Julian Lynch on Underwater Peoples Records

I first was exposed to Julian on a split he did with Ducktails Matt Mondanile for Underwater Peoples. The tracks on that single, if I remember correctly, were similar to Matt's working style, layers of loops, a little dark, hypnotic. I separate their work from the typical ambient field recording because it tends not to have any kind of electronics involved on the recording itself...it's only used to manipulate all kinds of weird source material, but not in a DJ way...I guess this is sort of a neo-folk method of sound appropriation? Like 'Entroducing' for the Woodsist set.

This single gets more songwriter-y. I'm hearing Grandaddy a little bit, maybe it's the keyboard sound on 'Droplet on a Hot Stone'. It has a sort of warm tone, probably mic'd an amp after the fact. That's a great idea, it's that kind of thing that keeps this interesting, the sounds all have layers of patina from process driven recording. There's all kind of textures going on here...I still can't get over that while recording devices have gotten cheaper and smaller and digital, the final released sounds from bands across the spectrum of stuff I've been into lately appears to be moving in the opposite direction.
Just like Sebadoh reintroducing home recording to the indie world, reacting against commercial music, maybe this is a reaction against the technology itself as it becomes less and less personal, people start circuit bending or buying 7"'s...to regain a little of the humanity in the recording process.
'Nen Vole' could almost be a Real Estate lost track...Julian finds a strummed guitar groove and sticks with this very classic melody, sort of a waltz, back and forth, up and down...waves rolling in on the Jersey Shore...Oh God, not that TV show, a different part of the Jersey Shore....there's a dock somewhere on an inlet in Jersey, there's cattails and dragonflies, there's a few waves just hardly rolling in, disturbing the mirror of water...it's that sort of Jersey. The garage next door is open, Julian is rehearsing with himself on every instrument, and recorded a couple of tracks for Underwater Peoples....go get it.

Underwater Peoples says:

Julian Lynch is from Ridgewood, New Jersey. The songs featured on this 7” single were originally created for the 2008 album, Born2Run. The recordings contain both acoustic and electric guitar, a drum kit, a keyboard and Julian’s voice. Everything was recorded on a TASCAM Portastudio 424. While the initial taping began in Julian’s family basement (birthplace of the Alex Bleeker and The Freaks debut), the brunt of the work took place in an empty apartment in Madison, Wisconsin. In a new town with no furniture, Julian recorded the album.

Ducktails on breaking world records

Ducktails is a one man instrumental island-psych by Matt Mondanile, and was the name of a cartoon my friends younger brother would torture us singing the theme song.
I just got this Ducktails 7" in the mail a little while ago and have been putting it on here and there the past week. This long 33 player is definitely home recorded. I can just hear that cassette quality...it's a little muted, all the high end stripped away. It sounds like it's bounced down to two tracks and then recorded over and over...that's the best sound. It's a little like Basinski's Disintegration Loops. You can hear it in the process of degrading, it kind of gives it a timeless, other world quality. Just like Ariel Pink...it's so unique sounding...there is almost no easy way to fake this, there's no filters that would let you just get away without actually going through the work.
Stronger parts have to be reinforced, mutated...or just completely re-recorded to get it to come together in a way that subtracts as much as it add's. It's a weird fight to make it through.

Everything I've been reading about this attaches a 'tropical' feel to this, and I don't think it's just because I've been reading that...it really does. I've been trying to figure it out...like a low-fi hawaiian movie set. Or a fake luau set on a roof in Brooklyn....or Massachusetts, which is where this was recorded actually and really doesn't make sense, the snow, the new england rocks, the college's...especially the track, Point Pleasant Beach...maybe it's the title that's sending everyone in this direction? Whatever it is, it fits.

Do we have to even talk about low-fi anymore? Let's just call this anti-studio. There's a reason other than financial not to rehearse compositions forever and just beat them to death for the hundredth time in a huge multi-track studio. Sometimes in the middle of the night something takes over and you play that one loop over and over until you're hypnotized and guitar melodies just happen that surprise even you, playing them back. It's imperfection at it's finest, it's sloppy, off key and all, like the best documentaries...from the 50's...about something you really know nothing about. Like that documentary 'Nanook of the North' about Eskimo's from the 30's. It's a document of an idea, wrong or right...it becomes something new.

Matt has been on the noise circuit, for the past 2 years playing Death by Audio, Cakeshop...all the good alternative spaces.... like the End of end party at the Flux Factory in LIC this very evening.....

Here's a way better review from Visitations Music.

There are only 300 and are still available from Breaking World Records.