Allmanna Town - 1911

 

Released: March 14

1911 is brief little album with a rather fun premise. Everything thing you hear on this album has been processed through the iconic Library of Congress C-1 cassette player, a coveted player that features variable speed and a distinct tone the no other player can really replicate. But the result of this tinkering brings us a variety of interesting compositions that touch of a lot of different motifs and genres with some being more akin to a four on the floor house beat and others resembling something much more downtempo. Regardless, they all have that weird dreamy quality to them imputed by that peculiar piece of gear. 

The tracks don’t quite have names, but instead are cryptically named after the numbered sample pulled from the machine in numerical order, with skips. “Sample 01” and “Sample 17” stand out as a couple of my favorites for their slower approach with seemingly randomized textures. They both also have this fun warbly vibe to them that feel like the variable speed knob was used quite liberally but in tasteful fashion. The two loner tracks in this collection, “Sample 04” and “Sample 32,” lean much heavier on the house-adjacent beats while keeping that spacey and analogue vibe. It all makes for a fun little collection of tracks that feel like sonic sketches. I think my only complaint about it all is that Iw ish there were more of this because it really had me hooked in its overall vibe.