Tape#2

The Bran (Another plight of medic’s…) Pos (later shortened to bran(…)pos) was born in 1996 as a solo recording project, probably on a whim, and almost certainly as a response to inter-personal band drama I had been experiencing at the time (definitely caused by me). I recorded a series of collage pieces onto 4-track cassette tape utilizing whatever I had available-voice, fx pedals, percussion, bass, ukulele, found sound, and produced my first tape release called Tape#1 in an edition of 50. Tape#1 was, if nothing else, a psychotic demo tape I sent around to confused venue bookers and zine writers-and most of the copies likely ended up in the trash.

Recorded in the summer of 1997 in Staten Island, NY, and then shoved into a shoe box for 25 years, the material on Tape#2 follows closely after Tape#1 and uses much of the same equipment and recording technique. The master tape I found in 2022 is labelled only "NY1 Master Dub" with no titles or any notes whatsoever (the titles have been added for this release). I have fleeting memories of making this stuff, and can only guess as to why I never released it, even though to my current ears, it is more sophisticated and musically rich than Tape#1. It's still raw, primitive early Bran--the recording is noisy, the pieces are messy, and I've left all the murky edges intact.

The artwork here is pulled from a flyer for the first ever bran(...)pos gig at the Knitting Factory that summer. I was likely working on this material while prepping for the gig. I played solo and then as a duo with Ed Chang (Spin 17) in the Alter-Knit.

This stuff has never been heard until now, and I think it captures some of my best and some of the last 4-track collage work I made before I started performing live as a solo act and before adding synthesizers and computers to my recording setup.

released May 3, 2022

dubbed from the original master cassette and mastered in 2022