Often the conversations we have around music can center so much on artists and bands working in, or attempting to master, recognizable forms — to program the best beats, be great at guitar, pull perfect samples — that it can obscure the vast world beyond this way of cataloging music: the world of folks still seeking (or inventing) new stuff to hit, pluck, or plug into a wall, in the process introducing us to sounds not yet imagined. Which is part of what makes I Said No Doctors!, the upcoming compilation dedicated to musicians using “experimental musical instruments,” such a pleasure: at two LPs deep, it is a highly stacked tour of musicians discovering all sorts of ways to contribute to (or rip up) the legacy of instrumentation, anchored by such explorers as Dan Deacon, Oval, Jad Fair, and David Grubbs (The Red Krayola, Gastr del Sol).
Leading the way, as they always have, are mad scientist/weirdo oracle Silver Apples (currently captained by founder Simeon Coxe), who appears here with Clinging To a Dream track “The Mist.” We here at Tiny Mix Tapes are proud to premiere the song’s new video, which you may stream below.
The comp was lovingly assembled by Dymaxion Groove labelperson Tom Tolleson, who reflected on his fascination with the Apples to us via email:
I’ve been a fan of Silver Apples for years and saw Simeon Coxe play live in the 90s. Watching him play the oscillators of the instrument… how strange the thing sounded… really floored me. He describes it as “a work in progress. A changing array of oscillators and sampled oscillator sounds run through triggers and an ever changing array of effects circuits and pedals.” He adjusts it to each tour based on the material he’s performing. I found out Simeon lives in the same small town as my uncle and I reached out to him to see if he’d join the record. As otherworldly as The Simeon instrument is, its namesake is a really down-to-earth great guy.
Summing up the ambitions of his project more generally, Tolleson explains that he “didn’t want to have a theme for the record that was too defined. I didn’t want to police everyone. At the end of it, this double LP has so much variety and so many artists working in their own unique way it just sort took on a life of its own the way the instruments do.”
I Said No Doctors! will be available January 20. The record is currently available to pre-order through Dymaxion Groove (and in a pretty awesome three color vinyl limited edition, to boot — get it while it’s fresh).
I Said No Doctors! tracklist:
01. Silver Apples “The Mist”
02. Dan Deacon “Opal Toad Segment”
03. Tom Tolleson “Kosciuszko”
04. Jason Willett “And I Mean It”
05. Bismuth “Cola Kid”
06. Senyawa “Anak Kijang”
07. David Grubbs “Awkward Silences I Have Known”
08. GOTHgsb “The Interconvertible Three”
09. String Noise “Parallel Noise Construction”
10. Jad Fair “Big Boots”
11. Oval “ISND”
12. Neil Feather “Ride of the Popcorn Valkyries”
13. Slumberland “Hunting Hunting”
14. Peter B “Deer Biphenyl”