now available: ballast nvp077: Eric Lunde: Shoulda killed me when you had the chance...... (8 x cs, book, prints, and more!)

When it rains at ballast, it pours at ballast...

Eric Lunde: shoulda killed me when you had the chance…… (8x cs, book, thumb drive, hand printed postcard, hand-printed cassette artwork, two short essays, temporary tattoo) 

Housed in a wood recipe box with Lunde’s logo branded on the lid, this is the salient collection of Lunde’s earliest—and long unavailable recordings: 

Expositions of the Virus (1987)
Infected Text (1987)
Scramble (1987)
Form’s Forced Surrender (1987)
Operative (1987)
Live Censor / Censure Live (1988)
LLND reading—Sept. 20, 1991, Lower Links, Chicago IL (1991)
Bruise Grind Kill [as Accelerator] (1988) 

Making these releases available again is, for me, cause for celebration alone. I could easily talk about the merits of each cassette for longer than most people would appreciate. So, I’ll call attention to three elements. First, the Bruise Grind Kill cassette. This project of Eric’s is unlike the other recordings here in that there is no voice present: it’s all electric motor apparatuses on bass guitar and drums. The resulting audio has an aggressive Chop Shop feel, and it hits me just right. Second, the 1991 recording of Eric reading his book, LLND. Many moons ago Eric had mentioned he thought he had a recording of this but knew not where it was. 

Well, he found it, and as I was able to patch in a small element (24 seconds, from when the tape flipped over) from Karl Paloucek’s audience recording, we now have a complete recording. Which leads me to item 3, the reprint of Eric’s book LLND. I picked up a copy of this perhaps in 1991 or 92, a year (give or take) after it came out. The binding has seen better days, and there were some pages missing (which Eric included as part of a stand-alone erratum sheet). This edition brings everything together in one volume. (And for those wondering why there is a digital version—anathema to ballast—of all the audio included on the branded flash drive, it’s because this is a co-release with Eric’s label.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edition of 50 signed and numbered copies, $87 ppd in the US. rest of world, please get in touch for shipping.