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2LP
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KR 108LP
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Repressed; First ever, remastered vinyl version. The core duo plus guest collaborators expands its sonic palette of Rick Brown's elemental percussive patterns and Che Chen's ecstatic modal guitar style to a new musical richness. With some tape releases and their first album Wooden Bag, 75 Dollar Bill quickly introduced themselves as one of the hottest, most unique and essential groups at the heart of NYC's underground -- the following Wood/Metal/Plastic Pattern/Rhythm/Rock (GB 047CD, 2016) made the duo known internationally, and the 2019 double vinyl I Was Real (TW Q-LP) turned out a major success at the critics and audience alike with the #1 spot in The Wire's albums of the year list. Then came the pandemic, and in lack of opportunities to actually perform in public, the core duo of Rick Brown and Che Chen released several Bandcamp only albums in digital format, one of these being Power Failures. Brown's elemental percussive patterns (often simply played on a wooden box) and Che Chen's ecstatic modal guitar style (often under the influence of his studies with Mauritanian guitarist Jeich Ould Chigaly) are at the core of the tracks with guest collaborators like Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan (guitar), Sue Garner (violin), or Steve Maing (saxophone, guitar) expanding the sonic palette to a new musical richness. Trance-inducing psychedelia, "placeless, gripping grooves" (The Guardian), collaged rehearsal and field recordings, mantric percussion, microtonal guitar sounds -- 75 Dollar Bill sound as deeply rooted in traditions as they sound fresh-of-today, a kind of future music from the past. Hard to grasp by words, and impossible to resist! 180 gram vinyl; gatefold; includes download card.
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LP
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OTHER 016LP
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2024 restock. "Wooden Bag is 75 Dollar Bill's debut record on the Other Music Recording Company label. Originally released in January of 2015, our limited vinyl debut, Wooden Bag, followed various cassette and digital EPs, and quickly sold out. Now back in print from new lacquers cut at Chicago Mastering and manufactured at Memphis Record Pressing, this re-release sounds and looks fantastic. A must-have for fans both old and new, the LP comes packaged in a custom 'disco sleeve,' which reproduces the original's hand-stamped art, and includes a download card." "The album's seven gyrating, hypnotic dances feature maracas, shakers and homemade-horn -- accented guitarscapes; imagine Yo La Tengo but with Indian music rather than the Velvets as prime inspiration." --Brad Cohan / Time Out New York
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2LP
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TW Q-LP
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2023 restock. #1 2019 Album of the year in The Wire magazine! 75 Dollar Bill is one of the essential groups at the heart of NYC's underground. Driven by the telepathic union of Che Chen's microtonal electric guitar and Rick Brown's odd metered percussion their long-form sound is unmistakable and compelling. On their third album I Was Real, the group expands in bold new directions, embracing brilliant fuller orchestrations, joyous rockers and entrancing new textures. Having emerged as a vibrant musical force with their previous effort -- with Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock (GB 047CD, TW J CS/LP, 2016) -- 75 Dollar Bill have spent the last few years bringing their music to new places and people, delivering what NYC locals have known for years, with their dedication to performance in venues of all shapes and sizes. The fruits of this work can be heard here on their expansive new double-LP I Was Real. The album, its title's origin a jumbled misremembering of the lesser-known Motown song "He Was Really Saying Something", is 75 Dollar Bill's third, featuring new directions accompanying the band's previously established interest in sprawling, unusual grooves and microtonal melodies. The record is enhanced by the presence of eight additional players in various combinations over its nine tracks -- but also shows off the duo's strength when stripped down to the core. Requiring a variety of approaches, the album was recorded over a four-year period, in four different studios, with the band's closest associates and collaborators in a range of different ensemble configurations. The album also features several "studio as instrument" constructions that harken back to the collage-experiments of the band's early cassette tapes, while at the same time pointing to territories altogether new. The players involved highlight the "social" aspect of the band and the eight guests that appear on the record are some of the band's closest friends and collaborators. Some pieces were conceived in the band's very early days and others are much newer, but the music is unmistakably 75 Dollar Bill. As Steve Gunn said about the previous record: "Strings come in underneath Che Chen's supreme guitar tone. Rick Brown's trance percussion offers a guiding support with bass, strings, and horns supporting the melody. They have gathered all the moving parts perfectly." Double-LP version presented in a heavy tip-on gatefold jacket with textured clothe wrap and matte foil stamping.
