Hello Friends,
Greetings from another tranquil housesit, one that will last for the rest of my time in Oakland until I move to Petaluma in August. Harvest number two is almost here and it’s hard to believe. Just when I start to feel a bit more settled and rooted into Oakland, it’s time to move again- the 5th time since moving away from L.A just over a year ago.
This issue of Mortar is some updates, words on/with music, words about wines, a poem, and a boatload of photos.
This fall I’ll be working with Hobo Wines based in downtown Santa Rosa, about an hour north of San Francisco. They make a variety of wines highlighting Sonoma, Mendocino, and Santa Cruz area fruit, and prioritize organic sustainable farming, environmental protection, social justice, and building up community. I’m stoked to work with this awesome team and continue learning about winemaking. In tandem to harvest, I’ll be taking an enology class at the Junior College in Santa Rosa. In the meantime I’m still pouring wine and cider at Redfield and helping in the cellar at Hammerling Wines, a small scale traditional method sparkling wine producer based in Berkeley. I’ve been having a blast doing this work and meeting plenty of Bay Area wine freaks/makers.
in conversation with “High January” from Marker Starling’s homonymous 2020 album
"music is a form of expression it's how i express myself if it comes from the heart you can never go wrong (x2)
word.
"🎶🎵🎹"
damn. this is smooth. I love those backing vocals and jazzy harmonies.
Music is an entertainment A mirror upon itself It's a craft not an art and the stakes are unlovely the fashion may change and what once was once thought ugly's in style the winner by a mile
wow, hot take. You’re so prolific and such a good songwriter, how can you claim that about music? I guess it’s important to not be too romantic about music making… I’m sure it can get in the way and drive you crazy. And yeah, I agree! Look at how much jazzy cocaine dusted psych-rock is coming out of L.A right now. Music is such a fascinating ouroboros!
alive in a place where the light is beautiful alive in a place where the sky is beautiful and where night follows day with a light of it's own and where sodium orange and rose come aglow with a spark in the electric dark
Sounds Peaceful. Reminds me of watching sunsets on the coast in Mendocino or savoring the smog spawned Neapolitan ice cream dusks of L.A. I need respite from the city too.
I lie in a field where the sky is beautiful I drink from a stream where the light is beautiful i can do nothing else all my life spent this way between dreaming and finding my way i prefer getting lost
This is a beautiful reminder to embrace wandering. To live your life patiently and explore. I definitely seek that more than ever nowadays. That’s probably a lesson you’ve learned from such a long and productive music career.
music is a problem for solving a puzzle of changing parts if you listen quite closely you will hear the true melody here comes the change you say "what are you selling me now?"
I love this. Perhaps this speaks to the idea that music needs to be charmed and coaxed out with care and attention- not to be forced out inorganically. I like how the ending of this song is a bit of a cliffhanger and toys with the certainty of change. Such an earnest and cheeky song
Last month I visited Portland Oregon for the first time for a friend's 30th Birthday. Portland was laid back, quirky, green, walkable, and teeming with great food, beer, and wine, but what I loved most about this trip was the new connections made and conversations had. Every day was filled with so many nourishing talks, walks, and discussions. I met exceptional people who were generous, curious, goofy, fun-loving, and welcoming. I look forward to all of these friendships continuing and growing.
The hypnogogic and intimate soundscapes of Austin-based producer and musician More Eaze drift through the room like incense on her April 2022 release Oneiric. The drones, field-recordings, and laptop chitter-chatter feel cozy and enveloping- a blanket wrapped around you in folds of expansive noise textures, shy mutterings of autotune vocals creased with an emotional warmth that feels both vulnerable and grounded. Oneiric explores the feelings in between truth and dreams- the words that escape us on the verge of momentous truth or revelation. In this delicate space these six songs unravel florid textures and a feeling of daydreaming and longing. I can’t help but draw stylistic and aesthetic parallel’s between Oneiric and 2814’s 新しい日の誕生. Spacious music to emotionally explore and feelings to get lost in.
To Feel Infinite
In the canopy of trees and the cool surface of stones
green blankets, rock hallways, I walk and have grown
to feel held in the comfort of haze and of night
to feel infinite and comfort in the glass scatter of light
Dead Time is a new EP from New York City based noise-rock outfit White Suns. The four track offering is a splintering hemorrhage of Midwestern hopelessness, corporeal disgust, and appropriated religious symbolism wrenched out of punishing blast-beat drumming, screeching guitar feedback, tormented vocals, and vein-throbbing modular synth.
In their cathartic, anguished delivery, a kind of ritual arises in this music from the icy spaces between noise, rhythmic anarchy, and orated lyrics giving Dead Time a uniquely bleak and liturgical energy. Their addition to the Orange Milk catalogue speaks to the essential role of synthesizer and electronics in their music as well as the label’s rhizomatic genre forrays. Listen now and listen loud!
2018 was the last time we heard from California pop cannibals, The Samps. Breakfast, at 42 minutes long, is a shimmering strut through the decay and woozy detritus of 1980s city-pop samples and PC-music utopia. The Samps are an amalgamation of disparate musical voices, Oaklands’ J. Darrah aka 12manrambo, Bay Area Metal band drummer Harland Burkhart, and L.A based recording producer Cole M. Greiff-Neill, aka Cole M.G.N, whose recording credits include Julia Holter, Nite Jewel, Beck, and Snoop Dogg. Through extensive sampling and processing, the trio crafts neon anthems of synth heavy pomp. Melody appears through a collage of syrupy vocal samples, dazzling synth leads, and flashy drum beats evoking echoes of 80s disco and mall soft.
Similar to the ketamine candy crush high of vaporwave, The Samps, with an insatiable sentimental sweet tooth, extract a nostalgic essence of pop and hip-hop and fold it back into unique experimental songwriting and dense noisy popscapes reminiscent of rapidly tuning through a radio or the maximalist sonic kaleidoscopes of DJ Spooky, Matmos, or Oneohtrix Point Never.
TSVI & Lorraine James find themselves at the galactic crossroads of lo-fi, intimate home recordings and sleek laptop wizardry on their 2022 collaborative EP 053. The two London-based producers shared a studio space through most of the pandemic and crafted the 4-song EP after months of casual collaboration using bare bones equipment. Out-of-tune upright piano recordings on cheap microphones and Ableton sketchings create swaths of glittery rhythm and spacious synth pad zones. Tracks like “Eternal” and “Trust” feel serious and moody- a speeding sports car of club rhythm, crushing bass, and hair-raising synth, while “awaiting,””trust,” and “gloom” center piano in more ambient and disjointed palettes. I really want to play racing video games to this music- silver, flow-state, motorized tunes for fantasy maps in cities too good to be true.
Thanks for reading. Talk soon. Support, nourish, and protect yourself and others
love,
Cody
(they/them)