Yellow Vinyl
Originally released on cassette via Bloxham Tapes, and then on vinyl by Cardinal Fuzz/Feeding Tube, these two Alison Cotton records edge a little closer to wider acknowledgement with this latest reissue job via Friendly. For two records with a combined age of less than five, that's quite an accelerated interior history, though not for good reason. Released two years apart, it's worth approaching the pair as a whole, so perfectly realised is Cotton's vision, uniting the emotional depth of folk song with the impressionistic expanse of drone. The result is something akin to Nico outside the dream syndicate, which admittedly is sort of what John Cale was trying to achieve with most of those Nico records anyway. Cotton doesn't sing all the time, and when she does, doesn't have the same icey deathliness of Nico, instead a little more trad and rural, more, shall we say, plugged into the soil of this wretched land. If we could hear the ground beneath us cry, perhaps this is how it would sound etc etc. It's ideal countenance to a densely arranged string and organ-led wall of drone, equal parts Ellen Fullman and Pauline Oliveros, especially the latter's god tier Accordion & Voice. Can't choose between their vitality, of equal emotional bredth and resonance. Buy both, be doubly enlightened/deceived.
