Have a Nice Life - Voids - CASSETTES

Have a Nice Life - Deathconsciousness [CASSETTES] date 12/17/2021

The Jazz Raj is a Jonas Hellborg trio recording continuing his collaboration with guitarist Mattias 'IA' Eklundh and introducing drummer Ranjit Barot. The music is seamlessly bonding Western and Indian improvised music while avoiding the stylistic clichés that are so often the pitfalls of this type of music. The Jazz Raj continues the tradition of the bass/drums/guitar trios that Hellborg has been fronting for more than 2 decades featuring wonderful musicians such as Shawn Lane, Buckethead, Michael Shrieve and Jeff Sipe. The tracks on the record are two half hour extended compositions with sections interrelated thematically using western interpretation of Indian Ragas. It is a genre defying work, it is Jazz Metal and Indian music but primarily music for the pleasure of listening.

With the broader adoption of the internet around the turn of the century, how people would engage with and discover underground music would change forever. As a result of the new digital era, DIY was now worldwide, and no band embraced this new frontier better than Have a Nice Life. Formed in 2000 by duo Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga, the Middletown, CT-based pair would, throughout the 00s, self- and share a number of demos and home recordings via early social media channels as well as establish it's in-house tag Enemies List Home Recordings. These first steps set in motion Have a Nice Life's rise to renown as an icon of underground music in the internet age, culminating with the of it's pivotal 2008 debut album, Deathconsciousness. Through word of mouth and online discussion, Deathconsciousness became subject to viral praise thanks to it's synthesis of bleak post-punk, lo-fi shoegaze, and carpets of hypnotic drone music. Eventually, this humble self-released project would attain the status of a post-internet cult classic, amassing Have a Nice Life a fervent online following that the band would interact with in kind. In an effort to thank and continue to engage with Have a Nice Life's internet cult following, Barrett and Macuga would regularly share links to old demos, works in progress, and outtakes from the recording of Deathconsciousness. Over time, a group of fans would compile these demos into an unofficial . Dubbed Voids, this fan-made compilation several alternate takes of tracks from Deathconsciousness, as well as a handful of early versions of songs that would appear on Have a Nice Life's two following albums, The Unnatural World and Sea Of Worry. Fans swarmed around this compilation, accompanied by loud calls for it to receive a physical . A tape pressing of Voids would be released via Music Ruins Lives, a DIY tag run by Have a Nice Life superfan Thom Wasl