VOTD 3/6/2024

 Kay Lawrence: Gills Cut Into Women (Urashima)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

I go to Jerry's Records regularly, almost weekly. It's there in my neighborhood, albeit nearly on the opposite side. Squirrel Hill is the largest neighborhood in Pittsburgh by acreage. I imagine Oakland might be larger by population, but I'm not going to look it up. 

I leave empty handed as often as not. In the past two years, I've frequently bought $3 LPs from the Duquesne collection, so that's an easy buy. I've become more picky even for those. 

Today: several "noise" LPs turned up in the front bins, so of course I'm intrigued. I probably spent too much money on several. I might go back for more, because I'm a sucker for certain vinyl oddities. 

What do we have here? Let's see what's written on the vinyl outersleeve cover: HARSH NOISE (check), (water as only sound source) (check) Kay Lawrence (don't know the name, but female noise artist is a plus) Italian Import w/Insert (no big deal) Cool Silkscreen Cover (check) edition of 99 (double check). It does have a cool cover of the Creature From the Black Lagoon. 

I've relatively recently discovered, through the Bandcamp site, just how deep and dedicated the hard noise scene has become. Not only that, but also Pittsburgh figures prominently but (ironically) quietly into that scene. I've known about the guy(s) from Macronympha being from Monroeville, but so is Richard Ramirez (not the serial killer)(also records under about fifty different names), which cannot be a coincidence. There's also the Deathbed Tapes, Cleaner Tapes, and Sour Tapes labels, I think we have a an actual underground scene here.

"Underground" is a stale, overused word, that way that "avant-garde" and "experimental" are. What is truly underground music? It surely must mean something.

This LP: I hate to be reductionist, but it sounds like someone taking the tonearm on a turntable and running up and down along a record. I really doesn't matter if the sound source is water, and both Tod Dockstader and Asmus Tietchens both did something more interesting with that idea. Among others, I imagine. 

But then maybe I'm not the intended audience? Yet I bought this LP. I'll put it on again some time, maybe louder next time.