Personnel: Rick Brown - plywood crate, hand and foot percussion, crude horns; Che Chen - 6 and 12-string and quarter-tone guitars, percussion; with: Sue Garner - guitar and bass guitar; Cheryl Kingan - alto and baritone saxophones; Andrew Lafkas - contrabass; Karen Waltuch - viola; Jim Pugliese - percussion; Barry Weisblat - signal processing, Casio SK-1; Steven Maing - quarter-tone guitar; Carey Balch - hi-hat.
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Cassette
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TW Q-CS
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sold out; Cassette version. 75 Dollar Bill is one of the essential groups at the heart of NYC's underground. Driven by the telepathic union of Che Chen's microtonal electric guitar and Rick Brown's odd metered percussion their long-form sound is unmistakable and compelling. On their third album I Was Real, the group expands in bold new directions, embracing brilliant fuller orchestrations, joyous rockers and entrancing new textures. Having emerged as a vibrant musical force with their previous effort -- with Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock (GB 047CD, TW J CS/LP, 2016) -- 75 Dollar Bill have spent the last few years bringing their music to new places and people, delivering what NYC locals have known for years, with their dedication to performance in venues of all shapes and sizes. The fruits of this work can be heard here on their expansive new double-LP I Was Real. The album, its title's origin a jumbled misremembering of the lesser-known Motown song "He Was Really Saying Something", is 75 Dollar Bill's third, featuring new directions accompanying the band's previously established interest in sprawling, unusual grooves and microtonal melodies. The record is enhanced by the presence of eight additional players in various combinations over its nine tracks -- but also shows off the duo's strength when stripped down to the core. Requiring a variety of approaches, the album was recorded over a four-year period, in four different studios, with the band's closest associates and collaborators in a range of different ensemble configurations. The album also features several "studio as instrument" constructions that harken back to the collage-experiments of the band's early cassette tapes, while at the same time pointing to territories altogether new. The players involved highlight the "social" aspect of the band and the eight guests that appear on the record are some of the band's closest friends and collaborators. Some pieces were conceived in the band's very early days and others are much newer, but the music is unmistakably 75 Dollar Bill. As Steve Gunn said about the previous record: "Strings come in underneath Che Chen's supreme guitar tone. Rick Brown's trance percussion offers a guiding support with bass, strings, and horns supporting the melody. They have gathered all the moving parts perfectly."
Personnel: Rick Brown - plywood crate, hand and foot percussion, crude horns; Che Chen - 6 and 12-string and quarter-tone guitars, percussion; with: Sue Garner - guitar and bass guitar; Cheryl Kingan - alto and baritone saxophones; Andrew Lafkas - contrabass; Karen Waltuch - viola; Jim Pugliese - percussion; Barry Weisblat - signal processing, Casio SK-1; Steven Maing - quarter-tone guitar; Carey Balch - hi-hat.
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CD
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GB 047CD
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2022 restock; CD release of one of 2016's most acclaimed albums, the first release on Glitterbeat's tak:til imprint. 75 Dollar Bill's second full-length crashed onto many of the year's most prestigious best-of lists, including those of The Wire, Uncut, The Village Voice, and more. The NYC-based duo of Rick Brown and Che Chen creates hypnotic, pulsing music that weaves an ecstatic line from raw electric blues, Arabic modes, and entrancing folk minimalism back to the streets of New York. Notes by Rick Brown: "I feel very lucky to have wound up playing in 75 Dollar Bill with Che. I'll take some credit for the early setup, as I pursued the idea of us jamming together for a few years before we actually made some music together. But when it comes to focusing our sound, putting together a good set-list, imagining how to expand the group with guests and designing almost all of the visual/package aspects, Che has taken the lead. Obviously, he is responsible for his own parts and playing and his interest in the Arabic modes of Mauritanian music has marked our sound quite a bit but I have brought some things, too. The plywood crate I play is a big factor, defining, by its positive qualities (a nice warm 'boom' sound) as well as by its simplicity, what we're likely to do in the percussion realm. WMPPRR, this new record, differs quite a bit from the previous one, notably in the rhythmic 'tone.' Wooden Bag (released in 2015 on Other Music Recording Co.) was all forward momentum, stomping and shaking, but the new record explores a long-standing interest of mine: odd and 'compound' meters. In most of my previous musical activities, I've convinced my partners to delve into this, but in 75 Dollar Bill it has just felt natural and I believe Che's modal investigations and melodic/harmonic tendencies enhance (and are enhanced by) this combination. The current record differs from the last in another big way: reinforcements! Over our few years together, Che and I have frequently had friends play with us at some of our gigs. There have been all sorts of permutations of instruments and some great friends/players who don't all appear on this record but here we are lucky to have a bunch of them: Cheryl Kingan (of The Scene Is Now) on baritone and alto saxes, Andrew Lafkas (of Todd Capp's Mystery Train) on contrabass, Karen Waltuch (of Zeke & Karen) on viola, Rolyn Hu (of True Primes) on trumpet and Carey Balch (of Knoxville's Give Thanks) on floor tom. 75 Dollar Bill's plans for the future involve much more playing with these friends and others in bigger and smaller combos -- as well as me and Che stripped back to the core guitar and crate duo. For the present, though, please enjoy Wood/Metal/Plastic/ Pattern/Rhythm/Rock."
