TUCKER THEODORE "LSG" C52 (Antiquated Future)

Tucker Theodore gives zero fucks about your expectations; unless, of course, you only expect that he’ll turn ordinary pop/country/folk tropes on their twangy ears, leaving you asking, “Now, how exactly did he get That sound out of a Guitar?” I had the privilege/curse of getting to review “To Make the Sun Hurt” a few years back and only recently have I been able to listen to anyone else’s freak-folk albums with any interest. Which is to say, TT’s creativity in meta-composition is exemplary, and his spirit of sonic exploration is truly inspiring.

Take LSG, here, a bewilderingly sprawling sound collage of moody, meandering, psychedelic alt-country solos (both forward and backward!), ominous organ drones, and brief, visiting vignettes of punkish power chords and drums, each dropping by for a quick-but-powerful bull session, like halcyon thoughts of old friends. As the title hints at (a capital G is pretty much just a slightly cracked D, turned 180 degrees, right?), Tucker Theodore is setting us all up for a breaking down of consciousness-barriers, not so much a yoga-ball-meditation as a full on wrecking-ball-vision-quest in re-realizing the guitar’s potential for turning melody into rhythm into texture, & then right back again.

Great for daydreaming, art-making, or playing along with on your own lute!

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/lsg
and/or
http://www.antiquatedfuture.com/
https://inanambulancerecordings.bandcamp.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

TUCKER THEODORE "Lady Hope" C60 (Antiquated Future)

"Lady Hope" rounds out a trilogy of bleak, handcrafted releases by Seattle artist Tucker Theodore, the first of which was 2013's "To make the Sun Hurt" which was an acoustic album with some noise augmentations. Next was 2014"s "Kill and Dress," which was a little darker and a good bit noisier.

This album ends the story. It is the cassette that investigators discover jutting from the tape deck in a burned out car and send to forensics for testing. What is heard on the recording is the remains of a truly heartfelt expression, but where there was once a singer/songwriter, strumming a guitar slowly and singing about lost love or lost life, now the ravages of time and heartbreak have washed over his song, and have begun to even corrode the very tape that he recorded on, until an oxidized shell of brittle burnt metal, and the cinders of a well worn guitar are all that is found among the charred ashes.

I would like to know what the protagonist in the story is going through, but I do not believe we are meant to. Tucker Theodore has painted himself a shadowy figure, staring out at us in his muscle shirt, daring us to know him. We cannot. For at every opportunity, he is obscured further, until he is no longer there. That is what makes this hour-long dirge stirring, and yet indiscernible, moving, yet distant. "Lady Hope" is a beautifully sad love letter, crumpled and set alight in a rusted oil barrel full of bent nails.

Presented for you in a white cassette with black stamping. Includes a download card. 

http://www.antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com

-- Gray Lee

TUCKER THEODORE “To Make the Sun Hurt” C37 (Antiquated Future Records)

Brilliant anachronistic artistry from Portland, Oregon! I’m throwing around the ‘A’ word here because the recording technique isn’t just ‘lo-fi’ for trend/economy’s sake, but straight up Alan-Lomax-style blown-out edges and ¼” tape hiss…but with the very same careful treatment given the organic, acoustic instruments as the Electro-Acoustic Feedback and sparsely employed reverb gain and tape manipulation! Truly a visionary for that whole ‘freakfolk’ scene to take note of, though I’m damned if I could figure out a way to make this work live.  If you’ve ever heard anything like this before, please let me know; I want more!

Hints of: Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazelwood, ethnomusicology, Sunny Day Real Estate (that’s right), subtle/harsh noise, badass.

Note*: It took me many a listen before I was in the mood for this. It sure ain’t a Friday Night Jam or Tuesday Night Study Date Soundtrack or Sunday Morning Yoga Guide. Try A Saturday Afternoon Life Sneering Context w/ Self or maybe a Wednesday Post Work Examination of Wrist Skin Thickness. Either way you slice it, this tape is amazing and I am so very glad they re-issued it and I got it and not Ryan Masteller, who got that goddamn Braeyden Jay/Sister Grotto split (also) from Antiquated Future. We’re both lucky I guess.

https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/to-make-the-sun-hurt

and/or

http://www.antiquatedfuture.com/

- - Jacob An Kittenplan