ARTHUR CANTERBURY – Talking To Dead People CS

“I made this last summer on a whim one night – I had the bug to record, with no intention of making genre or project-specific material. I’m really fond of that element of this tape. Everything on here was influenced by the experience alone, and for that reason I think it sounds completely in the moment – I also had taken a couple tabs of LSD, which obviously also played a big role in the lucid feeling that was captured. It was one of the creepier experiences I’ve had taking psychedelics – there was a semi-constant presence shadow people in the corner of my eye, to the point where I frequently would pause the recording and get up to make sure I wasn’t being burglarized while blasting this shit out. I was recording between around 1-3 AM (there’s about an hour and a half of source material, accounting for all the pausing and switching between blank reels), so paranoia was running high. The longer ambient segment on the second side is what really captures the experience – I was tilting my head slowly in specific directions, which influenced the coming and going of the feedback – this process felt like some kind of communication with whatever was haunting my apartment. The appearance of Men at Work’s “Who Can It Be Now?” oddly plays into all of this as well – I had recorded over a found reel of vinyl mixes, likely from the 80s. That track kicked off the side of the tape I was using, and without giving it much thought, I wound up leaving in the first bit of the track, which now feels very serendipitous.

On the topic of artwork, the cover image is taken straight from a Shimon Dzigan tape I found at an estate sale a few months prior – the tape isn’t listed on Discogs, but there is an LP version to look at for reference. I’m not familiar with this guy’s comedy, nor could I be, since it’s all in Yiddish. But while tripping out and recording, I was looking at the cover of this tape, and the faces were winking at me (in that strange acid-induced way, not very literal winking but sensory apparent somehow). The faces displayed a kind of otherworldly mockery. Especially considering I acquired the tape from the estate of someone who’d passed away – I would have chills looking at this image, thinking about ghosts, and seemingly being visited by them as well.

Even though this is mostly drug-induced spiritual nonsense, I’m very happy with the character of this recording, and think it documents a very creepy experience extremely well.”

Edition of 52 home-dubbed in real-time on recycled chrome tapes. Originally self-released summer 2022 in an edition of 10 or so copies, mostly given to locals. This edition has been edited for a more consistent flow.