So the artist I thought I had so few words for is here in my tape deck again, meaning I have to find some more of them somewhere in my brain. That’s because Dura is some damned beautiful ambient drone music, and also Wounded Knife makes one helluva damned nice cassette tape, so I guess I don’t really mind. I love the butterfly booklet here, stitched together with different sized pages and three different stocks of paper including a translucent film for the center mini-spread, and the case itself has an embedded “J-band” thingy that is also printed. Coupled with the design, Wounded Knife has encased Silver / Lawns with delicacy and grace, which is perfect since those are the two words I’d use to describe Mattson Ogg’s work here exactly. Also I’d use words like warm and sunny and orange and gorgeous — Ogg’s a master at pulling adjectives off the tongue, although verbs don’t come quite as easily. Once each side of the tape starts, you’re there, in this delicate/graceful/warm/sunny/orange/gorgeous place and you stay there. Not that you really need to move or even want to necessarily… if the idea of paradise in heaven for eternity after you’re dead sounds boring, I’d suggest looking into a genre like speed metal. For the rest of us who find magic in the soft clouds of modal stasis, Dura’s about the best thing since whatever Earthly delights you thought were important. (They’re not.) Moving around is for the waking. Go to sleep already! Dream.
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