Lather Records

God, I hope not. But it might. For now, my San Kazakagascar band mates and myself are diving back into work on our next album, after a pause. We are also playing some dates around the greater northern California area. See the poster up top. Will probably be adding another date or two. Would love to see you out there.

San Kazakgascar: official site , BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook

Recordings: Lather Bandcamp, Trouble in Mind, Pom Pom Tones

Hello from Sacramento, where spring is quite nice except for the horrible allergy part. It feels like a real worn out thing to say, but I hope everyone is hanging in there. I have been up and down with it all, including the emotional crevasse of work stress. But there is always the next album. San Kazakgascar took a little time off this winter from playing out to get our new album started. We’re kinda hitting a bump with it at the moment, but hope to get it rolling again. I will share more about it when it is done.

In the meantime, please note a handful of live dates (poster) this spring. Will be out and about in the summer, too. A few months ago, Philadelphia-based Jeffrey Alexander released a cassette/download of an improvised set we did there in July. I believe he still has some copies available at:

You can still order most of our music from our Bandcamp site – LPs, CDs, tapes, & downloads. Thank you, everyone!

Many of you have known Tony Passarell longer than myself. I’ve only known him since about 2009. He came to see San Kazakgascar and suggested we start a improvised/free jazz version of what SK was doing. I said sure, but was actually terrified of attempting music without structured songs. Like he did with so many others, he pushed me into uncomfortable territory and encouraged me to just trust my shit. This became Swimming in Bengal, and he opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me. We found a zone that was equal parts drone, psych, scattered, and mischievous. My favorite thing to do in Bengal was to play a simple repetitive pattern and listen to him smoke on saxophone or clarinet. I loved how he encouraged adventure. He would show up and dump out a bag of instruments and use most of them during a 40 minute set. I loved how he was always inviting other musicians, especially for out of town shows, to sit in with us. He taught me how to be fearless. It was also a thrill playing with percussion lords Alex Jenkins and old bud Rusi Gustafson.

After he received the cancer diagnosis, he said he wanted to record a Swimming in Bengal album with an extended ensemble. In 2019, Greg Hain recorded an 8-member session, which we released as Collective Elephant. Tony was proud of seeing this vision through. I’ve made the album free on the Bandcamp page, at least for the download. The site said I have to list the compact disc for at least $1. Please grab it.

SO LONG TONY. THANK YOU, THANK YOU. WE MISS YOU ALREADY.

Hello friends. Just a quick little update here with some summer Kazakgascar stuff. Note the dates above. Some of these are regular band dates and some are me w/collaborator folks. Stay hydrated and remember to use your turn signal. That’s it.

LINKS FOR RECENT-ISH SAN KAZAKGASCAR RELEASES:

Too Many People LP, CD, DL // Emotional Crevasse LP, CD, DL // Long Tones of August CS, DL

Some music I’ve enjoyed recently:

Loose Diamonds

Halfbird

Donald Beaman

Grandaddy

We have been busy in recent months, getting to play shows with the likes of Quasi, Dengue Fever, Bill Orcutt, Derek Monypeny, Grex, Roger Kunkel, etal. We also put the finishing touches on Too Many People! I have never done one of these talk about each song things, so here it goes. This batch of songs came together in a variety of ways – some in the backyard, some in the basement. There are some different textures we hadn’t used before, which is always fun. Like Emotional Crevasse, it is all over the place. Dig the beautiful cover art by Arrington de Dionyso.

HEART OF DUSK

During the first year of the pandemic we held occasional jam meet ups in Greg’s backyard. This was the first song seed from those sweaty afternoons. This tune kind of captures the hazy psych of Sacramento’s north end.

DRY HANDS OF EL PASO

If you’ve ever been to El Paso in the winter, you know that your skin is constantly cracking and peeling. This song would be especially hard to fret with such conditions.

PATH OF THE PYTHON

This naughty little serpent is anchored around Greg’s Alturia synth build-up. I love how the one-chord grinder goes into the Arabic melody with Rachel and Linda, and then falls apart.

SUBURBAN BLUFFS

It’s fun being an ambiguous little asshole when it comes to song titles. We kept thinking of things to add to this, but ended up keeping it very lean. It serves as a nice palate cleanser to end side one. And a little pedal steel from H-Bomb!

SLICKSTER SLIMESTER

Another backyard burner from the early pandemic days when we wondered if we would ever gig again. I wanted everyone to go hog wild with free jazz lunacy on those end sections and hog wild they went.

MOTORCADE FOR THE PRINCE

This thing somehow reminds me of being in Thailand, but sounds nothing like Thai music. Why?

VETS DAY AT THE DINING ROOM TABLE

More ambiguous song title bull-shittery. Spoiler – Greg and I worked on this song on Veterans Day. Care to guess which room?

CROCKETT CREEK

Great, now Jed has a fucking field recording thing on an album. Deal with it. I wanted to line up a a drone guitar note with a creek or river. I believe the Crockett Creek was churning along in F that day. I worked on this with Matt and it was another example of lots of ideas to add things, but then deciding less was more.

Order Too Many People LP, CD, or download at Lather Records.

Order our drone recording, Long Tones of August, at Trouble in Mind.

A short drone set video (w/zither!) opening for Orcutt and Monypeny.

A live review from San Francisco in the recent issue of The Wire.

New San Kazakgascar Instagram thing. Official old-style San Kazakgascar site.

Hey! We have a couple of great shows this week before we take a little break and ready the release of our new album Too Many People. On September 20, we play with Dengue Fever at Harlow’s. I actually got dengue fever back in 2005, and now I get to play with the musical version. You can get tickets HERE.

A few days later we play a quiet drone set at a house show in Orangevale on September 23 with master musicians Bill Orcutt and Derek Monypeny. We’ve played with both before and they are making some of the most compelling music in the American underground. A great way to usher in the Autumn Equinox! Email me for the address, if interested.

We will have copies of the repressed Emotional Crevasse LP and our recent drone cassette, Long Tones of August, on Trouble in Mind. We finally made an Instagram account for the band.

Harvester fans, don’t forget that the 30-year anniversary show in September 30 in Chico!



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Harvester fans, don’t forget that the 30-year anniversary show in September 30 in Chico!

SAN KAZAKGASCAR

Hello feathered friends! I’m sitting here in our little laundry room/home office just as we get ready for our first serious Sacramento heatwave of the summer. It’s been a good ride of moderate temps, but now we must pay. The new San Kazakgascar album, Too Many People, will be ready for pre-order and my hype machine right soon. In the meantime, check out our northern California dates above. We have also repressed the Emotional Crevasse LP. Album review HERE. They’re too big to make good stocking stuffers, but it’s not December, so it really works out. We still have CD and DL formats available too. Listen and order HERE.

You can also still order our Long Tones of August drone recording on the wonderful Trouble in Mind label HERE. Doing improv drone sets is an itch that needed to be scratched, and it feels good. Here is a little write up from Foxy Digitalis. Below is a little promo video that fellow cloud nerd Matthew Kretzmann made for it.

COMING OUT OF HIBERNATION ?!

Swimming in Bengal – August 13 in Davis at Delta of Venus

Harvester – September 30 in Chico at Naked Lounge