SUBSCRIBER ARCHIVE / STREAMING PREMIERE #1:

Cursillistas - Paper Mines (15-year anniversary)

Long-lost, rarely heard, and never before available digitally, Paper Mines was originally released in January 2007 as only the second album ever on my first DIY label, L'animaux Tryst (field) Recordings. This was the follow-up to the Les Biches EP (later reissued in expanded form on vinyl in collaboration with Time-Lag Records), at a time when I was beginning to record and release music at a frequent clip under the solo alias Cursillistas. I was also starting to contribute live and on-record to other new L'animaux acts such as Lightning strike Lightning, Bad Bus, White Light, Tempera, and my Paper Mines split partner and friend Alyce's project Bird Microphone. The A-side of the split cassette / disc one of the double-3"-CDr set was actually Bird Microphone's debut, with my Cursillistas material taking up the B-side / disc two. Alyce created the art, painting and printing at home on a Gocco and stitching the canvas pouches that held the tapes and discs. The handmade / homemade element has been this literal from the beginning.

While folk was always at the forefront of Cursillistas, Paper Mines is uniquely amongst the most "freak"-heavy of that discography. Myspace / Fangs and Arrows / NNF noise-underground aesthetics permeate these tracks, with grotty fuzz guitar and gnarled floor-tom rhythms taking more precedence than nylon strings and wooden flutes. The primal edge and haunted, subtle tinge of menace in the performances is well matched by the uncharacteristically in-the-red digital brickwall mix. The truth is I was so green when I "produced" this EP that I actually thought mp3 was the accepted standard for digital masters, burning the tracks on each mini-CDr and dubbing each cassette from 128 kbps mp3s. The lo-fi result, full of digital blow-out, is glorious to behold from 15 years' distance, and I've declined to attempt any remastering or cleanup whatsoever in order to preserve the integrity of the original. Truly, I believe this brief EP to be the hidden gem of my early years of solo experimental folk recordings, and I'm thrilled to make it available for a new wave upon its 15th anniversary.

- ML