Lapsed Gasps by Push For Night + Jon Mueller

A note from James Elliott

A few lifetimes ago, in late 2007 by my guess, Jon Mueller passed me a CDR with “Gong/Snare” written across the face. At the time we were both releasing music on the seminal Table of the Elements imprint. Interested in one another’s work, and after a good hang at a label showcase at Death By Audio in Brooklyn, we made loose plans to collaborate. The following two years proved to be a tumultuous time for me; Jon’s CDR went into a box and was subsequently moved from storage unit to cold, lonely storage unit for over a decade. 

Along with many other folks, 2020-21 was defined by massive personal change and upheaval. A major move of house resulted in a storage purge. I was astonished and excited to find the “Gong/Snare” CDR among the usual life detritus. The recording was immediately enthralling; monolithic sheets of acidic distortion, metallic overtones, skittering patterns of clipped snare drum. It was super raw, crackling with energy, and I wanted to work with it immediately.

Push For Night, the duo of myself and Oliver Chapoy, has had a slow birth since the early part of 2017. A few compilation tracks and a full length cassette via The Tapeworm have, I hope, seen us begin to develop a signature style of electro acoustic minimalism that tips toward our darker inclinations. Jon’s recording from 2007 struck both Oliver and I as weirdly in line with what PFN’s agenda is shaping up to become. We spoke with Jon and he encouraged us to begin. 

Almost everything on Lapsed Gasps is based on Jon’s original recording, with Oliver and I embellishing and reshaping that material via extensive processing, augmented with our own electronics, guitar, field recordings, and additional percussion. Jon sent new material - drum kit and lawn sprinkler (!!!) - to add. Oliver and I worked and reworked these tracks, together and apart, for months. We met in May 2022 for a sweaty three day marathon at Oliver’s North Brooklyn studio to finalize the mix. The music has been layered, mutated, and reconfigured immeasurably and ruthlessly to arrive at its final compositional form. It’s a thick, liminal record, rich with the dread, absurdity, and delirium of the past several years. I hear a tense beauty in it as well, and hope you might, too.

Room40, a beacon of sound...ringing out from the deepest south. Also home to our sibling labels Someone Good and A Guide To Saints.

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