In June 2021, an unmarked package arrived at the Psychic Liberation headquarters. The small box, which had no return address, contained three items: a thumb drive, a printed message from a notes app, and a small satchel of what seemed to be carambola seeds. The note reads: “We were raised in the ashes of time. This is a philosophy of live. Made while sailing the seas of chaos on our humble houseboat, a place you’ll come to know. But do not seek us out. We are gone.”
Unwilling to risk a computer virus, or humor what was maybe a prank, the thumb drive sat on a shelf for a number of weeks. Eventually, label head Nick Klein decided to take it to the Royal Library of the Netherlands and open its contents on a computer there, just in case.
The thumb drive was titled jd swift. It’s unclear whether this is the artist’s name, the title of the album, or both. The recording opens with an alien spaghetti western: a chopped voice and wobbly single note, signaling that this is a strange place. The percussion is directionless at first, but warbled samples, including the nostalgic clink of getting a coin in Donkey Kong, give way to mutant structure.
Distorted twinkles, dubby hats, and big paranoid kicks occasionally swirl into lo-fi hurricanes, but mostly this music resides in the calm but weirdly charged eye of the storm.
Though little can be assumed about the context of these sonic creations, they seem to be the result of extended jams. The toolbox includes broken arpeggiations and fuzzed bells, air horns and watery pannings. This is twisted globalism, a nexus of serenity and catastrophe, a series of unrecognizable landscapes that read like field recordings though they are intentional creations. The inscrutability of their delivery captures perfectly the sense that artists are no longer individuals or collectives—they are circuits of larger machinery.
Meandering between sounds, these sui generis recordings don’t quite fit the categories of contemporary electronic music. Junk ambient, marginal acid… it’s a struggle to appropriately describe the sounds. Part of this difficulty comes from the artist’s (or artists’) purposefully self-effacing strategy, a circumventing of the systems that edify and circulate art based on identity, practice, and vision. Indeed, this is one of the reasons PL was strangely attracted to these recordings in the first place.
All eight of the individual pieces that make up jd swift are untitled, but are labelled with the time at which they start in the recording. The first track is titled 0:00. Does this hint at new beginnings, or a stance against time itself? If you find yourself on a coast, keep an eye out for a houseboat. Its occupants may know the answer.
Mastered by Glyn Maier
Graphic Design and Art by Germán Enrique Caceres Cueto
Germán Enrique Caceres Cueto is a latinx painter working with spiritual and ecological imagery. Born in Miami, FL. Based in Brooklyn, NY.
Psychic Liberation, in operation since 2018, is an experimental music label started in Brooklyn, New York, currently based in Berlin, Germany.
Includes unlimited streaming of JD SWIFT
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
In June 2021, an unmarked package arrived at the Psychic Liberation headquarters. The small box, which had no return address, contained three items: a thumb drive, a printed message from a notes app, and a small satchel of what seemed to be carambola seeds. The note reads: “We were raised in the ashes of time. This is a philosophy of live. Made while sailing the seas of chaos on our humble houseboat, a place you’ll come to know. But do not seek us out. We are gone.”
Unwilling to risk a computer virus, or humor what was maybe a prank, the thumb drive sat on a shelf for a number of weeks. Eventually, label head Nick Klein decided to take it to the Royal Library of the Netherlands and open its contents on a computer there, just in case.
The thumb drive was titled jd swift. It’s unclear whether this is the artist’s name, the title of the album, or both. The recording opens with an alien spaghetti western: a chopped voice and wobbly single note, signaling that this is a strange place. The percussion is directionless at first, but warbled samples, including the nostalgic clink of getting a coin in Donkey Kong, give way to mutant structure.
Distorted twinkles, dubby hats, and big paranoid kicks occasionally swirl into lo-fi hurricanes, but mostly this music resides in the calm but weirdly charged eye of the storm.
Though little can be assumed about the context of these sonic creations, they seem to be the result of extended jams. The toolbox includes broken arpeggiations and fuzzed bells, air horns and watery pannings. This is twisted globalism, a nexus of serenity and catastrophe, a series of unrecognizable landscapes that read like field recordings though they are intentional creations. The inscrutability of their delivery captures perfectly the sense that artists are no longer individuals or collectives—they are circuits of larger machinery.
Meandering between sounds, these sui generis recordings don’t quite fit the categories of contemporary electronic music. Junk ambient, marginal acid… it’s a struggle to appropriately describe the sounds. Part of this difficulty comes from the artist’s (or artists’) purposefully self-effacing strategy, a circumventing of the systems that edify and circulate art based on identity, practice, and vision. Indeed, this is one of the reasons PL was strangely attracted to these recordings in the first place.
All eight of the individual pieces that make up jd swift are untitled, but are labelled with the time at which they start in the recording. The first track is titled 0:00. Does this hint at new beginnings, or a stance against time itself? If you find yourself on a coast, keep an eye out for a houseboat. Its occupants may know the answer.
credits
released October 7, 2021
Mastered by Glyn Maier
Graphic Design and Art by Germán Enrique Caceres Cueto
Psychic Liberation, in operation since 2018, is an experimental music label started in Brooklyn, New York, currently based in Berlin, Germany.
DISTRIBUTED IN THE UNITED STATES BY FANTASTIQUE LLC.
Label founded in 2013, originally ran with Miguel Alvariño titled Primitive Languages as a cassette and record store project
in New York City. Operated solo by Nick Klein since 2019 under the working title Psychic Liberation out of the EU. PL is made possible with the distribution assistance of Fantastique INC USA, Industrial Coast UK, Tobira Records JP, Rope Editions SK, and Stellage Store RU....more
What a surprising discovery! (through the Cold Tear Discord channel fyi).
Reminds me of early Kit Clayton, which is (you'll have to trust me on that) a very nice thing to say in my world.
Anyway: thank you, i am enjoying these sounds very much! Mono Peninsula / Photophob
Wow. Instant favorite. That immortal dub-techno sound abstracted into lush, amorphous ambience. It feels visceral, deeply rooted in club music, yet transcendent and calm. Grateful for the repress, glad I could get a copy. alec critten