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IN STOCK
01. Baba Stiltz - Intro
02. Baba Stiltz - Big City
03. Baba Stiltz - Sacramento
04. Baba Stiltz - Running to Chris
05. Baba Stiltz - Wild Ride
06. Baba Stiltz - Rodeo
07. Baba Stiltz - Stockholm
ARTIST
TITLE
Paid Testimony: Atlantis Sessions
FORMAT
CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
PPDISC 008CD PPDISC 008CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
2/9/2024

Available for the first time and on CD only, the live sessions of Baba Stiltz second LP Paid Testimony recorded in 2023 at the legendary Atlantis Studios in Stockholm. When he's not writing or recording, Baba Stiltz immerses in fearless fiction by the likes of Denis Johnson and Dodie Bellamy; prose where pedestrian details become transcendent in aggregate and the inner lives of marginal characters are examined as though they were kings. A similar thesis runs through Paid Testimony, the essential second tape of minimalist guitar music from the Filipino-American-Swedish artist. In recent years, Stiltz has made like Lee Hazelwood's Cowboy In Sweden in reverse, making annual pilgrimages from Stockholm to California and reconnecting with his roots via a guitar and a Fostex four-track. He's drawn to the less glamorous corners of the golden state, an observant habitué of unkempt streets and dive bars stretching from LA to Vacaville. It's a long stretch from the jetset techno clubs where Baba originally plied his musical trade, but it's where he finds characters and ideas worth writing about. The characters on Paid Testimony are on the edge and on the run. Surrounded by flawed men with big schemes since childhood, he extrapolates characters who plot bank heists and order milk and vodka in AM hours, the type of confrontation -- prone characters who "say some shit, make everyone uncomfortable and then just split." To focus on the rawness of this document would discount the humor and sympathy with which he treats his characters, not to mention the subtly-psychedelic songwriting recalling David Berman, early Smog, the original indie rock minimalist poets. On the final song, Stiltz looks back on the city that raised him, "Stockholm," referencing "young professionals carelessly living" before adding "I can't say I'm not jealous even though I live my life just like they do." There's an honesty in the small details revealed on Paid Testimony, and a defined sense of place, be it Stockholm, Sacramento or some dim barroom across from the Bank Of America. Baba doesn't quite fit in anywhere. This outsider quality has often been used as a marketing tool, yet here, it lends a writerly aspect to the proceedings, an unreality to the everyday.