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2xCASSETTE BOX
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URA 046CS
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With his flagship project, The Rita, Sam McKinlay has explored and distilled into sound various permutations of obsession and vice for over five lustrums. Though his musical approach has remained more or less consistent, the subject matter inspiring McKinlay's work has periodically shifted through the years, mapping out the constellation of non-musical obsessions that occupy his mind: sharks, drag racing, Giallo cinema, skateboarding, snorkeling, nylons, ballet, and females to name just a few. Frequently, McKinlay utilizes field recordings and other sounds sourced from the objects of interest before encrypting them in an opaque shell of noise. For The Rita, the abstraction and minimalism of the female form has played a major role in the fetishized development of his source sounds and harsh sound manipulations. Eye shadow and eyebrow pencil pushed to raccoon-like limits and nylon stockings have been used repeatedly in past recordings to personally investigate via harsh sound the abstracted qualities of the aesthetics. For this completely new work utilizing aspects of the female as starting point, The Rita picks apart all leg and foot medical taping/bandaging source sounds by Gabi Losoncy. The various portrayals of the invisible woman in popular media and her choice to be wrapped in medical bandage to represent her otherwise invisible bodily form. The taping and bandaging are articulated and applied in such a way to envision the woman's form in a linear fashion, not unlike contour lines on a map. The predatory nature of her invisibility is tightly cloaked in bandage form. Crushingly beautiful, conceptual rich, and patent by a deep sense of emotive tension. Housed in a beautiful deluxe wooden box of seven inch size with laser engraving of original artwork by Sam McKinlay, two doble face black and white press on high-quality natural paper inserts and full colored letterpress postcard with soft touch lamination. Double cassette in a limited edition of 99, hand numbered copies; includes download code.
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CD
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AS 028CD
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Some of the earliest and purest harsh noise wall from the living legend Sam McKinlay. Originally self-released by The Rita in 1998, Living Dead Girl is an essential piece in vast catalog. Violent harsh onslaught with no let down for 30 straight minutes. For fans of extreme noise!
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4CD BOX
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USHI 008CD
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Ten years after its first release in an eight-cassette box in 2009, The Rita's masterpiece The Nylon of Laura Antonelli is reissued on Urashima. Comes in a black wooden box with laser engraving that includes four-CD wallet with full color artwork, original 2009 insert, a foldable color poster, and a certificate numbered in 300 copies.
"Here we have The Nylons of Laura Antonelli, a multi-item release by The Rita, Sam McKinlay. The version you have here is its third issue. This release is the sound of different models of nylon for legs used according to Sam's own purposes. If filled with a spirit of non-literalism, what is 'Laura Antonelli'? Forward movement-wise I think of it as a series of inhibitors of varying volume. You can conceive of silence being the underlying reality on this release, and it allows you to feel each cell of the nylon fabric for what it is, which is basically a player in an offensive line guarding the object, the leg. Each sound could be received as a tiny scrum with the mic or the hand and the nylon. The dimension (paradoxically) is added by the flatness of the nylon. What in forward movement is received as a struggle along tiny cells is properly interpreted when considering both forward movement and thickness of contact as a rappel against the flatness of the nylon. It's each of these things at once continually for the length of the release. It's perfect. The sound and duration are perfect. It's impossible to stop thinking about the paradox I described. Everything I said in the last two paragraphs is everything I feel about The Nylons of Laura Antonelli, excepting the content of this paragraph. When something is perfect and there is a finite amount to say, that's what you say, and this paragraph, where I describe the recordings as being perfect, is also necessary, and terminal. Sound work is unique and necessary and it provides a result that is affectively different from everything else." --Gabrielle Losoncy, 2019
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7xCASSETTE BOX
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URA 030-036CS
