LP Edition of 300

There is a certain genius in curating and archiving if it’s done in the right way. Boston’s Phil Milstein is a master of this art. His projects recontextualizing “found” material are as inventive and original as anything you’ll run across. Another maestro of the form is Maine’s Skot Spear (aka id m theft able). We already vinylized one of the projects he uncovered, The Weeny Man LP (FTR 037). And now it’s time for another.

Originally released by Skot in 2002 as a CDR on his own Maang-Disc label, EEEE EEEEE documents a cassette he found in the basement of a friend’s house late in the last century. The music is a solo set recorded by Skot’s friend’s younger brother, back when he was in sixth or seventh grade. And it’s kind of a masterpiece, along the lines of Human Skab, Teddy Fire and the like (although, truthfully, we think it’s the best of this particular pre-pubescent breed).

What the hell EEEE thought he was doing is anyone’s guess, but the results are weird, self-consciously smutty, and possessed of a de facto avant garde heft that is difficult to resist. Lyrical topics are downbeat (as befits the artist’s age group) and the key/rhythm-box based arrangements really sneak up on you. It’s guaranteed to make you feel like you (yourself) are rolling around on filthy shag carpeting in a damp rural basement, dreaming that you were anywhere else, and moaning in as musical a way as your damage will allow.

A readymade classic that would have been lost were it not for Mr. Spear. Let us salute him and all the other geniuses of trash recycling. They are the true vanguard.

-Byron Coley, 2017