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LP
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FTR 722LP
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Feeding Tube in collaboration with Ba Da Bing present: "She can be a real pain in the ass," is how Big Blood's Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella describe having their daughter as a member of the band they formed in the wake of Cerberus Shoal's dissolution. A band made up of family seems like an ideal situation. You get to play with those you love, and practicing/recording is always just a matter of going into the next room . . . Quinnissa, who was 13 when First Aid Kit was recorded has skills . . . Quinnisa's voice has developed into an astonishing powerhouse of force. While she has been contributing to Big Blood records almost since birth, First Aid Kit solidifies her clear talent. All her lyrics are improvised in the moment while recording, a real shock to realize considering how insightful and perfectly suited to the song they are. 'Never Ending Nightmare' candidly and perfectly describes the anxieties of being a teenager today. Or the heartache of '1000 Times' . . . Teenage impulses fit right in with the band's intent, which is making music that's honest, inclusive and flawed. Inventiveness in the moment wins out over belabored, repeated takes, as the group is in a constant state of creation. Songs sound fully built and realized, but they actually rise out of improvisation. Big Blood channel the moment and let go once they finish . . . Mulkerin's descriptions of different songs on the record run like faint recalled dreams . . . Many songs touch on the fear and horrors outside a safe home space, fitting for a record made during COVID. They sing about their feelings in the moment, so lyrics are often topical. 'Makes Me Wonder' is about Ma'kihia Bryant, a 16 year-old black girl shot by police. While any fan of the band will tell you that no two albums sound very much alike, First Aid Kit displaying for the first time their affinity for the emotional effects of bands like The Cure, Bauhaus and The Clean, there's a clear thread throughout all their records. First, there's Kinsella's voice, which pivots from upbeat fun to pure dread, presumably based on how she was feeling that day she recorded. Secondly, Mulkerin's production preserves layers of could-have-beens by keeping the ghostly presence of past takes alive in the background of tracks like subliminal thoughts. Their songs achieve the double satisfaction of being immediate, catchy and memorable, while also revealing inner depths at repeated listens. Some of the best experimental music is cloaked as mundane. First Aid Kit was recorded entirely at the family's home onto 1" eight-track tape. It achieves the magic of capturing a moment and making a lasting impression. There aren't many family bands, and there's definitely no other band like this." --Ben Goldberg
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LP
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FTR 672LP
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"Vinylization of the seventh (I think) album by Big Blood on which they are abetted by the Bleedin' Hearts -- Tom Kovacevic and Micah Blue Smaldone (who were Caleb and Colleen's bandmates in Fire On Fire) and Kelly Nesbitt (a Portland-based musician/performance artist.) Not sure if the Bleedin' Hearts ever did anything on their lonesome, but here (serving as a kind of pre-Quinnisa secret weapon) they deliver the goods. Recorded at home in South Portland Maine 'at various times through various means,' this session was originally released on CDR in 2008. For about half the album Big Blood retains its duo/'ghost quartet' profile, with the core participants generating copious gusts of the avant/rural fog that was their early trademark. Tunes range from the 'Graceless Lady' (with tense vocals recalling Nick Cave's 'Weeping Song') to the cracked Americana twangin' of 'Night Lighter.' It also includes idiosyncratic tracks, such as 'Tease It Like a Cop,' pared down to Colleen's treated vocals and piano, and a rare (and beautiful) cover tune -- Syd Barrett's 'Terrapin.' For the other (rough) half of the album, Tom, Micah and Kelly add instruments and voices that fit smoothly with everything else. But their presence provides varieties of additional sonics, veering into areas that actually resemble something like the Beatles' most fully freaked instrumental moments, crossed with the Third Ear Band's soundtrack music for Polanski's Macbeth. It's pretty incredible and 'rollicking' in a totally unorthodox way. All of which makes me think Big Blood should record an album with Van Dyke Parks. Until then, this one's about as close as we'll get to that. And if that don't get your heart beatin', then I'm not sure you have one." --Byron Coley, 2023
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LP
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FTR 671LP
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"Vinylization of what was something like the sixth release by Big Blood, originally issued on cassette and CDR in the year 2008. At the time, Big Blood was still a quartet comprised of two flesh and blood humans, along with their two spirit animals, and the sound here maintains some of the acid-folk-witchiness (ala Comus or early Spires That in the Sunset Rise) that marked the band's pre-Quinnisa era. Recorded at Big Blood's South Portland Maine headquarters during the winter of 2007, the instrumentation is largely acoustic (or at least acoustic sounding) apart from the album's closer, 'Low Gravity Blues,' which is built around a big electric slide riff from frequent guest, Nixsa Polosa. But the blaring guitar and harmonica on that track are more than balanced by the weird-yet-delicate approach to most of the other tunes. Even when tracks get stacked up, the effect is akin to a Dionysian fire pit party you might attend at some super enlightened youth camp. Acoustic guitars lay down thick chorded rhythm patterns, upon which vocals and other instrumental events are piled. The results display a very particular kind of ecstasy, and an approach to open joy that will get deep under your skin. Some of the tunes use banjo and ganged vocals for a futurist/primitive hybridization that resembles a geodesic dome made of twigs and feathers. Others mix bluesy guitar tones with vocals that sound more like bits heisted from a space opera being performed in a cave. There are a lot of textures here, but the shifts between them are subtle and supple. So everything slides into you ear like an old friend playing a trick on you. And that is a good feeling to know. Get it here. Now!" --Byron Coley, 2023
