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LP
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FTR 236LP
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2024 repress! Gary Wilson's monumental 1977 LP reissued with a glamorously shiny foil cover bearing the original cover art (care of Owen Maercks's well-loved copy), delicately laid out by Scott Allison. Which makes it, perhaps, the last copy you'll ever need. You Think You Really Know Me (also the title of Michael Wolk's 2005 documentary about Wilson) was Wilson's second LP, but the first he recorded as a vocalist, hewing to his own bizarre vision -- a syncretic collision of romance, new wave cocktail jazz, heartbreak, disco porn-soundtrack music, and experimental tape manipulation. Home-recorded in Endicott, NY, the album found a few fans when released, but subsequently became the exclusive purview of record collectors and the women who tolerate them. Beck namechecked Wilson in 1996, which made a few new people scratch their heads. And the album was reissued in 2002. Rediscovery followed, and records, the documentary, and some odd live shows. Most of Wilson's moves are stamped with his unique aesthetic, and are also documented on other three recommended Feeding Tube LPs -- Lisa Wants to Talk to You (FTR 081LP), Forgotten Lovers (FTR 065LP), and Music for Piano (FTR 192LP). But as bodacious as these three albums are, the real root of Wilson's muse is most obvious on You Think You Really Know Me. It is the sound of a 23-year old oddball from upstate New York wrestling with his demons and actually winning. There's nothing quite like it. And it offers a story of hope to every weirdo who hears it. Hallelujah!
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LP
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FTR 192LP
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"Although it might sound perverse to say so, Music for Piano may well be my favorite Gary Wilson record. Most people who dig Wilson are very into his lyrics, but I actually find them to be a bit taxing after a while. Those early records all sound and feel amazing, but what I really wanted was to hear the music without the words. I had high hopes when I found a copy of Another Galaxy, the 1974 Gary Wilson Trio LP, but it had a very different heft than that which Gary displayed on You Think You Really Know Me. It was really just a jazz LP. Well, here's some instrumental material from the same mid-late '70s time frame as You Think, and it's pretty amazing. There's one side of classic youthful piano destruction by Gary and the late Vince Rossi (one of Gary's most dependable collusionists). And the second side has five shorter tracks with a trio, that moves like oddball soundtrack music from '70s exploitation cinema (which is exactly what I'd hoped Another Galaxy would be like), before ending with the vocal track 'I Love Gary' -- as maniacally collapsed a 'pop song' construct as anyone could hope for. It's a great record. A bit more overtly avant than the other three GW LPs we've done. But surely you can handle that." --Byron Coley, 2015
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LP
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FTR 081LP
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Vinyl actualization of a Gary Wilson album originally released on CD in 2008. The second of Feeding Tube's Wilson retrievals (following 2011's Forgotten Lovers, FTR 065LP), the label considers this the most solid of Gary's post-revival albums. While it goes in a slightly different musical direction than the deranged porn-lounge inventions of You Think You Really Know Me (the classic '77 LP, heisted in toto by Beck during his Odelay phase), the naif-ache of the lyrics and the music's laid-back bowling-alley-funk-thrust reveal unending vistas of pure pleasure. Wilson's vision and performance approach are absolutely personal and shockingly naked. Like other true outsider artists (from the Shaggs to Daniel Johnston), it's possible to sometimes wonder what the hell Gary is up to, but the raw sincerity of his yearning is never at doubt. As with all his best work, Lisa Wants to Talk to You is about women. How they walk, how they sound, how they smell, how they can break your goddamn heart. A fellow and/or a gal could learn a lot by dancing quietly alone in the dark to this record. Saved from the digital graveyard by your friends at Feeding Tube, it's time to prepare yourself for another small miracle. So do it. Limited edition of 500, with a dazzling cover by Ted Lee. Includes mp3 download code.
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