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HSOB003Z: Host Skull's Black Mark

by Host Skull

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1.
2.
Bootleg 02:44
3.
Living In 04:12
4.
Drama 02:34
5.
Fit 01:39
6.
Motor-City 03:24
7.
8.
9.
10.
All in One 03:51
11.

about

After more than two years of recording, exhibiting art and sound installations, and making video work, Host Skull returns with their second album, Black Mark. Like their debut album, Totally Fatalist, the record plays with pop formats, song structures, and harmony, but this time around, the transcontinental band relies more on “feel”, allowing rhythms to sway and moments to linger. While the first record was recorded as “tape-trading” overdub sessions, core members David Bernabo and Will Dyar spent a week in Santa Fe, NM recording basic tracks. The result was a narrowing of eclecticism and a strengthening of the collaboration.

Through the warm crunch of Rhodes piano, harmonized guitars, and falsetto vocals, the band presents a series of songs that unfold without doubling back. “Hypernarrative” opens the record with a narrative about dislocation while the music filters through arrangements before crescendo-ing in a few blasts. “Living In” plots winding classical guitar against pitched bowls in a hybrid folk and jazz ballad. Elsewhere, “Bootleg” and lead single “A Man/Woman is a Lovesome Thing” pivot in the direction of soul and classicism, but include enough false footholds to keep things interesting.

The album also features Brandon Masterman on falsetto vocals and baritone and soprano saxophones, along with Shanti Randall (viola), Ben Montgomery (vocals, bass), Erik Cirelli (lap steel, guitar), and PJ Roduta (pitched bowls, percussion). The album was sort of released on Wild Kindness Records, but more accurately, Ongoing Box released this record as a limited edition of 300 180 gram, gatefold LPs, digitally, and a series of handmade CD packages.

The LP contains three large illustrated panels by artist Joe Mruk!!

credits

released September 3, 2013

Artwork and Design: Joe Mruk // Musicians: David Bernabo, Will Dyar, Christopher James, Brandon Masterman, Ben Montgomery, Shanti Randall, Erik Cirelli, PJ Roduta

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ONGOING BOX (label) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Ongoing Box is a Pittsburgh, PA label. 100 releases dealing with songcraft, free improvisation, composition, and sound sculpture. We also release films, books, and limited edition vinyl.

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