Ever since haters started hating in the early 00s, there’s been more than enough music to hate, from Funeral to King of the Beach to Random Access Memories. You name it, that album is terrible and I hate it. But today, a different kind of album has been announced; it may in fact be decent, and not something to trash in public. C. Spencer Yeh, Okkyung Lee, and Lasse Marhaug announced an album called Wake Up Awesome, and with its crazy free-form collaborative energy there’s simply too much mental energy required to categorize and hate it properly. The album is the second release in Software’s SSTUDIOS series of collaborations, following up Daniel Lopatin and Tim Hecker’s Instrumental Tourist (TMT Review) last year, and it uses those same rules of improvisation to yield wholly unpredictable, cracked group-speak, interlocking micro-sounds… and belly laughs!
Yeh is best known for voice/violin, Lee for cello, and Marhaug for contact-mic noise, but all three are wide-open improvisers interested in trying anything out at least once (I own a Yeh/Marhaug 7-inch where they seem to just be smacking around wooden chairs), so expect a wide assortment of sounds and audio events, both off-the-top and pre-planned/cut-up. Listen to a little preview of album tracks “Throw Down the Fishcake” and “Anise Tongue and Durian Wet Dream” below, then check the tracklist, then get outta here before I kick yr ass.
Wake Up Awesome tracklist:
01. Wake Up Awesome
02. Hairslide
03. The Mermen of Poetry
04. Ophelia Gimme Shelter
05. The Mermaids of Extended Technique
06. Magic Seagull Lamp
07. Mission: Lazy
08. Mission: Nothing
09. Throw Down the Fishcake
10. Neutrons Whatever
11. Serious Cat’s Milk
12. Anise Tongue and Durian Wet Dream
13. Mission: Possible
14. RSVP Skunk
15. Tonight We Sleep Like Empty Hard Drives
Wake Up Awesome is out November 19 via Software and is up for preorder here.
• C. Spencer Yeh: http://www.dronedisco.com
• Okkyung Lee: https://www.facebook.com/okkyung.lee.music.page
• Lasse Marhaug: http://marhaugforlag.no
• Software: http://softwarelabel.net
More about: C. Spencer Yeh, Lasse Marhaug, Okkyung Lee
