Guitars Tuned To Air Conditioners

2nd pressing of this record originally released in 2016.  Alternate color silkscreen jacket with printed inner sleeve.

GUITARS TUNED TO AIR CONDITIONERS

The west was really conquered by AIR CONDITIONING. Nothing gives that sensation of modernity, control and comfort more than the ability to turn our swamps and deserts into meat lockers.

The machinery was always fascinating; massive coils of copper tubing, large noisy compressors, fans, silvery ducts etc., all complex instruments that, given the right conditions, can seep into the fever dreams of humid summer nights and slow the attack of the Culex mosquito which terrorizes the sleeping residents of the Texas gulf coast. We started this project in the conventional sense- guitars, amps, pedal effects, and a small handheld coil of copper with flared compression fittings.

The lower part of the coil was placed in J-85 lightweight conductive lubricant that was used in the prototype Nascom Gemini echo relay devices from the Skorpio Jupiter communication platform.

It was important to use the J-85 rather than the J-85a since levitation of >.003 microns was crucial.

For reference, stethoscopes were gently placed on wood surfaces. Guitars were tuned as closely as possible to clusters of notes found in the sounds of oiled machine-friction through damp foam rubber, mixing slightly with far away dogs and passing traffic just outside the door. Leaving between 4 and 4.5 degrees for inevitable human error, Rutili would then cool the room to 66°F.

SIDE A: PILLOWS BREAK IN FROZEN LAKE

This was the colder of two temperature settings. If you listen carefully, you will hear a faint metallic scrape at 9:32. These were the first notes of alloy declaring its independence from base metals. As the copper cooled, it would resonate at even-tempered intervals as prime numbers 51 and 51a were looped into the overlapping magnetic layering converter h22 over a period of 16, and 14 minutes.

SIDE B: SPRING SPECIAL APE

Just as the description, a warmer setting. Ross disengaged the cooling cycle and humidity returned to the atmosphere. A more emotional copper ion had attempted to establish dominance by lowering its pitch to imitate one of the heavier elements, but “cooler” heads prevailed and the monoatomic copper was returned to its proper frequency.

At 3:18, and again at 8:04 the lower registers were created by stacking gold-leaf diagons in the center of a forward field line and slowly fanning the glowing particulate to a condensate. The residue was then re-introduced to the “soul” of the diagon, which by then was voice sensitized. We thought it sounded similar to the “all-clear” signal of pack-dominant primates, which is never a bad thing.

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Craig Ross has worked with Lisa Germano, Spoon, Patty Griffin, Califone, Robert Plant, Shearwater, Daniel Johnston, made music for films by Steve Buscemi and Terence Malick and has released 2 solo albums “Dead Spy Report” and “The Greater Good”.

Tim Rutili is a musician, filmmaker and visual artist. Founder and principle songwriter for Califone and Red Red Meat. He has composed and collaborated on music for many feature films and documentaries and contributed to albums by Loftus, Boxhead Ensemble, Ugly Casanova, Joan of Arc, Brian Reitzell, Modest Mouse, Sage Francis and Fruit Bats among others.