HARD RETURN

HARD RETURN is a record label from ATTN:Magazine, dedicated to releasing extremely repetitive/persistent music.

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LATEST RELEASE:

Angela Winter – Mesmerizer
A drone oscillator, a delay or two, and a trio of reverbs.

These were my only instruments.

I needed a recording signal that was clean and quiet because the sound in my home studio was anything but during a nearly two-year construction project at the house next door. Though my recordings typically feature vocals, condenser mics were out of the question. Stage mics were out; even acoustic instruments with cables or contact mics were out. So I chose a stripped-down rig of electronics for its ability to go direct-in to a recorder.

All performances are live, with just a bit of EQ and compression added later.

I named the first track “sphenoid” because I could feel its pulse vibrate the eponymous butterfly-shaped cranial bone in my skull. Fly, little bone, I thought. Take me somewhere new.

The second track floated in months later. After it was done and I listened to the recording, pleasantly stunned, I wrote “mesmerizer” in my mix notebook.

I recorded the third track during the emergence of Brood XIX cicadas in North Carolina, where I live. Millions of these winged insects emerge from dormancy in thirteen-year cycles, and when they do, the woods come alive with their mating song—an eerie, high-pitched whir that sounds like an alien spacecraft in an old sci-fi movie. As I mixed “emergence,” a cicada landed on my studio window. I looked through the glass into its orange eyes, marveling at how such a small creature can make such rich, resonant sounds.

Drones are hypnotic transportation devices, musical meditations, dream streams. I began listening to them deeply in 2020, and I’ll forever be grateful for their transcendent medicine.

I hope you enjoy listening.

—Angela Winter