DETOURN TO SENDER: Jason Lescalleet

Jason Lescalleet

Much to My Demise lp

Kye records

2014

In the handwritten all-CAPS liners, Lescalleet commands the possessor to damage their copy in whatever ways they see fit, suggestin they even forgo a poly sleeve; just let age and affection do they work. A tall order for the grip-n-flip eBayboomers, fa sho'; though that ain't me, so I'm finna do my part to degrade this proper. Spring has arrived here--not so much sprung but sproinged haphazardly--so maybe I'll let it sunbake on the patio for a stretch between a coupla busted panes. But first, I'll finish having my last crisp moments with it so I can give y'all the primo needledrop experience.

Side A is just about the most delicate and at times downright sleepytime relaxin' stretch of wax yet dug by Mr Lescalleet; a side so packed to begin with ya gotta crank the receiver just to compensate for the compression. I knows his steez enuff to say he meant it that way and that surely would add to the well-worn G- listening experience. Like Marchetti, he herein does the loud-bits-soft-and-soft-bits-loud right as summer rain, suckin me into the speakers flanked by an antique stethoscope and a looking glass the size of a coffee table. And once I'm down on my hands and knees, the slo-mo mumbles buried within raise all the right hairs on my collar.

The flip on the other hand, a sidelong affair called "My Dreams Are Dogs That Bite Me," (and my track title of the month, if'n you's the accounting type) you could grok with a pair of aural opera goggles. Though it relishes plenty of due pauses (remindin' me of the low groove bits of This Skin Is Rust in their precision), once things blast into firework focus, one is possessed by the sticky heat and the threat of storms like ya oughta be in tape-based longform musics. Maybe it's cuz when I was a tyke resistin' sleep my ma would plop me down on the washer-dryer in my grandpappy's basement (where we shacked up after a failed relocation to Las Vegas) to put me out--that is, if it were too late to discreetly take me out for a drive in the hatchback of a Chevy Celebrity with a rotted muffler. Worked like medicine, I'll tell you what. And as in the sidelong epic that is the B side of The Pilgrim and it's hefty patriarchal narrative, in this I feel both the warmth and lull of a placental brunch and the rush of the birth canal slide into the cold fluorescence of here. Nicely did.

Carved up on porcelain vinyl and already headed for a second press, the damn thang done induced grip-sweats worldwide. Catch em where ya can.