What exactly is the appeal of vinyl pops and cellophane scratches? Many would describe vinyl and film as possessing a certain warmth, a humanity even, but what does this really mean? Is it that the sounds are easier on the ears, the scenes a smoother sight? Or is it that the pops and scratches represent traces of past ownership? Maybe what we enjoy most about used media artifacts isn’t the pops and scratches themselves, but the dust and nail particles that cause them. Maybe what we’re attached to is just the detritus of strangers.
It’s a scary but friendly thought, and one that pervades Detroit-based producer Apollo Brown’s Cigarette Burns EP. Cigarette burns, as you might know from Fight Club, are the cue marks placed on film prints in order to alert the projectionist that the reel is ending. “Cigarette Burns” is also the title of a John Carpenter-directed episode of Masters of Horror. Anyway, in this case, the cigarette burns are three dirty, dusty tracks taken from Apollo’s upcoming Thirty Eight (.38) album, which is being described as an “Original Instrumental Soundtrack for an early 80s technicolor cop show that might have made HBO” and “an expansive cinematic composition for the theatre of your mind.”
Sample the goods below and in doing so, inhale the digital dust specks of Thirty Eight (.38), dropping on CD, cassette tape and 180 gram LP April 29.
• Apollo Brown: http://apollobrown.bandcamp.com
• Mello Music Group: http://www.mellomusicgroup.com
More about: Apollo Brown