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LP
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FTR 543LP
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Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records bring to you the much-anticipated vinyl pressing of Dark Country Magic from this wonderful Maine trio (Quinnisa making her first intentional effort with "Moo Hoo" on this release). Caleb Mukerin and Colleen Kinsella have been key personages of the Portland sonic underground as members of the cosmically-shifting Cerberus Shoals and the folkily psychedelic Fire on Fire before forming the more personal and hermetic Big Blood back in 2006. The band's multi-phasic discography has thus far reminded people of everything from the Comus to Portishead to Julee Cruise at different moments, yet none of these thumbnails comes close to capturing the intimacy and directness of their recordings where they take things to a higher plane of personal expression. In Dark Country Magic, haunting effects and experimental sounds combine with wailing fuzzed-up garage folk anthems and twisted poetic freak-folk as lyrical layers peel away endlessly, tiny amps weep in pain, crude percussion booms thunderous, and ragged, beautiful hooks unfurl straight out of the void. On "Coming Home Pt.III" Kinsella's quivering bewitching vocals ask you to succumb to the hauntingly melancholic drift while acoustics strum quietly up front before Dark Country Magic's playful closer "Moo-Hoo" where Quinnisa performs a children's story. The combination is head spinning and gloriously original, but will be immediately identifiable as Big Blood by anyone who knows the band's music.
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LP
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FTR 500LP
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2020 repress on neon magenta vinyl. "Wow! Great new LP by the full trio version of Maine's Big Blood. Colleen, Caleb, and Quinnisa are all present and accounted for at every turn on this one! Unlike their last LP, The Daughter's Union (FTR 459LP, 2019) (which seemed like some sort of experiment involving glam-rock-readymades), Do You Wanna? is awash with crazily re-imagined girl group dynamics. Some of these tight-sparkly-dress recreations have a savage teenage authority, but others wiggle more like dreams stolen from the nodes of Julee Cruise, Angelo Badalamenti, or David Lynch. Sometimes there are style-ghosts standing in all the expected places, but none of them are behaving the way we'd expect. But I do not wish to paint the sound here as monochromatic. There are many of Big Blood's classic elements employed with trademark pluck -- witchy patches recalling early Spires That in the Sunset Rise, small balloons filled with glitter & gas-pulses, bubbling pools of pure psychedelic confusion. But the strange sophistication of children wearing Diana Ross masks is something new. And it's such a mesmerizing vision, I find myself paying extra attention to it. But then again, that's just the surface. The lyrics here are of a piece with Big Blood's patented approach of creating surrealist poetry in a rural and arrestingly original American style. Quinissa's newly rampant influence seems to be grounding some of the lyrical imagery in more quotidian scenes ('Insecure Kids,' etc.), but with the parental examples she's afforded on a daily basis, this may just be a phase. But whatever else it is, Do You Wanna? is another amazing spin from Big Blood. And there's even a poster you can pin on your memory board. Talk about your win/win situations!" --Byron Coley, 2020
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LP
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FTR 459LP
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"Recorded a bit before the last Big Blood slab we released -- Operate Spaceship Earth Properly (FTR 385CD/LP, 2018) -- The Daughter's Union represents the true introduction of Caleb and Colleen's daughter, Quinnisa as a full member of Big Blood. The Maine-based duo had been using Quinnisa as their secret hard rock weapon for quite a while, so it is gratifying as heck to see her finally get her due! In their new fully-fledges trio guise, Big Blood puff themselves up like a most splendid glam rock peacock, fairly bursting with readymade-riffs and inspirational high kicking energy bursts. Initially, this can seem a bit odd, given Big Blood's historical appreciation of bizarre folk-derived textural-psych. But heard in the context of their musical evolution, this move appears as just another roost along a trail that involves a whole lot of mountains and woods, with the occasional meadow-based rock festival stirred into the mix. By covering tunes by the Troggs and Silver Apples, Big Blood make it abundantly clear their interests are as far from catholic as their influences. Although it also seems that they are able to successfully transmute even the most thumpy-ass high-heel pumping into a move that is draped in moss and mystery. I can hardly wait to hear their track-by-track cover of Led Zeppelin II. I always thought those songs would sound better sung by an actual woman. Know what I mean?" --Byron Coley, 2019 Edition of 250.
