During the recent Bandcamp fee waiver, I was hunting around for releases to feature on some of my upcoming mixes on Folk Radio, especially the KLOF and Lost in Transmission series. Among my favourite purchases of the day was Landwerk Demos by Kentucky-based guitarist, composer, archivist and writer, Nathan Salsburg. For those who don’t know, Salsburg is also the curator of the digital Alan Lomax Archive so it may come as no surprise that this new release should feature both the modern and the past. This was achieved courtesy of Salsburg’s electric guitar and homemade lap-steel…and archival music from the distant past of the 78rpm variety. The move, as explained in the notes below, was inspired by The Caretaker’s “An Empty Bliss Beyond This World” and what he regards as “the most emotionally effective re-use of 78-rpm records I likely could have imagined.”
For Landwerk 03, Salsburg made use of a 1913 sample from – Max Yankowitz and (?) Goldberg’s “Turkish National Tanz”. It put me in mind of C. Joynes & Dead Rat Orchestra’s “The Borametz Tree“, another firm favourite.
Notes on the release:
These demos are the products of late Winter ’19/Spring ’20 at home in Kentucky and, though they’ve come to take on a variety of new personal resonances, especially here in Pandemic Season, they owe their existence to my being belatedly hipped in 2019 to The Caretaker’s “An Empty Bliss Beyond This World” — the most emotionally effective re-use of 78-rpm records I likely could have imagined. That album nudged me to attempt a similar approach, locating melodic fragments on 78s that could serve as bases for new compositions. The caveat was/is that I am near entirely bereft at home-recording gear and skills, and thus (conveniently) approached these pieces as experiments in restriction: instruments are electric guitar, homemade lap-steel, and 78-rpm record samples. No effects beyond those of the guitar amplifier and speed-/pitch-adjustments applied to source recordings were used. Sample sources given in the track notes.
Order it here – https://nathansalsburg.bandcamp.com/album/landwerk-demos