Fifty is a lot of releases, but that’s where we find our pals Third
Kind in July 2020, sitting on their fiftieth release as a label. Fifty! It’s
hard to make the case that there’s not a single misstep for a label ushering so
much music into the world, but you’ll have to take from me, a noted expert,
that there’s not a single misstep in
Third Kind’s catalog. Can you believe it? I barely can, and I’m the one
writing/stating it.
This isn’t the fiftieth release. That honor went to Bary Center’s Guide Me Through the Hills of Your Home,
which you can read about right here.
This, on the other hand, is the first release,
THIRD01, reissued and repackaged in celebration of the milestone. Good luck
getting your hands on a copy of the old one, because you probably won’t be able
to unless you scour Discogs or know Hassni Malik or Nicholas Langley
personally, and even then they’ll probably point you to the reissue. But that’s
OK – because this new thing is quite nice in its folded cardstock packaging,
and it also features brand spanking new artwork from Tiny Little Hammers. Yes, that Tiny Little Hammers, the good one!
Malik and Langley, the latter of whom runs Third Kind (like you didn’t
know), also have performed in beloved UK combo the Vitamin B12, so this is sort
of like a side project for them. The two of them twiddle knobs and beam in
transmissions from distant galaxies through the satellites they’ve
clandestinely sent into orbit, recording the mesmerizing output to tape. Each
of these three pieces were improvised (the titles include the word “Improv” as
well as a date), but it doesn’t matter. It all sounds like communication, from
outer to inner, then inner to inner, maybe back to outer, but that’s not so
important. What is important is that
TLH made this tape look like a sci-fi novel, and that’s super awesome. It
sounds like the soundtrack to a sci-fi novel. Also, looking at the tape itself
will probably get you high.
So celebrate along with Third Kind and the rest of us, and take a trip
down memory lane with Music by Hassni
Malik & Nicholas Langley. Sounds as fresh now as it did then.
https://thirdkindrecords.bandcamp.com/
--Ryan
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