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Gertrude Tapes

WATERHOUSE, RUSS - Amaro

My first exposure to Russ Waterhouse was the mysterious Rhuem cassette The Animals 04/06/99" released on his White Tapes label. The blown-out sounds recorded in an echoey bathroom received a lot of airplay in my grim studio apartment circa 2000 or 2001, more so than most releases from that fertile era of sub-underground/experimental tapes. Music, after all, can take the place of furniture just as easily as a life, and "Animals" resonated with me then and now. 

Since those days RWs propulsive/forward-thinking ideas have helped shape some of my very favorite groups - Blues Control, Watersports and the SB. Amaro shares "Animals" near preoccupation with spaces - physical rooms and/or buildings, definitely - but also the bleary distance between notes and sounds resembling shapes. The overall atmosphere is the primary movement at times, but these two side-long tracks are surprisingly fluid - considering RW is centered in Richmond, VAs ADA gallery with no musical instruments outside of tapes, a Rhythm-Matic, microphones and objects - and highly engaging. The door is opened and outside sound enters, exits and is manipulated with the rawest of gear. 

This amplified air is especially thick and disorientating on Side A. Side B "Amari" is the more palatable one - beautiful conceptual confusion and clashes with melody, introducing a fragrant musical phrase that very quickly collapses before more fade in and wither away. 

Well, we all set fire to the summer wines at some point." - Edmund Wilson, May 2018.
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After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.

This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).

Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.

Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.

Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
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