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With his flagship project, The Rita, Sam McKinlay has, for nearly two decades, explored and distilled into sound various permutations of fetish and vice. Recognized as the creator of wall noise, McKinlay's conceptual intent and the singular intensity of his focus established something novel and profound. McKinlay's compulsive reverence for noise is a fetish of sound. Frequently, McKinlay utilizes field recordings and other sounds sourced from the objects of interest before encrypting them in an opaque shell of noise. Listening to McKinlay's recordings, it's often difficult to determine whether one actually hears the sounds of the source material or if the power of suggestion is so strong that the listener extracts phantom sounds. In recent years, McKinlay has increasingly focused on the female form, particularly the modes of body augmentation that define classical femininity, such as make up, nylon stockings, etc. The progression of this focus culminated with the most archetypal projection of femininity in Western Culture: the ballerina, her feet, and her pointe shoes. The foot of a woman has long been identified as the most common source of unusual sexual preoccupation. Toe Cleavage is the most comprehensive expression of McKinlay's recent endeavors. For the uninitiated, the term "toe cleavage" refers to the display of the upper portions of toes in low cut shoes -- an essential detail for many shoe designers. Across the seven tapes in this set, McKinlay, through his music, dissects, indulges, illustrates, and worships the feminine foot. To that end, McKinlay worked with Los Angeles based visual artist Olivia Burr and recording artist Kristin Hayter (Lingua Ignota). In addition to photographic contributions, Burr and Hayter provided much of the source material for McKinlay including: dance studio floor recordings; contact mic'd ballet shoes; and the repeated unboxing, unwrapping, trying on, walking in, and re-boxing of various designer shoes (Valentino, Miu Miu, etc.). Adding depth to the overall experience, McKinlay interspersed interludes throughout the recordings featuring audio samples derived from discussions and tutorials about pointe shoes, toe cleavage, and various designer ballet flat and stiletto reviews. This set of recordings is arguably McKinlay's most focused and obsessive effort to date and perfectly embodies the cultivated stylistic traits that have defined his work through the years. Seven-tape set come in a wooden box with a 16-page book, a colored poster, an insert drawn by Sam McKinlay in Ivory paper, and a sheet with notes. Edition of 99 (hand-numbered).
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2LP
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UMA 118LP
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"... From ephemera, from tulle and satin, The Rita has assembled a fantasy woman; a ballerina, a fairy, a sex worker - violently she is animated into existence as a sonic monolith dense and menacing as Richard Serra's looming steel. With the double LP set The Lilac Fairy, The Rita reach an apex of fixation on the dancer's body... The Lilac Fairy records the ritualized construction of a garment, The Lilac Fairy is a costume, a tutu empty of body altogether... The sanctity of ballet as elite aristocratic high art has always been a thinly-veiled facade for blatant eroticism, where women are interchangeable pieces of scenery arranged in colonnades for the pleasure of the male gaze. The Lilac Fairy herself was originally choreographed by Imperial Master Marius Petipa for his unskilled but beautiful daughter Marie as a mime part, but has been modified over the past century to become one of the most taxing characters in the female dancer's repertoire... The Lilac Fairy is a ricochet between fabrication and obliteration, degradation and ritualized exaltation... Only within the noise does she ascend, within the inimitable walls of The Rita that choke every frequency, devour all and drown all, shatter every object. Everything is reduced to geometry, a cello attempts to accompany and is pulverized. Within the abstraction of harsh noise, The Rita simultaneously brings to life and annihilates the total fetish object, and in this performance of gestures she is elevated to the realm of non-objectivity, the Black Square of Malevich, Vessel and Void - pure. Listeners would be wise to note that Sam McKinlay has transcended the trope of the romanticized cult of genius surrounding solitary harsh noise, and The Rita is now half-woman, with the integral presence of Arlie Doyle as both the embodiment of the objectified form/performative feminine and collaborator in the sonic deconstruction of her own body. Additionally, The Lilac Fairy utilizes the contributions of several skilled craftspeople and musicians, with the tutu constructed by Katherine Hotmer and fittings to Doyle's body performed by Rachel Hayward, Luke Tandy's assiduous recording of the process of construction, and cello accompaniment by Leila Bordeuil. The sound that has made McKinlay a modern master of harsh noise remains intact, but the expansive critical and collaborative scope of The Lilac Fairy makes it a hallmark in the oeuvre of The Rita." --Kristin Hayter
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