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LP
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DIS 196LP
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"Eleven songs by J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines). Recorded at his Baltimore-based studio, The Magpie Cage, between 2021 and 2022 with the assistance of Brooks Harlan (bass), Darren Zentek (drums), Gordon Withers (cello and guitar), John Haggerty (guitar), and Dave Hadley (pedal steel).
'We were all fired up and we did a second session in March 2022. In the interim I enlisted some collaborators: Gordon Withers to add cello and second guitar to a few songs, Janet Morgan and her two sisters to sing some harmonies, Dave Hadley to play pedal steel on 'Not The End,' and Chicago punk legend John Haggerty to add an actual blazing guitar solo to the song 'Exquisite Corpse.' And I went on working on vocals and overdubs at home. The lyrics were (as always) somewhat therapeutical: 'Automaticity' came out of thoughts on aging and remaining present in a world increasingly going on auto-pilot; 'Last War' and 'Dead Eyed God' work out fears prompted by January 6th and the rise of neo-fascism. More personal matters were trying to work themselves out as well. Recurring childhood dreams ('Deception Island'), surrealist games ('Exquisite Corpse'), and trephination guru Amanda Feilding ('Open Mind') were also in the mix. Another result of pandemic isolation was that I had also been working on more abstract, electronic based music (inspired by my love of film soundtracks, Peter Gabriel's music, and by studio work I had done not long ago with the band Locrian), using granular synthesis, sampling, and software synths. So as Basilisk come together, I wanted to see if I could pull those sounds into the flow of the record, open up its vocabulary a little and still make something cohesive.' --J. Robbins"
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