Bucking the trend to create a crazy vinyl pressing for the increasingly controversial Record Store Day, that gloriously demented balladeer Slim Twig graced April 20 (a.k.a. 4/20, the stoner version of St. Patrick’s Day) with a special 7-inch. DFA even priced it at $4.20, just in case the other clues weren’t enough. Included with the vinyl in what looks like a typewritten letter, Twig announces his next album to be released later in 2015, saying his vision was to engineer its songs in a way that graces listeners with the feeling of being high without literally being high — although actually being high wouldn’t hurt.
Twig explains: “My forthcoming album is the kind of record that will ripen under the enhancement of your imagination. It is my hope that by imbibing the substance of this ‘Cannabis’ 7” you will find yourself in exactly the condition to appreciate what I’ve rolled up next.”
He also notes that his cover of the Serge Gainsbourg/Jean-Claude Vannier classic “Cannabis” is not necessarily indicative of the processes he is employing to create the material for his next opus, but it is imbued with a certain ineffable quality. The song is kind of a Pachelbel’s Canon progression teased out with layers of the heaviest fuzz-guitar riffs drifting foggily over sluggish drums, peaking with sexy saxophone, psychedelic synths, and the elating “Great Gig in the Sky” vocals of U.S. Girls. It’s highly evocative and evocatively high, yet the instrumental could easily be played for the right kind of wedding procession.
Meanwhile, the B-side is a sneak peek into the kind of THC-synesthesia Twig is looking to produce on his next record. It’s an instrumental version of the album cut “Fadeout Killer,” which sounds pretty much like the title suggests: a murky, lo-fi dirge with fuzz guitar, organ, quirky synth, and slowed-down vocals that sounds so wrong, yet feels so right. In fact, it sounds a bit like Primal Scream jamming on a half-speed version of “Come Together” by The Beatles, but it’s really Twig jamming on a half-speed version of the obscure 1974 glam-rock single “Morning Bird” by a band called the Damned (not the famed punk band). In any case, it doesn’t really sound “correct” at any speed, so much so that I spent one entire play of this record trying to adjust the 45 speed on my turntable, with no success, making it oddly addictive in a Situationist kind of way. Lord only knows what the whole album is going to make people do.
• Slim Twig: http://www.slim-twig.com
• DFA: http://www.dfarecords.com
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