Whettman Chelmets breathes NEW LIFE into OLD MUSIC. That’s what Doesn’t Remember… sort of promises, or at least suggests. See, ol’ Whettman — a Joplin, Missouri, multi-instrumentalist – had these tapes lying around that he’d recorded at home between 1999 and 2003, and he decided to pull them out and take another listen to them. (This is around the same time that I gave up on music after performing in numerous indie rock bands indebted to Pavement, Pixies, and Sonic Youth, all of which annoyingly fell apart. But this isn’t about me.) He liked what he heard just enough that he decided to use them as the source material for this here new tape.
So it’s, like, all brand new now.
Does Whettman (which I always pronounce “Hwhettman” when saying aloud) recall the genesis of this material? We’re talking sixteen to twenty years ago here — is his memory as crisp and razor sharp as that of the eager youth he perhaps once was? Are the circumstances surrounding these recordings as hazy as the ambience pouring from the guitar and synths and what have you? Is the mind, in general, the equivalent of a blown-out speaker, gradually decaying over time until all you have left to piece together are sun-damaged and timeworn memories that sort of fit together but don’t resemble anything that actually happened? And is that necessarily a bad thing — memory creating beauty out of the mental artifacts that still remain?
Oh right — the title. Whettman doesn’t remember. But still, here’s the beauty of the past, stitched together with technology, presented for audio consumption.
Lovely pairing with Strategic Tape Reserve here. Great label.
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