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CD
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FTR 385CD
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"Our last Big Blood release was the idiosyncratic Ant Farm, Colleen and Caleb's collaboration with the late composer Elliott Schwartz, which presented music designed for a museum installation. With Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, Big Blood return to the vast universe of strangeness they explore inside their own skin. Now fully incorporating the vocals and guitar of their daughter Quinnisa (previously a 'secret weapon' unveiled mostly at live shows, as the Dictators once did with Handsome Dick Manitoba), Big Blood sound nutsier and wilder than ever. Spaceship Earth is a massively psychedelic investigation of science fiction, science fact and the mythic spot where they reconcile. Specifically referring to the work of writers such as Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin and Buckminster Fuller, the music mixes the thunder of riff-thuggery with vocals beamed in from planet Comus and beat-slaps equally indebted to the Purple Revolutionary and the Neue Deutsche Welle. The combination is head-spinning and gloriously original but will be immediately identifiable as Big Blood by anyone who knows the band's music. I mean, it's so freaking strange and so freaking Maine, who else could it be?" --Byron Coley, 2018
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LP
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FTR 385LP
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2018 repress, on splatter vinyl. "Our last Big Blood release was the idiosyncratic Ant Farm, Colleen and Caleb's collaboration with the late composer Elliott Schwartz, which presented music designed for a museum installation. With Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, Big Blood return to the vast universe of strangeness they explore inside their own skin. Now fully incorporating the vocals and guitar of their daughter Quinnisa (previously a 'secret weapon' unveiled mostly at live shows, as the Dictators once did with Handsome Dick Manitoba), Big Blood sound nutsier and wilder than ever. Spaceship Earth is a massively psychedelic investigation of science fiction, science fact and the mythic spot where they reconcile. Specifically referring to the work of writers such as Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin and Buckminster Fuller, the music mixes the thunder of riff-thuggery with vocals beamed in from planet Comus and beat-slaps equally indebted to the Purple Revolutionary and the Neue Deutsche Welle. The combination is head-spinning and gloriously original but will be immediately identifiable as Big Blood by anyone who knows the band's music. I mean, it's so freaking strange and so freaking Maine, who else could it be?" --Byron Coley, 2018
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2LP
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FTR 103LP
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This is only the second proper full-length LP by this Portland Maine-based duo, although there are vast arrays of CD-Rs and split releases littering their wake. After spending time with both the cosmically-shifting Cerberus Shoals and the folkily psychedelic Fire On Fire, Caleb Mukerin and Colleen Kinsella decided to opt for something more personal and hermetic. Thus, we have Big Blood. The band's multi-phasic discography has thus far reminded people of everything from the Pärson Sound to Opal to Portishead at different moments, yet none of these thumbnails comes close to capturing the elegant mystery of their essence. Sometimes electric guitar lines weevil hauntingly in the aether while acoustics strum quietly up front. At other points, muted chimes of freedom push against vocals and cloppety rhythms that recall White Noise's "Making Love Without Sound." Still others vibe early Comus or The Third Ear Band. In all, the scent of smoke hangs as heavy over this record as any we've heard. And friend, we've heard a few. Edition of 500; includes download code.
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