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CD
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K 097CD
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Chik White is the moniker of Darcy Spidle, jaw harpist, tape collagist, non-institutional locally-sourced field recordist, and founder of the OBEY Convention festival. Spidle was part of the Canadian crust-punk scene in his younger years, but he eventually evolved towards more adventurous sides of music. In 2009, after obtaining a collection of jaw harps, his musical output took its most dramatic turn. Since then, he has released a string of tapes and records on seminal underground labels like Feeding Tube and Chocolate Monk. His latest release, Guts Magnet Sea, is a commissioned album for the Braublff (materie und laut) series; it collects 12 new pieces. The main core was captured during walks to an islet close to Spidle's home. He taped environmental sounds and himself playing the harp aloud. Then, the tapes were thrown into the ocean, becoming co-author for his micro-compositions. The salt disintegrated the magnetic tape and added burbling and grunting noises to the original recordings. As such, the pieces deal with questions of authorship and ownership. The disintegrated pieces are paired to compositions in which the jaw harp acts as a tool to unleash Spidle's inner body sound. A jaw harp is macabre at its core, as it can only produce sound through the cavernous skull. Chik White uses the instrument to jam with the landscape and weather, holding open a discussion between outsider and outside. Spidle's music is a proposition to see culture as a brutal and vital engagement between humans and the natural world, rather than seeing it as an artificial division. At its core, one can hear a humble disposition for humankind, a provisory act in the complex cycle of destruction and rebirth by nature. Jewel case and fold-out insert with exclusive interview and essay by Spidle.
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LP
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FTR 363LP
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"Over the past few years, we started hearing solo jaw harp cassettes by a Canadian musician who called himself Chik White. Some of them were straight-forward somewhat-folky blasts of righteousness, others used studio effects to emphasize the psychedelic qualities of the instrument (or so it seemed), and others were nature-based explorations of the jaw harp's drone possibilities. Heard individually they were striking, but listened to as a group, they went way beyond that. We got in touch with Chik (the soubriquet for Darcy Spidle when he's playing in this format) and suggested doing an LP that would provide a thorough overview of the work he's done thus far. He sent tapes of material that had been out previously, as well as a bunch of never-before-heard work, and we dove straight in. Stranger Calls To Land is the quite amazing result. The jaw harp is such an ancient, basic and humanistic instrument it has a strangely organic quality no matter how it's played. But many of Chik White's sessions take this essential element in extreme directions. This is particularly true for the two tracks we lifted from Raft Recordings From Economy (Notice Recordings MC, 2017), which was taped while floating on a homemade raft-cum-instrument in the Bay of Fundy. The sound, the concept, the whole gestalt of this project defy logic so utterly we've found it impossible to not be swept along by the waves, the wind and the weirdness of the entire process. While operating in Spidle mode, Darcy played in punk bands, ran the Divorce record label and founded the annual OBEY Convention up in Halifax. But we like to think his heart belongs to Chik White. There is, after all, something ineffable about a man and a jaw harp. If you don't agree after giving this LP a spin, we will eat a shoe. And that's not something we ever plan to do." --Byron Coley, 2017 Edition of 250.
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