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Mega Bog - Life & Another

Mega Bog - Life & Another

Format: Vinyl LP

UPC: 843563126141

Release Date: 08/27/21

Condition: N

Regular price $22.98 USD
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On Life, and Another, Mega Bog (the world-inhabiting moniker of song-animator Erin Birgy) tends a succulent garden full of plants that the unwitting passerby might mistakenly perceive as extraterrestrial, but which are in fact very much of this Earth. Departing from the humid Holodeck spider plant nursery of previous record Dolphine (2019), Mega Bog's new album brings us back to our home planet, into the rarefied air pressure of a dried-up desert valley where it's fourteen songs were written and scattered like stones in the landscape. But true to Birgy's alchemical writing practice, these bright stones simply refuse to blend into their arid environment, each one a precious gem chiseled by the anti-capitalist geologist's hammer to reveal the impossible, dazzling life that inheres under the dusty exteriors of both the northern Nevada of her youth and the rural New Mexico of the album's birth.

Cohabiting with Life, and Another's co-producer, engineer, and percussionist James Krivchenia (Big Thief) in a small cabin near the Rio Grande off of NM State Route 68, Birgy found herself often alone, suspended between their separate touring schedules. In these silent time passages, Birgy experienced a complete loss of self amid the expanse. Frequently thinking about death in the middle of nowhere opened a familiar black hole of troubling projections, and any desire to find freedom or remain positive continued to fold back into self-destructive thought and fear. Strange long days were spent pacing the property with a rake, befriending ants and spiders and struggling with the instinct to poison them if they ventured into the home. Comfort was occasionally found in internet reruns of Frasier and Star Trek Deep Space 9, texts on the ethics of terraforming and space colonization, and Ken Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. Over time, a budding interest in mindfulness, attachment theory, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and rage gave way to new productive brain processes. These creative juices followed Birgy on the road and into subsequent lonely bedrooms as the songs continued to flow. New, northern landscapes, like the woods and rivers outside of Seattle, Washington, provided further inspiration during odd sublets in the area. Dark as everything may actually be, Birgy always manages to stay with trouble and conjure the extraordinary resulting music. Life, and Another stages a semi-fictionalized drama in the community theater of the interior self, with scenes of collective longing at the bowling alley, disputes over a distended memory outside the bar, and the solitary circling on the patio, looking out over the yard in stubborn awe. These memories, from both past and future, bubble up throughout the album and present their characters as new entries into the Mega Bog Book of Symbols. In "Station to Station," an artichoke, the decadent indulgence young Erin learned to steam for herself, is gutted around the spine. In "Weight of the Earth, on Paper," named after the collection of memoir tapes by the artist-warrior David Wojnarowicz, poppies sprout in Birgy's shadow and scare her companion, while harpies circle above Loch Ness. Fantastical visions beget inherited family traumas that taunt withering romantic relationships. A deep faultline connects the record with the work of Wojnarowicz, who, in the years before his death in 1992 (twenty-nine years and one day before the release of Life, and Another), recorded in his tape journals a series of moments of rapturous solitude in the deserts of the American Southwest, carried from dream to dream by real and imagined friendships with human lovers, horses, scorpions, clouds, and the occasion cruiser. Recorded over several sessions in various studios-the Unknown in Anacortes, Washington, Way Out in Woodinville, Washington, and Tropico Beauty in Glendale, California-Life bleeds with instrumental contributions from longtime and new collaborators, including Aaron Otheim, Zach Burba of iji, Will Segerstrom, Matt Bachmann, Andrew Dorset of Lake, James Krivchenia of Big Thief, Meg Duffy of Hand Habits, Jade Tcimpidis, Alex Liebman, and co-engineers Geoff Treager and Phil Hartunian. The group's temporary re-imagining of exoplanetary life together carries this collective imagination through it's architecture, which, if you try to grasp it too tightly, will only appear to you all at once, afterward, instead of moment to moment, station to station, through the house into which Birgy and her friends have invited us. Listeners know by now they can trust Mega Bog to continuously lead them into deeper and wilder, spiritual pop territories. Skittering piano glissandos, haunting psychic background voices, and tequila-inspired improvisations creep and crawl over the dark-night-of-the-soul rock and roll dreamscape, before vanishing to make way for invocations of quiet clarity and living-breathing instrumental passages. This is how the record takes on it's picaresque, non-anthropomorphic epic story bag shape. Imagine that Pink Floyd's The Wall, Wim Wenders's film Until the End of the World, and Bucky Fuller and June Jordan's speculative architectural redesign of New York City were episodes in some larger, yet-to-be-written Canterbury Tales of imaginative, necessary life on the planet. Mega Bog etches it's chapter here, transforming the brutal heaviness of the world into the collective struggle of living. 

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RETURNS
Items may be returned within 60 days of the delivery date.

If not defective, any product returned must be in the same condition in which customer received it and in the original retail packaging.
Yellow Racket will be responsible for cost of return on all damaged or defective items. Customer is responsible for cost of return if item is not damaged or defective. Photo/video evidence of damages/defects must be provided by customer within 14 days of the delivery date.
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GRADING

Yellow Racket assigns condition based on the Goldmine Standard for grading records.
New (N) (Not typically included in the Goldmine Standard)
New records are purchased directly from the label, distributor, or registered wholesaler. Records are still sealed. Jackets may have slight shelf wear, but media has never been played.
Mint (M)
Still sealed. Never played. No observable flaws.  Items have been purchased secondhand.
Near Mint (NM)
A Near Mint (NM) record will play perfectly, with no imperfections during playback. The record should show no obvious signs of wear.
The cover (and any additional packaging) has no creases, folds, seam splits, cut-out holes, or other noticeable defects.
Very Good Plus (VG+)
A Very Good Plus (VG+) record will show some signs that it was played and otherwise handled by a previous owner who took good care of it.
Defects should be more of a cosmetic nature, not affecting the actual playback as a whole. Record surfaces may show some signs of wear and may have slight scuffs or very light scratches.
The disc and LP cover may have slight signs of wear, and may be gently marred by spindle marks, paper scuffs, wrinkled corners, etc.
Very Good (VG)
Many of the defects found in a VG+ record will be more pronounced in a VG disc. Surface noise will be evident, but will not overpower the music. Disc may have light scratches (deep enough to feel with a fingernail) that will affect the sound.
Labels, jackets, and inserts will have visible cosmetic flaws such as wrinkles, cut-outs, slight splitting, etc. However, it will usually have less than a dozen minor flaws.
Good (G)
A record in Good condition can be played through without skipping. But it will have significant surface noise, scratches, and visible groove wear. A cover or sleeve will have seam splits, especially at the bottom or on the spine. Tape, writing, ring wear, or other defects will be present.
While the record will be playable without skipping, noticeable surface noise and "ticks" will almost certainly accompany the playback. 
Poor (P), Fair (F)
The record may be cracked, badly warped, or won't play through without skipping or repeating. The picture sleeve may be water damaged, split, or heavily marred by wear and writing.
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