ghosttropics
I don't even listen to a preview anymore when it comes to Russell. I just hit that buy button followed by the play button. You just know they're gonna take care of you, and somehow they exceed your expectations every time. This is what you need, trust me.
My body, suspended by the pressure of the ocean’s floor.
My toes dangle just above sands that feel like the roughness of the top sheet on an unfamiliar bed. Just a few grains of this sand possess the softness of the hair my cat sheds, dusted off the floor after collecting for some days or months.
The floor possesses the grains of many nights at rest, in that space between moments where we all wait. A cloud of sand forms and settles where my foot touched; a blanket of infinite newness. The sand, in its place, somewhere else. I have tried to grasp at this cycle, but can never find a hold, though I feel the beat of every grain finding its place again.
The is and is nots of my body, wave with a current layered above another current. This perpetual motion places me in a stasis, shifting in place. This projection of myself into space, beyond my understanding, shapes every drift of hair on my body; conditions my skin; flushes my pores. My whole being dissolving into grains, floating softly to the floor.
Somewhere above, the thinnest most piercing of energies grows louder, brighter, cacophonous. Photons find their way to my chest. Vibrational waves slow at increasing rates. They penetrate my bones, the swaying, nonlinear motion dies and is buried. Motion shoots me one way and another, so quickly, I can’t feel the direction. Am I flying straight? Diagonal? Am I flailing? Breath is not something I know but it calls to me to
take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take
gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp,gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp
So that something can enter me. Propel me into whatever is next.
A new state of being?
What even is that?
All I know is what has occurred, unending, unquestioned, in this place that possesses nothing.
Not even a name.
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T4T LUV NRG presents “Call Me G”, the new album by Brooklyn’s Russell E.L. Butler, their first full length LP since the release of 2018’s critically acclaimed “The Home I’d Build For Myself and All My Friends” on Left Hand Path. In the intervening years, Russell has experienced an accumulation of personal subjective experiences which are explored through captivating musical modalities and expressions on this sprawling, gorgeous, and deeply emotional album. Russell’s work on “Call Me G” can be described as a unique amalgam of early NY house music, dub techno and poetry. The album’s title track, as well as its instrumentals, are a kind of storytelling for histories that continue to exist without observation as well as for secrets and the power they hold in spite of their truth being obscured and sometimes lost.
Storytellers like Russell have the ability to collapse the past and future into discrete experiences of non-linear time through the emotional landscape of music and voice. Each song contains a palatable loneliness and hurt to which many in this modern world can relate, but each track also suggests the possibility of genuine connection and the formation of the self through communing and reintegrating with the natural world. These parallel concepts are the subject of “Accumulation”, a writing by Russell which accompanies the release of the album. The emotions, conflicts and resolutions that accompany Russell’s storytelling are felt acutely on tracks such as “I’m Dancing No One Is Watching” and “Stare Into The Light Beam”, among others.
On the title song, which closes the album, Russell sings “Can you call me? Will you call me? All that I want is for you to call me by my name...My name is G.” Context is part of interpretation and thus it is left to the listener to feel in the music and lyrics the concept that what may seem erased never truly dies, the traces still exist in the thing that takes its place. The T4T LUV NRG label is in part a continuing effort to facilitate the documentation of true stories that don’t get told—rather than representing a singular vibe or genre. Russell’s album is a stunning and profound entry in this evolving catalog of music and art. The beautiful cover of “Call Me G” is based on a hand drawn portrait of the artist by Diego Guzman.
credits
released November 17, 2023
Written & Produced by Russell E.L. Butler
Artwork by Diego Guzman
Layout by João Ervedosa
Mastering by Carl at TruTone
Everything Octo Octa releases is just delicious. This EP is especially important as part of the profits are going to SRLP. In an increasingly anti-trans context, uplifting and supporting trans-led orgs is of utmost importance. And you can do so by listening to great music and supporting an amazing artist! éloi
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