Zach Phillips lived until recently in Brattleboro, VT (then he moved to Brooklyn). He shook up stuff over there and all around New England pretty good via a great tape/record label OSR TAPES, and a number of great bands and groups like BIG FRENCH, and most in your face of all BLANCHE BLANCHE BLANCHE. He’s now involved with another record label WHARF CAT RECORDS. Here’s his real slice of life for ya.

Music as a cultural force and a social engagement can go a lot of different ways depending on what kinds of content (if any) people get behind . If you, like me, are invigorated by the promise of songs as beautifully-almost-merely-heuristic totems of spiritual guidance then I encourage you to notice who is working hard to those ends. Personally I like to hear hard work in the vein of vocalized lyrical statements in conjunction or disjunction with instrumental heart song, which doesn’t seem to me to be in fashion, though it can take many forms. I find it in Guerilla Toss every night of our tour. More and more I find correspondence soaked in unfashionable glories; nothing but this gets me going. As 2013 ends I remain excited thinking about the music of Hartley C. White, Inc., the Toss, Ruth Garbus, Christina Schneider, Tori and Reiko Kudo. Rebby Sharp cemented my realization that the true artist wins, and what you win is your own work: surprise! William Parker: if you’re successful in the music business, you might be doing something wrong. Wishgift is insane. The Dream Scene, with Mercer on bass. Jib Kidder’s IV. Everything Rikky Gnar touches. Palberta, Sediment Club. I think I heard the Mallard in the van and that was cool. Tim Dahl’s bass playing. Thundercat. CBYH. Dot Wiggin band. Chris Cohen. “Bentonia.” Fat Creeps, Fat Worm. Very probably the Howling Hex and Haunted Grafitti will present giant works in ’14 but I will still need more. I wonder if Kurt Weisman will make another record soon. I believe heartily in the incredible potency of Joey Pizza Slice’s gift.

I moved away from Marshfield, to New York, unmoored so to speak. What can I say, I believe in the individual. This is not a list of what’s best. We don’t all take the same medicine because we don’t all have the same sickness. But let me say that recorded music could be a lot more interesting if you approached it a little more radically and with a little less of that glint in your eye that says , “I wouldn’t mind getting something out of this.” Too much samey shit, we need fresh representational aesthetics. I want to hear you sing plainly in a new voice. And affiliation through natural affinity is the only way. Such affiliation should be pursued vigorously! We should have sects I think. I wish people who don’t make music would stop talking about it so much, or maybe start making it, learn a little bit about how it can work. I don’t talk about the love you make. That said , wouldn’t it be cool if writing about music were shown to be more than a trade of trash? Some people are working hard, but are they rewarded? Now might be a good time to think about why exactly publicists exist, who is the “public” for you, what do you want exactly, why “talent buyer” is a title some people actually comfortably bear, why share, etc… it can be tempting to hope for your chance to tell Lichfork whether you like Coke or Pepsi better but fuck it if you have any self respect, be better to yourself than that. To all my spirit people studying however you will yourself through open song and recorded song: make it work, don’t give up, and remember the only way up from that wonderful feeling of matching the blur is dooooooown!