I remember studying the solar system in elementary school, circa third or fourth grade, maybe. I remember the project — the one where we each chose a planet and researched the hell out of it, then painted a few Styrofoam balls and stuck them in a shadow box. Something along those lines. Of course, for the sake of fairness (I suppose), we couldn’t choose our own planets. We had to draw slips of paper from a bowl. I drew Mars. Fuck Mars. It’s just close to Earth and was maybe at one point inhabitable. Lame.
Neptune’s rad, though. Homemade instruments, drum feedback, interrupted radio broadcasts and the like. I’m talking about the band, not the planet, in case you didn’t catch that abrupt subject switcheroo — but you never know, maybe they play electric collage songs out in space too. Since 1994, Neptune have worked with a variety of lineups — the latest includes Jason Sanford, Mark Pearson, and Kevin Micka — and experimented with discarded materials and found noises to create a surreal sound, perhaps fast-forwarding to the year 2845. On March 13, they’ll release their 10th LP titled msg rcvd via Northern Spy Records. Just a regular release, nothing beamed down from space. They’re touring too, but it looks like they’ll be skipping extraterrestrial venues. Just zooming through Europe. Bummer.
msg rcvd tracklist:
01. luminous skull
02. dark report
03. rpr
04. natural systems
05. negative reversal
06. dstl sgnl
Dates:
02.24.12 - Brooklyn, NY - 285 Kent #
03.07.12 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Occii
03.08.12 - Utrecht, Netherlands - dB’s Studio Time
03.09.12 - Kortrijk, Belgium - De Kreun
03.10.12 - Lille, France - La Malterie
03.11.12 - Paris, France - Batofar
03.15.12 - Nantes, France - University of Nantes (Pôle Etudiant)
03.16.12 - Allonnes, France - L’excelsior (Péniche Excelsior)
03.17.12 - San Sabastian, Spain - MOGAMBO
03.18.12 - Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain - Ibu Hots
03.19.12 - Madrid, Spain - Rock Palace Time
03.20.12 - Barcelona, Spain - Moog
03.21.12 - Pau, France - La Centrifugeuse studio-scène de la Maison de l’Etudiant
03.23.12 - Marseille, France - L’Embobineuse
03.24.12 - Clermont Ferrand, France - Chez Raymond
03.25.12 - Toulouse, France - Emergence
03.28.12 - Lyon, France - Sonic Lyon
03.29.12 - Torino, Italy - Cripta747
03.30.12 - Lausanne, Switzerland - Le Bourg
03.31.12 - Strasbourg, France - Stimultania
04.03.12 - Berlin, Germany - Marie-Antonette
04.05.12 - Brussels, Belgium - magasin4
04.06.12- Den Haag, Netherlands - 330 Live
#Parts & Labor, Oneida, Noveller
• Neptune: http://www.neptuneband.com
• Northern Spy: http://northern-spy.com
[Photo: Bill T. Miller]
