Michael Pisaro/Toshiya Tsunoda-crosshatches

[jon abbey]

I'm very proud to announce the latest Erstwhile release is at the printers, and will be available in about two weeks. crosshatches is Michael Pisaro's second release for Erstwhile after 2010's 2 seconds/b minor/wave, and the Erstwhile debut for a long-time favorite musician of mine, Toshiya Tsunoda.

as usual, I haven't yet finished the PR for this, but I'm ready to start accepting preorders for it now. it's a double CD, so it's $23 in the US/Canada, $26 anywhere else in the world (those include shipping), paypal to ErstRecs@aol.com and I'll send your copy as soon as I get it, plus if you ask, I will send you a link to CD-quality digital files ASAP. if you want to order multiple items and save on shipping, please e-mail me first as always so I can put them aside/make sure I have them for you and give you a shipping estimate/total. thanks!

[jon abbey]

crosshatches was composed, recorded and assembled by Tsunoda and Pisaro over a period of 14 months, as a single 85 minute work in eight sections.

[Dan Warburton]

Very much looking forward to this one.

[anasara]

nice

[cleanzero]

Lovely artwork.

[jon abbey]

thanks!

the rest of it (the other outside panel and the inside, plus the actual CDs) is fantastic (a real labor of love for Yuko, who called this her favorite Erst release to date), but I'll leave that for people to see when they pick up the CD.

[julien heraud]

very curious to hear what pisaro done for erstwhile this time. he already was pretty surprising on 2 seconds/b minor/wave!

[jon abbey]

I guess I forgot to link to the sound clips posted from this:

http://www.erstwhilerecords.com/catalog/066.html (click on 'tracks')

[presquepartout]

thoroughly enjoying this from a passive listen over the past day or so.

[jon abbey]

I will have copies of this on Wednesday, so any orders I get by then will either ship Wed afternoon or Thurs AM.

great feedback so far, glad people are enjoying this as much as Yuko and I have. keep those orders coming!!

[jon abbey]

arrived!

[jon abbey]

a couple of early noteworthy FB reactions worth sharing:

"i really think Tsunoda Toshiya and Michael Pisaro have given listeners as exacting a listening experience with crosshatches as anything to be found in Jon Abbey's catalog. kudos all!"-Jesse Goin (it's phrased like that so that it showed up on all three of our pages)

"erstwhile: the record label whose releases increasingly remind me that i need a better stereo system."-Casey Anderson

[mono tony]

got it in the mail today. the packaging is **dope** .. i like the accompanying photos, the layout is real pleasing to the eye. nice to have some visual insight into it, a lot of the sound sources are still mysterious. been listening to the advance .AIFs, def gravitating to the second disk (sweeter of the two).... there's a substantial amount of dull-ish drone and some sounds are frustratingly 'muddly', no doubt intentional, juxtaposed w/crisp sounds. it does remind me of a lambkin/lescalleet record, superficially. i've no familiarity w/tsunoda's work, gonna shut my mouth now.

[jon abbey]

nice! glad you like the design, Yuko spent countless hours fine-tuning that. she wanted to only show the two panels pictured here publicly and leave the rest for people to see when they actually got the CDs, so glad you enjoyed that.

as for Tsunoda's previous work, I'd say you could divide his work into pre- and post- 2005. pre-2005, almost all of his output is exceedingly 'musical' (for lack of a better term) even though it's unaltered field recording. the 'Extract from Field Recording Archive' series are all great (and all OOP), but my favorite is the still in print 'Scenery of Decalcomania' on Naturestrip.

since 2005, he's moved into more conceptual territory, less pure pleasure for the listener. I'm not as into this period, although I have huge respect for everything that he does, I just think some of it is beyond me and the limits of my sound systems.

crosshatches I'd say maybe straddles these areas, and of course Pisaro's input pushes it someplace else entirely. definitely check some of the early ones, though, I'm very glad I finally got a chance to do a project with him.

(it also should maybe be parenthetically noted that Tsunoda seems to have had a big impact on the early development of the Boston scene we all know and love. 'Love Me Two Times' has a track named after a Tsunoda track ('Bottle at Park'), Intransitive put out a disc of his (jointly with Fringes), Mike Bullock is currently working on a paper on Tsunoda (and calls him a 'big influence (though perhaps you'd never know it)'), and I think Brendan Murray can be added to the list also.)

[barry]

i really like Low Frequency Observed At Maguchi Bay too.

[jon abbey]

first review, by Brian O, is up:

http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2012/06/mi ... unoda.html

also, Yuko (co-producer of this as well as the CD designer) wrote a piece inspired by the release on her blog:

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/yukoz/20120624

[jon abbey]

very insightful review by BW Diederich:

http://bw.tumblr.com/post/29990775999/crosshatches

[Jacques Oger]

there is a nice review by Bill Meyer in the last STN issue.

[Alec Livaditis]

Was the paper by Mike Bullock mentioned above ever completed? Is it up anywhere to read, or do you think he'd mind emailing it?

[jon abbey]

I forgot about that, but you could PM him on FB and ask.