At home, I’ve been playing around a little bit with my new Anniversary Ringmat 330 replacement platter mat for my Rega P3-24 turntable. However, I haven’t been in the best mood for comparative listening sessions—I came home from work with
a headache the last two nights, and I’ve
still been suffering from some post-static stress disorder (
PSSD) while playing LPs—so I’m not ready to make any value judgments.
This isn’t the best time for inserting new variables into the system.
I did receive the latest LP from
Not Not Fun Records, a split 12-inch featuring Psychic Reality and LA Vampires. Not Not Fun continues to be one of my favorite labels, releasing interesting work from young artists primarily situated in the psychedelic/noise/ambient/free realm. And, you know what’s awesome about Not Not Fun? Besides
everything? When you place an order with them, they almost invariably send you cool bonus surprises. Lagniappe! Like an old album art transparency, or a loose LP label, or a limited edition CD-R, or a leftover liner insert scrawled across the back with the tallies from a card or dice game. Which is totally
not not fun. I love it. I will order from them forever and ever, amen.
The Psychic Reality/LA Vampires split is an edition of 450 with alluring (sort of frightening, yet completely sexy) album art and similarly alluring, frightening, and sexy sounds. Psychic Reality is San Francisco’s Leyna Noel tapping the keys and dropping the beats and letting loose charming melodies through a white-hot mic. I’m reminded of US Girls and Best Coast and weirder shit from the 60s like Anita O’Day on acid. I like it. LA Vampires is even hazier, with dubbed-out rhythms, eerie clicks and clacks, shadowy jazz elements—is that a guitar or is it a trombone?—and intoxicated mantras, slurred more than sung. Psychic Reality and LA Vampires will be touring together throughout the year, and I’m looking forward to their stop in New York City this May. Future LA Vampires collaborations with Sun Araw and
Zola Jesus also look promising.
In the office, we’re getting close to the wire with the May issue. I’m proofreading stuff and making a mess with my red pen. On the road, John Atkinson, Michael Fremer, and Jason Victor Serinus are covering the events at Jacksonville’s
AXPONA. That stands for Audio Expo North America. The show opens to the public tomorrow at 1, so let’s look forward to exciting audio news from Florida.
