It’s a story as old as time: Boy starts radio show that spawns a podcast that spawns a record label that spawns a feature in the local press. It’s crazy to think that all this spawning is just a part of our collective unconscious in these troubled times, but it really is. So, when I tell you that Dave Perron of the weekly Free Form Freakout radio show and the bi-monthly FFFoxy Podcast has started a record label up in Mankato, you’ll probably think to yourself, “Ah yes, the cycle of spawning continues unabated.” And of course, you will be correct (like always). If you’re not familiar with the podcast or the radio show, you can peep old playlists here. Along with his radio co-host Carl Nordmeier, Perron is always swinging back and forth between the fringe and the center, populating the show with an odd assortment of jams new and old; one week you can hear The Rolling Stones, another Tashi Dorji.
The label’s called Round Bale Recordings, and its first release — Tilth’s Country Music — is already available in a limited run of 150 LPs (and the first 50 orders come with a special bonus of Backwoods Runoff, containing five tracks of bonus material culled from rehearsals, demos, and the like). Tilth, whose 2013 debut Angular Music molded a minimalist path out of the sonics of Americana into a looser structure, was initially a duo of Cody Yantis and Nathan McLaughlin. Country Music adds long-time collaborator Joe Houpert to the band, mostly on percussion, adding a more rhythmic texture to the busted reel-to-reel guitar sounds of Angular Music.
Listen to “Praire Waltz” and “Parcels of Earth” off the album below.
• Tilth: http://www.tilth-music.com
• Round Bale Recordings: http://www.freeformfreakout.com/round-bale-recordings
• Free Form Freakout: http://www.freeformfreakout.com