Volcanic Tongue Catalogue

Heather Leigh
Jailhouse Rock

Not Not Fun NNF-153

LP
£12.99


Deluxe vinyl edition of this classic solo album from Heather Leigh (Jailbreak/Scorces/Jandek et al) originally released in a tiny edition on cassette by Fag Tapes. Two fully-extended high metal masses for amplified pedal steel and vocals that blow all notions of form, fidelity and frilly fucking folk-picking fops to the kinda sweet metallic ribbons previously worn as crowns by Keiji Haino, Jojo Hiroshige and Teenage Jesus & The Jerks. Very different in tone and attack from the recent Jailbreak LP, Jailhouse Rock has a more amorphous sound, with muzzy smears of guitar caked in NZ-style fuzz and clouds of high string tone that conjure the miasmic electronics of Maurizio Bianchi. One of Heather’s most blasted sides with all-new nuts artwork by Heath Moreland. “Jailhouse Rock is in fact a wax reissue of a long OOP 2006 cassette classic on Michigan crud factory Fag Tapes. It was a fave of ours that year (and every year), so it feels extra celebratory to be able to offer up a freshly remastered (by Pete Swanson) LP edition of the album for global re-appreciation. Sprawling, long-form descents/ascents into mythic electric disorientation, powered by her trademark recipe of FX-soaked pedal steel and voice. Jailhouse feels loosely more aligned with a mid-aughts drone/noise aesthetic than the outsider dirt road Americana of her Devil If You Can Hear Me LP (also on NNF), but the distinction is a slight one. Side A swims in swooping sheets of vox and tempestuous wind tunnel dynamics before slowly dying away to wheezing disembodied harmonica. The B piece begins in a more overtly beautiful mode, a trinity of crystalline notes picked and stretched until they’re transformed into a rapturous sky of textural distortion. Sensual and vertigo-inducing in equal measure. Black vinyl LPs in jackets with brand new paint/collage artwork by Heath Moerland (of Sick Llama, Slither, Odd Clouds, etc). Edition of 400.” – NNF. Highly recommended!