fixed::context

VINYL FORMAT. To record their sixth album, the members of Labradford met in Chicago to work with Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in June 2000. fixed::content find the trip stripping off the string trios of the last two albums and working with interlocking sound sources and modifiers; Carter Brown's vintage synthesizers, organs and electric piano, the distinctive Duane Eddy plays Satie guitar of Mark Nelson and Bobby Donne's four and six string basses. Beginning with the 16-minute "twenty," Labradford demonstrate grasp of the dialectic between organic sound sources, digital processing and composition. The guitar duet "up to pizmo" shows a refocusing on basic elements like melody and twang while samples pulse below and keyboards waft above. Labradford found that engineer Albini made an apt foil and fixed::context resonates with the reverberating guitars and misty keyboards of Prazision as sampling and processing bubbles beneath.