Richard Swift - Hex - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Over the weekend of August 21-22, 2010, not long after Damien Jurado and Richard Swift first collaborated to produce Damien's 2010 record, Saint Bartlett, the pair hunkered down with a 4-track recorder and one Coles 4038 ribbon microphone to record a collection of cover songs that run the gamut from John Denver to Chubby Checker to Kraftwerk. The timing was perfect. On Other People's Songs Vol 1, we can see the scaffolding of what would become a creative turning point for the pair - later seen with the of Damien Jurado's Maraqopa, the first record in his Maraqopa trilogy - less than 2 years later. The opening drum hits of InchBe Not So FearfulInch, the falsetto vocals of InchSweetnessInch, and the Spaghetti-Western swing of InchRadioactivityInch are, by now, hallmarks of the Jurado/Swift sound, but Other People's Songs Vol 1 is a transitional fossil, a marking of the pair's collaborative evolution.

Whenever Gustav Mahler spoke of Beethoven, he did so with an air of reverence InchAmong poets and composers of more recent times we can, perhaps, name but three Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Wagner.Inch And yet, Mahler the conductor considered Beethoven's scores primarily a challenge; material that needed adapting and adopting to the orchestras and concert halls of his time. Richard Wagner had already prepared Beethoven's scores and written about it in great detail. The balance of sound of the classical orchestra was off, and a return to previous states was out of the question, given the increased size of the concert halls. People knew of their existence, but it was not until 1927 that Erwin Stein, the composer, pianist, and music journalist active in Schoenberg's circles, was able to report that all of Mahler's conductor's scores, replete with his InchRetuschenInch (retouchings), had in fact survived.

Double EP love affair with old rock 'n' roll to satiate fans and intrigue the uninitiated while he works on the follow-up to 2007's critically acclaimed debut full-length InchDressed Up for the LetdownInch. Vinyl comes pressed with good vibes while the CD comes in awesome InchAt BudokanInch-style double wide fatty jewel cases, tailor made for the kid in US who still likes a little weight between our fingers.