Sissy Spacek / Smegma – Ballast LP
Label: Gilgongo Records
Genre: Noise, Avant-Garde
Ace Farren Ford, Dennis Duck, and Ju Suk Reet Meate are joined by Rock ’N’ Roll Jackie, John Wiese, and a cast of others from the current third phase of Smegma. Sissy Spacek's personnel on this album consists of this line-up plus Charlie Mumma, a member of Sissy Spacek since 2008.
The source material of “Ballast” was recorded at home and on the Los Angeles radio station Dublab, but what we hear is not exactly Smegma and Sissy Spacek performing together as a live group. Wiese’s production of the recording is a kind of un-doing of the live group's playing, forging it into a new collage of sound. It reminds us of genome editing which results in diversity, and sometimes in mutation, of organisms.
The title of the album, “Ballast”, refers to a weight on a ship which improves it’s stability, but it is also a term for an
electrical component that regulates electricity so as to not destroy the other components. It’s double meaning fits between the cover art and the collage process which is constantly partitioning and interrupting the elements of sound.
—Takuya Sakaguchi, from the liner notes
Release date: October 16, 2020