Asthmatic Kitty is best known as the label that Sufjan Steven started, also somewhat recognized as the home of acts like Fol Chen and Castanets, not to mention Shapes and Sizes, D.M. Stith, and dozens other. One of the very out-there Others are the crack teams who record and produce the label's ongoing Library Catalog Music Series. The Series is a noble endeavor if ever there were one by a perennially indie-relevant label. While one might say the Series is basically an attempt to continue the tradition of making truly “ambient” music in the tradition Eno defined, the label widens the gates through which their brand of background office, home, mind, film, tv, orthodontist music may pass – such that these two new tracks in the 10-release long (and counting) series are nine different strands of cheese, schlock, thriller, Thriller, The Fugitive, Yellow Jackets, not too much Eno, a little “post-hop”… well.
In the past these releases have translated directly to trend-hops, kids these days, blog-rumblings, and the like. There was Music for Savage Tropical Imagery from Yuuki Matthews (formerly of Crystal Skull) and Roberto Lange (Helado Negro, Savath y Savalas) with Music for Memory. But we're afraid of no trends.
Here we go:
Seriously, here is your unabashed, humorful, if not ironic Comic Wow, a team of (count them) ten musicians and engineers (two full-time engineers) playing instruments like flute and vibraphone along with the usual suspects (“chickering 5'11″ grand piano, re-built”), who have written an album that includes tracks called “Miami Song Tennis” and “Miami Song Tennis 2”, as well as “Meet the Vampeatles (Or, What if the Beatles were Vampires?)”. The song they're giving away is called “Jazz Computer”. Obviously it is intended to be played in the background as you plug Excel-relevant data into your Jazz Computer. It is important that you are wearing your Dave Brubeck glasses and have mastered the art of dancing like Pee Wee Herman in a room full of people who hate you for listening to this. The release is called Music for Mysteries of Mind Space and Time and it's out October 26.
Wow. And number two. William Ryan Fitch is best known as a member of the “post-hop” outfit Sole and the Skyrider Band, but here we get him penning scores for high-budget thrillers shot in the dead of winter in some northern city where Men are Men hunting Men who are Men and there are concealed guns to fire and pretty women to bed in alternating scenes. The release is called Music for Honey and Bile and it's also out October 26.
