"Sometimes, throughout the process of creating a record, it is easy to forget how much magic is involved. When one is surrounded by wires, microphones, dials, tubes, screens, and stomp boxes there can be a decided lack of mystery. These are the earliest Black Dirt recordings, originally captured a mere few days after our humble doors were opened. As a matter of fact, everyone involved approached the experience as a sort of favor _¢?? you'll be our guinea pig and well do our damn best to get a good document out of it. Matta Llama dug in for a session and did what they do so well... wordlessly picking up their instruments _¢?? and at certain points, each others _¢?? and opening up that secret door that allows access to a timeless wellspring of past and future sounds. After the band had improvised more than an albums worth of music, something seemed off on playback. Another session was scheduled and a different approach was taken. Oddly, the results were the same. We placed the recordings on a shelf and high fived each other before they rode off on their way back to the big, dark city. And there the recordings sat. But a funny thing happened a few years later after we received our Alchemists robe in the mail. We went back to the them and realized that whatever was leaden about the sounds Matta Llama had laid down so many months before was purely a result of a young studio _¢?? and novice engineer! - and once some of those problems were corrected, a blazing, golden, psychedelic beacon shot out of the speakers. The band was immediately contacted and at an impromptu meeting many things were discussed. Seeds grown to trees, lead to gold, and finally the idea of this record. Now, so many years later, this record glows with magic. It is hard to believe that there were any of the mundane trappings of a studio involved at all. It is a swirling, mysterious, and dark record and the document of the birth of Black Dirt and were proud to present The Witch Channel to you". - Black Dirt. Edition of 500. Recorded at Black Dirt Studio, Westtown, NY. Mastered by Carl Saff, Chicago, IL. 140g vinyl pressed at Brooklyn Phono. Covers silk screened by VGKids, Ypsilanti, MI.
