Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Dead Edits Present Stefan Weisser’s Editeditions & Contexts: A Forgery (lathe cut, CDR, visual/textual supplements)

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