MUSIC

Brokeback is Douglas McCombs. Douglas may be familiar to many of you as the bassist for Eleventh Dream Day, Tortoise and Pullman. During the last two years Brokeback has released two singles and played numerous live dates throughout the U.S. and Europe. Through Brokeback, Douglas has sought to explore something not as densely structured as his other musical outings with a focus on rhythm and texture. The idea with Brokeback is to keep things simple and let the melodies hang in the air. By the nature of this decision the music is sparse, but not without sounding full and realized. Field Recordings From The Cook County Water Table is the most actualized offering of the Brokeback experience to date, whether it be recorded or live. Field Recordings… features contributions from Noel Kupersmith (Chicago Underground Orchestra) and Josh Abrams (Sam Prekop Band/Town and Country), whose versatile bass playing helped Douglas achieve the textural depth for this debut and first in-depth documentation of Brokeback. Noel has been a frequent collaborator in Brokeback's live setting. Rob Mazurek (Chicago Underground Orchestra/Isotope 217) plays cornet on the opening track, "after the internationals" and Mary Hansen (Stereolab) lends her angelic voice to the song, "the great banks". Both John Herndon and John McEntire contributed their percussive talents, while McEntire handled the recording duties by himself. However at the heart of Brokeback lies the vision and playing of Doug McCombs. In Douglas' own words: "Brokeback wouldn't exist without the Fender six-string bass. I consider myself a bass player, and though I have dabbled with slide instruments (lap steel and dobro) I was never really interested in moving into the higher register until I became aware of this instrument and its perfect blend of twang and low tone. I began planning this album years before I could even afford to purchase one. It may seem ridiculous to give so much credit to the instrument, but most of these melodies practically wrote themselves, and they were exactly what I wanted."

狂風暴雨，神獸互搏，溫柔的交織 An enchanting "in distance" collaboration between cello noise and percussions, weaving the sound of a harsh and dreamy landscape. 「這張專輯密集地撰寫著高功率的官能性噪音音樂，在藝術家和混音師的努力下抵達『好聽的噪音』的那個境界。」 "This album is a dense collection of high-powered, functional noise music, the artists and the sound engineer have reached that 'euphonious noise' level. " - 空之穴 holeinthesky This is a recording between two friends in Beijing and London during the pandemic, a wonderful long-distance collaboration. After releasing her critically acclaimed debut solo album '卵生 Oviparity' (The Wire's Top 50 of 2020), Sheng Jie 盛潔(a.k.a gogoj) continues to explore her own unconventional path in tandem experimentation with electric cellos and effects, while Shen Jing 沈靜 (a.k.a Shenggy, former drummer of the legendary Beijing punk band 'Hanging on the Box'), who has been in the music scene since the 90s, she started to develop her solo project in the field of industrial music, ambient and analogue synthesizers since 2003, for this record she returns to her role as a drummer, adding also gamelan and various percussion instruments from different parts of the world. A free, chaotic yet tender piece of work is what they deliver. 這是一份疫情期間的創作，分別身處北京和倫敦的兩位好友，心有靈犀完成了這份精彩的遠程合作。在出版了首張個人實體專輯《卵生》並且大獲好評（2020年英國《The Wire》雜誌年底50佳）後，盛潔（a.k.a gogoj）繼續在電子大提琴和效果器的各種串聯調試中探索著自己的非常規演奏道路，而作為90年代就已進入音樂領域的沈靜（a.k.a Shenggy，傳奇朋克樂隊“掛在盒子上”前鼓手），自2003開始就在工業音樂、氛圍、模擬合成器的領域不斷孕育自己的個人計劃，這次她又重拾鼓手的身份，使用鼓、甘美蘭、和其他多種世界不同地區的民間打擊樂器，和盛潔碰撞出了這張自由、狂躁卻又溫柔的作品。