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Cassette
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TW J CS
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sold out; Cassette version. 75 Dollar Bill, a project by Che Chen and Rick Brown present Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock. "Che's interest in the Arabic modes of Mauritanian music has marked our sound quite a bit but I have brought some things, too. The plywood crate I play is a big factor, defining, by its positive qualities (a nice warm 'boom' sound) as well as by its simplicity, what we're likely to do in the percussion realm. Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock, this new record, differs quite a bit from the previous one, notably in the rhythmic 'tone.' Wooden Bag (2015) was all forward momentum, stomping and shaking, but the new record explores a long-standing interest of mine: odd and 'compound' meters. In most of my previous musical activities, I've convinced my partners to delve into this, but in 75 Dollar Bill it has just felt natural and I believe Che's modal investigations and melodic/harmonic tendencies enhance (and are enhanced by) this combination. The current record differs from the last in another big way: reinforcements! Over our few years together, Che and I have frequently had friends play with us at some of our gigs. There have been all sorts of permutations of instruments and some great friends/players who don't all appear on this record but here we are lucky to have a bunch of them: Cheryl Kingan (of The Scene Is Now) on baritone and alto saxes, Andrew Lafkas (of Todd Capp's Mystery Train) on contrabass, Karen Waltuch (of Zeke & Karen) on viola, Rolyn Hu (of True Primes) on trumpet and Carey Balch (of Knoxville's Give Thanks) on floor tom. Please enjoy Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock. 'Earth' saw is one of our earliest tunes and, I think, the first result of this 'compound meter' approach. It's a slow 9 beat phrase Che came up with for this odd groove. 'Beni Said' has no fixed rhythmic cycle but a roughly unison melodic phrase and a pulsing, loose feeling of 3s and 4s played using a box full of bottle caps. 'Cummins Falls' features Carey Balch on Diddley-beat floor tom and me reprising the maracas. 'I'm Not Trying To Wake Up' is another of our compound meter songs, this one using an 18 beat scheme." - Rick Brown
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LP
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TW J LP
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2023 repress! 75 Dollar Bill, a project by Che Chen and Rick Brown present Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock. "Che's interest in the Arabic modes of Mauritanian music has marked our sound quite a bit but I have brought some things, too. The plywood crate I play is a big factor, defining, by its positive qualities (a nice warm 'boom' sound) as well as by its simplicity, what we're likely to do in the percussion realm. Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rok, this new record, differs quite a bit from the previous one, notably in the rhythmic 'tone.' Wooden Bag (2015) was all forward momentum, stomping and shaking, but the new record explores a long-standing interest of mine: odd and 'compound' meters. In most of my previous musical activities, I've convinced my partners to delve into this, but in 75 Dollar Bill it has just felt natural and I believe Che's modal investigations and melodic/harmonic tendencies enhance (and are enhanced by) this combination. The current record differs from the last in another big way: reinforcements! Over our few years together, Che and I have frequently had friends play with us at some of our gigs. There have been all sorts of permutations of instruments and some great friends/players who don't all appear on this record but here we are lucky to have a bunch of them: Cheryl Kingan (of The Scene Is Now) on baritone and alto saxes, Andrew Lafkas (of Todd Capp's Mystery Train) on contrabass, Karen Waltuch
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