Dead Edits are aiming to put the con in “conceptual
recordings,” while also freely modifying Lautreamont’s edict, “plagiarism is
necessary, progress implies it—and a sense of humor doesn’t hurt.”
Before I cover what
constitutes this release, I will note we not only received Z’EV’s blessing (and
amused laughter) before proceeding but also received a set of 12 (printer here
as six) previously unseen cut ups by the man himself, executed around the time
of the original 7” release in 1983.
So, the contents.
Lathe: I recorded, on microcassette, the sound of the needle moving as I
played an unamplified copy of the original Stefan Weisser: Editeditions &
Contexts 7”, with the needle’s contact providing all (any) original audio. By
recording on tape, the audio quality (with factors including recording speed,
noise of the playback motors, room ambience, and, eventually, playback speed
when I played back the microcassette to dump it onto the computer) also was
affected—as a result, neither side of the forgery matches up with the times of
the original source material.
CDR: (further permutations of the source
material: edited, cut, re-edited, recut.
Visuals: First, Eric hand drew every single record “jacket.” That’s dedication.
(you can't tell'em apart, can ya?)
He also hand traced the original record’s inserts, and performed reduplicative
processes on another. If that weren’t enough, he made a Weissermobile (a nod to
his own book, Short Bursts of Light, perhaps?)
For my part, I photocopied several of the original inserts, at times with a
sheet of crumpled wax paper between the paper and the copier face, and
duplicated, enlarged, shrank, rotated, and layered the copies. I executed the
same copying process with the original (clear) 7” vinyl, and then combined and
permutated ~those~ two elements. Combined with Z’EV’s 12 previously unseen cut
ups, the end result is a whopping 28 double sided inserts, (3/8” worth of
graphics!) all printed on nice heavy stock cover paper. All of this is
housed for easy containment in a stamped reel to reel box with relevant
graphics on the interior of the box.
The release is in an edition of 20 numbered copies, of which 15 are for sale. The cost is $48 ppd in the United States, with variable shipping costs incurred by those outside of the United States. Please contact me at vertonen (at) earthlink (dot) net for information.
Thank you,
Blake
