New Batch – Housecraft
8.30.18 by Mike Haley

My inbox is less than exciting, usually sporting corespondents regarding whether or not I have received someone’s tape in the mail, 10% off coupons from The Container Store, or liberal groups I inadvertently gave my email address to asking for money with subject lines like “They Murdered Tony’s Dog Because Of This Law!”

Today was different.

Today I got an email with the subject HOUSECRAFT UPDATE 2018.

If you’re not familiar with Housecraft, they were a sinew of mid-2000’s experimental cassette mythos. Real important stuff, folks. They never actually went away, but operations slowed down considerably over the past few years as Jeffry Astin did whatever it is people do. Work? Travel? Murdering Tony’s dog? I have no clue, and I’m not about to start asking. My focus is strictly on the three tapes the dropped in said HOUSECRAFT UPDATE 2018.

Those three tapes are rich with the power of Astin: J/R (Astin & Raymond Reitano), Digital Natives (also Astin), and Jeffry Astin (this one is obvious, right?)

All editions of 42, the tapes are frustrated collages, truncating concrète warble, AM interference, and whatever was lying around the shoppe into one of Ernő Rubik’s cubes. Gone is the classic gauziness of Housecraft, replaced with no-logic perplexity that sometimes toes right up to a Tim & Eric bit, most ubiquitous on Astin’s “Recognizely Immedeated” C77 as competing voices talk about “your wife’s cleaning” or “jeff’s five favorite things.” (Spoiler: one of his favorite things is listening to sparklers up close. Sounds fun!) The abstract smoochings continues on J/R’s “Assuredly Volatile Iterations”  before landing on “Bad Acid’s All the Fun” by Digital Natives. This 2xC40 shows a weakness for structure and network, crafting “songs” out of the surge. Bonkers, all bonkers!

Head on over to Housecraft and pick these up before they go off-grid again. RIP Tony’s dog.