Escapist Blues is a collection of spoken word verse by author Jensen Tjhung and scored by Tom Lyngcoln. Ambitious and exhaustive, the collaboration began in 2019 and three years later is released by Australia's Solar/Sonar Records. Whilst primarily notable for the musical spaces both Tjhung and Lyngcoln have occupied (Deaf Wish, Lower Plenty & Harmony, The Nation Blue respectively), Escapist Blues is long form and comprehensive in it’s construction. Missives from other worlds, hammered down one-way phone conversations and writ large with big sounds. Twisted wit and weary wisdom are mashed into verses of hallucinatory confessionals. These pieces employ a sonic and descriptive architecture that builds tangible environments and situations that you can move around in and inhabit. Like it’s happening to you. But yes, these are claustrophobic spaces and you’ll be crawling or at the very least stooped. The follow up release to 2021’s Old Fashioned Superstition (Hex Enduction Books) Tjhung’s words are drought dry and dense. At once hilarious and heartbreaking. Tjhung’s words tilt the borders of reality and yet somehow seem to smoke out the truth. The instrumentation and production is all supplied by Lyngcoln, who bends field recording, electronics and his bastardized guitar into movements through which the readings pass. With guest appearances from drummer Lee Parker (Rot TV, Tol, Slug Guts), flautist Isobel D’Cruz (Hex Debt, Hantu), Saxophonist Maddy MacFarlane (Plaster of Paris) and Erica Dunn (Tropical Fuck Storm, Mod Con). Numbered edition of 300 copies.
LP $28.75
06/09/2023