearing what would’ve constituted a backing track for Luxurious Bags, hearing flaws and pocks and tilts amid the attempt to match a beat with whatever’s playing on this actual, for-real, significant late night zoner. From about the middle of “Your Anger Is What Protects You” right on up to the end of the album, with “Good Grief” one of the better pronouncements of nights given to the fear, not unlike Sandra Bell’s Dreams of Falling and setting stage for the rest of it. I’d hurry up and check this out were I you. Once this gets figured out it’s gonna be gone (and Wren’s write up of the philosophy of his art ... for it, essentially, to disappear ... is at odds with the mind massage this record’s giving). I’ll choose to remember it imperfectly.

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