Soft Shoulder

Soft Shoulder

It's A Small World After

Gilgongo

***Intended to sync up with a return to all of our our normal routines, It's All A Small World After resists the temptation to step away from remarking on the mundane (accidentally collecting cardboard, cutting your hand on plastic, the dog's favorite toys, avoiding potential muggings, keeping the floor clean and the 7th and 8th editions of the groups "Repeat" tracks). Recorded alongside March 2023's Smile Building's Exit, the genres again are simultaneously vague yet synonymous with the group, but with influences that can be easy to pin when the right listener puts the record on. This is where the write-up tries to not reference specific groups (The Fall? Scissor Girls? etc), and instead says the LP pays homage to a hypothetical cross-pollination of the entire Fast Product catalog. Written and recorded by James Fella in late 2021, mastered by John Dieterich.

Soft Shoulder

Smile Building's Exit

Gilgongo

***Recorded in late 2020 but catching an extreme pressing plant bottleneck, the new LP from Soft Shoulder could appropriately be subtitled: “More Songs About Nothing Much, Some Entropy Implied”. A document of a slow-moving human experience (being unable to retrieve packages from your post office’s parcel locker, other occupants of the building your studio is in screaming wildly in the hallway while you try to record, vague homage to public-access television, a “how to” in changing your password, ETC) housed inside a dilapidated, but smiling, building and channeled through an amalgamation of sporadic picks from the record collection of James Fella (e.g. / in the key of F: The Fall, Fire Engines, The Futurians, Frumpies). Mastered by John Dieterich, back cover art by Eric Sanchez.

Soft Shoulder

Formerly On Fluorescent Paper

Gilgongo

Formerly on Fluorescent Paper delivers 14 jaunts culled from the artist’s tape soup collage of several generations’ worth of punk and no-wave adjacent music. Be it jagged, angular, short tracks… atonal layers in otherwise listener-friendly settings… repetitive string clang aside gurgling synth and flailing reed-bite… Soft Shoulder continues to be the primary vehicle for Fella’s take on songwriting, in whatever the loosely defined genre(s) may be. However, compared to Not The New One (an eclectic collection of various incarnations), Contextual Depreciation (performance and practice tapes from the current group) and the recent Copy Machine Fall Down 7” (an abstract, long-distance-collaboration) …Formerly On Fluorescent Paper finds Fella alone. Written and recorded in the fever-dream of late 2020. Mastered by John Dieterich. (STREET DATE - 7/09/2021)

Soft Shoulder

Copy Machine Fall Down

Gilgongo

***Compiled by James Fella in late 2020 using remotely recorded components: Side A features the current Phoenix-based line-up (Caleb Dailey, Josh Rodriguez) of the long running junk-kraut post-punk group offering a constructed and dubbed out single while the flip finds a much more far-our free/faux-improvised medley with members old and new, near and far: Paul Arambula (Chandails, Vegetable - Berlin), John Dieterich (Deerhoof - Albuquerque), Hiromi Inada (Nicfit, Free City Noise – Nagoya) Seth Kasselman (Warn Climate - Phoenix).

Soft Shoulder

Not The New One

Gilgongo

***Not The New One delivers a dose of SOFT SHOULDER which is similar to 2017’s Song and Intermissions LP: sharp bursts which reference no wave, free improvisation, abstract electronics and riot grrrl from various configurations of the group: this time around with members of Oakland’s NO BABIES, Montreal’s FILTHY GRIN, GAY KISS from Phoenix, Berlin’s PAUL ARAMBULA (CHANDAILS, VEGETABLE), etc. Sandwiched between a new 7” and LP from early 2020, and a forthcoming 7” and LP in early 2021, Not The New One ties up loose ends from the second half of the 2010’s. Recorded sporadically between 2015–2019 in various warehouses, practice spaces and bedrooms in the Phoenix area.

Soft Shoulder

Contextual Depreciation

Gilgongo

***A collection of live recordings and practice tapes from JAMES FELLA's long running junk-kraut / no-wave / post-punk group. The band has been releasing a steady output of 7"s and LPs since the mid-2000s with this release capturing one of the more stable lineups of an otherwise chaotic rotating cast of musicians from throughout the world of underground music in Arizona, Oakland, Berlin, etc. Heavy on the repetition, tangents of improvised drone and a few abstract tape collages round out a cohesive document of the group from 2018-2019. Each LP comes with a variety of different inserts / prints and download. Edition of 300.

Soft Shoulder

Aerosol Can Stand

Gilgongo

***Aerosol Can Stand finds JAMES FELLA's long running “post-punk / no-wave / junk-kraut” group in a rare moment of pop sensibility (subject to objection and critique). Recorded spur-of-the-moment during practice, these two songs are a snapshot of Soft Shoulder as a trio (with JOSH RODRIGUEZ and Moone Records’ CALEB DAILEY) in late 2019. However, the same variety of haphazard approaches and bedroom-style recording methods which Fella is accustomed to using when processing songs alone were utilized here with the full band. Everything captured on the second take: microphones taped to broken pieces of drum kit hardware and whatever else was sitting around on the floor, overblown overdubs done with a faulty reverb unit, synth later dropped in as an afterthought directly before a maniacal full-volume mix-down in the same rehearsal space later that week. Comparisons aside and credit due as collateral: RIYL The Fall, The Homosexuals, etc. Edition of 600 (includes download and every copy comes with a unique print made using components from the artwork).

Soft Shoulder

Repeat #4 Aka Desert Plants And Scooter In Carport

Alien Summer / Gilgongo

***40 minutes of junk-kraut offered as two side-long tracks from Arizona’s Soft Shoulder. “Warbled Practice” catches the group as a trio: working on the basic structure of a new song in a Tempe warehouse, recorded direct to malfunctioning cassette deck. “Large Group in Close Quarters” was recorded live December 2016: a one-time 8-piece line-up playing a scattered tape-noise, reed-squeal, triple-bass rendition of the same song (which had already arrived at home as a single sided test press) featuring members of Warm Climate, Sleep Money, Sunn Trio, Humiliation, Chandails and Waytansea Point.

Soft Shoulder

Songs And Intermissions

Gilgongo

***Disjointed no-wave, monotonous post-punk, a couple of songs that come as close to “pop” as possible and a handful of intermissions throughout: the new LP from Soft Shoulder collects tracks from 2009-2015. While the group is now on its 19th line-up, most recordings have historically been James Fella, solo. This continues to be the case here (with most tracking done at Gilgongo Records HQ and defunct Phoenix warehouse, Sound Kontrol), but there are collaborations with many regular members of the “live group”(s) and also a track which builds on a Silver Apples recording created by Simeon in 1998 while adding synth to a percussion session from 1968. Edition of 550, includes download and a double sided 11x17 photocopy collage insert with track information and fliers.

Soft Shoulder

Collection Volume One

Gilgongo

Soft Shoulder's "Collection Volume One" 18 tracks compiling the recent "No Draw" LP and material from 7 7"s!