Hal McGee: The Man With The Tape Recorder
'Hal McGee - The Man With The Tape Recorder'
Two 31-minute audio pieces recorded May 4 - May 18, 2007 with an Olympus Pearlcorder S701 Microcassette Recorder in Gainesville, Tampa, and a rental car.
Notes
Fluxus American Gothic Dada absurdist cut-up lo-fi [lo-tech]] sound art accousmatic bruitistic noise collages, employing chance and random procedures yet highly deliberate, scrupulously chaotic in effect, and without God. Voice manipulations, field recordings, stream-of-consciousness wordiness, circuit bent electronics, radio static, lo techtronix, fold-ins... a la William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, Jean Dubuffet and Art Brut, abstract expressionism, finger painting with sound. Hal McGee (voice and circuit bent Casio SK-1, SK-5, Rapman, and piano), Andrew Chadwick [Ironing] (circuit bent cassette player and recording assistance), mockingbirds, Jen Sandwich, Brad Kokay (circuit bent Casio keyboards), Peter Le Zotte, Jenny Le Zotte, wildfire smoke, my mother, my father, J. Watson, Charles Smith, Waldo, Gracie, Rebecca Chatman, Chris Miller, traffic sounds, alarm clock radio, shortwave radio, Jonathan Borofsky's "Hammering Man at 2,938,405" statue, my niece, my nephew, rain, trash compactor, telephones, heart monitor, elevator, fax machine, Lenny Pearlman, local Chinese restaurant, coffee shop... Photographs by Jen Sandwich
Tracks/Stream/Download
The Man With The Tape Recorder Part One (30:59)
Listen in streaming audio for Broadband connection - 192 kbps/Download a 42.5 MB 192 kbps mp3
The Man With The Tape Recorder Part Two (31:17)
Listen in streaming audio for Broadband connection - 192kbps/Download a 42.9 MB 192kbps mp3
Reviews
"The Man with The Tape Recorder is a classic. In some ways, this is the definitve Hal release in this style. It is a dream like narrative but also biographical (of you) at the same time. I dig the pause button effects, something that wouldn't be achieved digitally. There is humor, profound statements occasionally and of course weird, noisy sounds. It's extremely entertaining and definitely not background music." - Don Campau.
"Hal McGee is the king of the lofi collage" - Chris Phinney, Mental Anguish.
Review of Hal McGee's album, The Man With The Tape Recorder, by Jeff Surak, in Vital Weekly number 578: "Avoid old fashioned habits such as tonality and rhythm." A mantra to live and create by, Hal McGee exemplifies this creed on his latest release, The Man with the Tape Recorder. Recorded over a span of two weeks this past May with a micro cassette recorder and a rental car, this is lofi subversion at its best. Random snippets of speech are interspersed with circuit bent electronics. Pause button editing, complete with the sudden swishing sound of the tape heads hitting the tape, propel this album ahead. McGee pontificates his screeds of the creative process amongst random conversations with passersby. Guerrilla phonography or Burroughs cutups unleashed on the unsuspecting. Chaotic but with a determined logic of its own making, this is one of McGee's strongest releases yet in his 25 plus years of audio fluxist activity. McGee's analog madness is refreshing in our overly digital world and never succumbs to retro stylings or nostalgia. You can download or stream this or even purchase a cdr from Hal himself. You'll be glad you did.
