Connecters Vol. 1: Original Recordings 1992-1999 [LP]

Larrison - Connecters Vol. 1: Original Recordings 1992-1999 [LP]

Connecters Vol. 1: Original Recordings, 19921999 marks the first public release by Larrison, the recording alias of Midwestern visual artist and musician Larrison Seidle. Composing, programming, and recording entirely on a Casio CZ-5000 during the halcyon days of early 90s homespun exploration and experimentation, Larrison inhabited a dreamworld of his invention, soundtracked by space age pop vignettes speckling with hypnotic, ebullient layered synthesizer melodies. Unfolding across 26 tracks, all newly restored and mastered from the original sources, Connecters Vol. 1 reinvents itself, song by song, transcending time and defying the fated obscurity of this brilliant, discreet music made three decades ago. Larrison Seidle grew up in Greenwood, Indiana, a working-class suburb of Indianapolis, in the 70s and 80s. He did not come from a family of musicians, however a household that encouraged musicality. His father bought an electric organ, envisioning Larrision and his older brother learning the instrument. a€œIt ended up with my father sitting at the organ some nights, making up, and playing over and over, this one song that I can still remember the first few bars of,a€ recalls Larrison. It was possibly in this moment absent of formal training but full of encouragement and exploration, the artists forays into musical experimentation took root. A permission to dabble that would distinctly color his creative output in the years to follow._x000B__x000B_While classic rock records were readily available in Larrisons childhood home, his father borrowed 35mm educational documentaries from the library to screen in the living room, each scored with whimsical instrumentals. As a teenager he recorded John Carpenter and Alan Howarths end theme from Escape from New York using a small tape recorder placed next to the television speaker, and he loved Tangerine Dreams contributions to Ridley Scotts dark fantasy Legend. His obsession with these largely lyricless, synthesizer based compositions produced an idiosyncratic understanding of how music serves to complement not only what we can see in front of us but what we undergo in the recesses of consciousness. In 1985, when he was thirteen, Larrison convinced his father to buy him a Casio CZ-5000 keyboard. A novelty in the Seidle household like the organ before, it wasnt until after graduating high school in 1991, and starting college at Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, that he discovered the sequencer built into the Casio and began recording his compositions to tape. a€œThe CZ-5000 and its 8 track sequencer is the only musical instrument I used. It has a nearly unlimited new sound creation feature,a€ explained Seidle._x000B__x000B_While at Herron, Larrison struck up a friendship with fellow student and sound artist Michael Northam, who he met at a concert on campus. After turning on Larrision to the sounds of Severed Heads, Throbbing Gristle, and Roger Doyle, and thus winning his affection and trust, Northam persuaded him to move to Austin, Texas, which was known for its vibrant art and music scene in the early 90s. The two initially stayed with Northams friend Daniel Plunkett, editor and publisher of ND, an influential magazine focused on DIY music and tape trading active from 1982-1999. At its height, NDs readership was in the thousands, with Plunkett mailing issues around the world. _x000B__x000B_Over a few months in late 1993 and early 1994 with limited means and boundless intuition, Larrison wrote and recorded a set of songs with his CZ-5000 in a small apartment north of Austins downtown, hand-crafted a colorful illustrated insert where some song titles were represented by lines or arrows, and passed it along to Plunkett for review consideration in ND. This single cassette, under the title Connecters [sic], was one of 1200 submitted to ND throughout the course of the publications existence that Freedom To Spend co-founder Jed Bindeman acquired in 2020 and almost miraculously discovered._x000B__x000B_a€œI was getting major ear fatigue listening to the tapes in this collection,a€ Bindeman admits. a€œBut then I put on Larrisons Connecters and was immediately like, a€˜Whoa! What am I listening to? Beginning to end, the tape was just fantastic.a€_x000B_ _x000B_Featuring music from that very cassette alongside other recordings from Larrisons explorations throughout the 90s, Connecters is a survey of instrumental music illuminated by both diverse conceptual strategy and playful curiosity. Operating under what many musicians would consider a constraint, Seidle generated technically innovative approaches to modifying the sounds and built-in effects contained in the CZ-5000. The machine permitted him to change the waveform, envelope and key of sounds using phase distortion synthesis, essentially creating instruments in the process of making songs. The tracks maintain a considerate impressionistic variance, sometimes sounding lo-fi and at others, _x000B__x000B_symphonic. Amidst the dissection and amplification of the CZ-5000s capacities, there is also a tasteful recourse to a childlike interaction and experience of sound. It is perhaps this experiential quality that makes it so difficult to understand Larrisons project as simply ambient or electronic. His will to transform the tools at his disposal elevates the resulting compositions to a personal level, granting the music an enchanting sense of mystique. Connecters is a testament to an artistic vision unfettered by limitation and unafraid of informality. These recordings, magically surfacing thirty years after being documented, demonstrate how personalized means of production can expand and contract time. Larrison invites listeners to engage the wonders of auditory imaginationa€"a bridge between visual memory, emotional resonance, and the boundless possibility of making music with whatever tools we embrace._x000B__x000B_Larrisons Connecters Vol. 1: Original Recordings, 19921999 will be released April 3rd, 2026 by Freedom To Spend in vinyl and digital editions.