Through my rigorous & multi-tiered selection process, I have randomly selected a winner out of the pool of zillions of contestants for this glorious Jenks Miller & Nicholas Szczepanik collaborative CD. Since you all were just telling me your opinions, I couldn’t really pick a favorite like I did with the Mamaleek haiku contest. However, as luck would have it, the winner’s favorite Nicholas Szczepanik piece was also my favorite. A-N-D the winner is none other than the exceedingly awesome Joseph Davenport of Millipede fame, who’s got a new album Realms due out soon mastered by Lasse Marhaug!! Here’s what Davenport had to say:
“I’m pretty into Nicholas’ new record Please Stop Loving Me. Further proof that he’s getting better as he goes along. And what musician doesn’t desire to achieve that?”
So, congrats to Joseph for winning this hot piece of noise drone. There were a few others that had some nice things to say about Szczepanik & Miller, though, so I figured might as well share!
Blake Conley, of the band Brother Ares, is a big fan of Jenks Miller’s The Invisible Mountain. “i really enjoy invisible mountain. the weird mix of dylan carlson esque telecaster twang combined w/ some of the best loping, head nodding minimalist basslines, circular tribal drumming and black metal vocals buried just enough in the mix as to not kill the groove http://quotecorner.com/ultram.html really speaks to me and have been inspiring my guitar thought process.”
And then Michael Britten, half of the Music Ruins Lives crew, had a ton of insightful things to say about Szczepanik’s Dear Dad. “Szczepanik’s “Dear Dad” stands out to me in his body of work primarily because it was my first exposure to the artist, but also on account of what the release signifies: an overtly biographical piece in a genre not best known for its exposition. It is always interesting to be able to view art in the context of what forces it is in response to, and with “Dear Dad”, the listener is very much able to inhabit the (assumed) relationship between Nicholas Szczpanik and his father; the cycle of moods presented make me wonder if “Dear Dad” exists explicitly because Szcepanik could muster no other way to approach his feelings outside of his craft. Or maybe the dormant practitioner of literary criticism in me could also just be jumping at the chance to heavy-handedly seek mimesis and catharsis within the authorial intent of the work, who knows.”
Now, if you entered the contest and didn’t win, keep in mind that Small Doses is on their way to giving American Gothic the vinyl treatment very soon. And I would HIGHLY recommend picking this up on some sweet wax because it’s just SO. FUCKING. GOOD.