Saturday Giant? (actually Babe, Terror – ed.) PD #001? [Curiosities #3]

I might just have a Jandek-ian mystery on my hands here. In the mail I received a CD-R — FROM BRAZIL!!!! AWESOME!!!!  – with elaborate hand-made art and a cute little comic about a deserted island pasted-on. Next to the comic is writing in pen: “PD #001.” Obviously this is a new record-label venture, but what do the “P” and the “D” stand for?

On the back of the CD sleeve are two words. At first, I thought the two words were “Saturday Giant,” and there is, indeed, a band called The Saturday Giant on MySpace … that hasn’t updated its profile since May … that doesn’t sound like the material on this CD-R …

So yeah, I hit a dead end. Then I realized the words might be “Saturday Grant,” as there is no dot to indicate the “i” it would require to spell “Giant.” That’s still confusing though. What the hell is going on here?

Is someone stalking me? I sure hope so …

Now I’m left with this nice little disc and a shitload of questions. The best thing I can do, short of breaking out the Gumshoe magnifying glass and getting all medieval, is evaluate the musics wherein and hope someone sheds some light on the situation.

And believe me: This situation is only made more interesting by the music, a limited-but-thorough examination of the human voice through extensive use of flanging, phasing, panning and, of course, echo.

There are no rhythms, save the vague coherence that coalesces around the singers’ output. There are no instruments, unless of course you count the voicebox as an instrument. There’s so little here, in fact, I can’t even believe I enjoy this as much as I do.

Laurie Anderson factors in here prominently, as do cut-and-paste-ers like Secret Mommy, world-bending singers like Niobe and drone merchants like Brian Eno, but Animal Collective‘s less-and-less-frequent vocal pastiches — featured most prominently on Hollindagain, portions of Animal Crack Box and bits of Here Comes the Indian — are the closest I can come to pinpointing this oddly intimate, ghostly gurgle of a record.

There’s a time and a place for an album like this, to be sure. It’s not designed to rock you like a hurricane and there’s a good chance you’ll fall into a narcotic trance if you let the undulating patterns (which often sound like those creepy audio snippets from Eyes Wide Shut, when Tom Cruise’s character is observing the strange rituals at the mansion) hypnotize you like a swirling circle of color.

On a side note, remember that punk band Overwhelming Colorfast? No? Well, that would be a good name for this project.

Its vibes won’t dominate your day, but it will trace a gorgeous, stained-glass-window-style tapestry atop your psyche while it plays. Its idiosyncrasies can be frustratingly obtuse, but as a result it zones in on a quadrant of sound only teased at by several other indie artists, to dizzying effect.

So … anyone wanna let me know who the FUCK recorded this?