Ladies and gentlemen, Derek Rogers, since 2008:
Cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, CDr, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, CDr, CDr, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, 3-inch CDr (ooooOOOOooo!), CDr, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, CDr, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette, cassette. And now, as of Wendesday June 13th, 2012, we have vinyl.
Yes, the list of tapes and CDs above is massive (that’s no less than 40 releases in less than four years), and many including myself have only had the chance to listen to but a fraction of Rogers’ output thus far. Still, the move to wax marks a very grand occasion for this particular purveyor of drone, and this video preview for Saturations (magnificently put together by TMT’s own Lee Noble) ushers in the Greenup Industries release with humbling aplomb, announcing the vinyl as especially important somehow.
The music features waves of shimmering, trembling ambience beneath a seance of singing strings (generously bowed by collaborator Petra Kelly). The visuals really add to the piece’s overall impact with the camera’s slight unsteadiness and woozy, dream-like qualities making for a nice match to the music’s shy, transcendental beauty. Also, word on the street is that the video has the mausoleum from the 1979 flick PHANTASM in it. (Anybody…? Okay, I haven’t seen it, but that detail seemed important enough to mention.) Anyway, Rogers and Noble give the lifeless so much life here, taking on stationary objectivity and packing it with the emotive locomotion of a million love-of-your-life breakups happening simultaneously, all the while staying ingeniously subtle.
Have I reviewed this yet? Here’s the review: “Linear Truths” is gorgeous.
• Derek Rogers: http://derekrogers.bandcamp.com
• Greenup Industries: http://greenupindustries.com