Lathe cut discs have come a long, long way. I still put one on thinking I'm going to have to weight down the needle with pennies and guide the arm across the square plastic. That's not the case with this picture disc single from Fax Holiday cut by Tyler Bisson. I might even make the case that the slightest bit of static surface noise only serves to gives these tracks an even darker character and texture. Fax Holiday on this release is Eric Schermerhorn on vocals and guitar and Zoe Dale on violin out of Boston and have that naked, raw folk sound like the Bowerbirds or Br'er.
"Venn" opens on barely finger picked notes joined by violin that plunges into this melancholy sound. Eric is slowly delivering lines alongside a slow melody that twists and turns, doubling up or dropping out completely while he reaches the edge of his vocal range because that's where the track is taking him, you can't force this. Zoe starts to veer into higher range almost solo work in between his descriptions of tunnels, fields and the moon. It's strictly back porch stuff and takes me to that Jason Molina place. Not many people can get this mood right where you're not wallowing in the sadness just reflecting on this scene.
"Very Up" starts with Eric down in the bottom of a conversational delivery. He plays restrained and unexpected measures between chord and picking changes that don't seem to run together, each one is it's own independent phrase. This lyric is far too personal to try to pick apart, you catch pieces of a diary entry and almost don't want to hear the whole thing. Best left to those intimate venues you should be able to catch this guy at, this tiny sample has me wanting to get into that ten inch he's got out.
Tour clear picture disc lathe, I think they're probably sold out of these (thanks again Eric) but they have a couple other releases over here on their bandcamp page.
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