Hour Reducer by Bitter Fictions

Microphone out the window - kinda plain and "my first microphone", but sometimes yr alone and want something to play to. Take a stab at some kind of tableau or memory from a place you are/later once were. Maybe you want to try recording motorbikes and thunderstorms in case you write that AC/DC riff.

A little after releasing Jettison I moved into a third floor apartment with large windows. I'd set up a couple mics to try and record the trees and weather - essentially a listening exercise in getting to know my newly acquired four track and surroundings, and a sort of inversion process of the tape recordings through gtr pickups stuff I was doing at live performances. I was deep into things where the recording/performance space, domestic or otherwise, was being 'played' or construed as instrumental in some way.

Since then I've done some variation of this every place I've lived. It becomes a sort of memory log while also having something to 'play to' that's none of the usual suspects. Outside is not listening to you, but you can listen and try playing to it. Rain, wind, traffic, sirens, construction, birds, people - no control over any of it beyond mic placement and EQ levels. Could be lush, mysterious, wet, dry, or somebody could drive by blasting something dreadful and copywritten. It's a little like gambling. There are reasons I haven't released most of these.

These pieces were recorded one evening in Montreal towards the end of October 2019, a couple months into living at the apartment I'll be leaving next week. I stopped recording in this manner here because I didn't want to stumble into recording a budget godspeed piece or some kind of tacky power electronics/surveillance thing.

--d.f., june 2020

Tracklist

1.	I: Moonrise	6:19

2.	II: (ce soir)	12:40

3.	III: and - action	5:18

4.	IV: boredom / contempt	7:54

5.	V: coda	7:08

6.	VI: it's over, go home	1:29

Credits

released June 15, 2020

devin friesen: gtr, tapes, paints
recorded october 2019 in montreal, qc

License