Tip! **200 copies** Sedimental is honored to partner with Skell to release the latest majestic work from Mike Griffin’s Parashi: Tape from Oort Cloud. Griffin has honed an aesthetic that few are capable of attaining let alone comprehending: elegence and refinement fused to intense, sonic, noise-based electronics and sound sources. Over the two sides and four tracks Griffin conjures complex, heavy and nuanced terrain that triggers buried images and emotions without being emotional and that acts as a subconcious force. Though Parashi is a very specific solo project, Griffin’s active involvement in the Albany scene and its voracious collaborative nature for all things intense musically, both locally and with others beyond, informs his seasoned approach. Nothing is precious but what remains is essential. For Sedimental this is the first vinyl project since Olivia Block’s Karren (2012) and marks their 48th release since their inception in 1992.

The Oort Cloud is theorized to be an enveloping sphere/elliptical cloud around our solar system. As such it’s a collector/shaper of internal system detritus, in the form of comets and planetesimals. It helps protect the solar system by absorbing cosmic radiation. It also embodies cosmic randomness to me, in its ability to produce destructive comets. The Oort Cloud is something that is theoretical, though the likelihood of its existence is high. So its “unseen by human eyes” aspect is appealing. Could be viewed as a rational belief developed through empirical conjecture rather than superstition. As far as the cosmic egg: again, it is an unseen object, one whose existence was believed in by a group of observers without empirical proof (alchemists instead of astronomers in this case). The cloud/egg shape seem directly related as a metaphor. The shell is necessary to the developing life inside the egg; so is the Oort Cloud to the solar system.

Mike Griffin’s Parashi project has been releasing material since 2010. Parashi’s sound utilizes a wide variety of improvised sound sources, in various states of interaction and decay. Pitchshifted tapes, creaky analog pedals, primitive synthesizers, metal objects, percussion, voice, and murky field recordings all collide and reorganize themselves within Parashi’s work. The resulting sonic constructions are imbued with a vitality that never distracts from the narrative focus of each piece. Parashi has collaborated on releases with artists such as John Olson (Wolf Eyes), Anthony Pasquarosa, Noise Nomads, Rambutan, Belltonesuicide, Fossils from the Sun, HSFB, among others.  He has been a member of Albany psych-rock troop Burnt Hills since 2011, and was a participating member of the long-running Albany Sonic Arts Collective.

"There’s a moment about six minutes in to the 3rd piece, the one from which this album gets its title, when one hears the slightly-off-mic sound of the artist coughing. It serves several functions at once: most importantly, leaving a cough in your final mix of otherwise hermetic electronic music is objectively charming. The humor comes from the sudden and rude snapping a listener out of what was, for the preceding 20 minutes, an absorbing experience of concrete sound in order to say “don’t forget there’s a human in here”. The sudden corporeality also shifts a listener’s focus for the remainder of the piece (and for the inevitable multiple re-listens) to artifacts of the process: small clicks of the artist moving something around, twisting buttons and raising levers… aspects of the music seem to be recorded/performed live, whereas it previously (before the cough) had the aura of tightly-worked-over cosmic texture. Tape from Oort Cloud is a deep slab. There’s a lot in this music that once could pay attention to, and different take-aways depending on which aspect you might want to focus on. On my first listen, I heard the shifts in tone from brooding industrial to striated cassette-tape-rewind volleys (do you love that sound as much as I do?) to aggressive noise attack to Berlin-School-esque ambience to… eh, who knows. I heard the tone and mood first. Then, after the cough, I could better hear the guiding hands moving between spaces. The improvisation and gorgeous imperfection. Further listens (because this album inspires return visits) revealed the richness of the synthesizer tones, the solid command of movement within each of the four pieces, the drama from one moment to the next, the dialogue between the pieces. " - HS, Vital Weekly