CAM071CD - Patrick Porter



	Artist: Patrick Porter Release Title: Lisha Kill Catalogue Number: CAM071CD Format: CD Length: 13 tracks, 54:45 mins Release Date: 18 Mar 05 (US$15.00 shipped anywhere)
Denver, Colorado singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Patrick Porter (Phineas Gage, solo CD "Reverb Saved My Life") recorded "Lisha Kill" while on sabbatical in New York State. Having set up with girlfriend in part of one of those East Coast industrial town two-family houses made into flats, he discovered that the downstairs neighbors didn't mind if he made a ruckus. So, prompted by the loan of some rudimentary recording equipment, he started messing around with guitars after a long period of abstinence. The new "Porter Studio" was down the street from a Salvation Army depot and every Sunday folks would illegally dump their junk in the parking lot. Picking through the wreckage with a stick proved fruitful: all sorts of instruments surfaced - Casios, mandolins, toy pianos, an accordion and the Queen Mama of all finds, a working two-tiered Kimball organ. A new arsenal of instruments was thus was incorporated into the new recordings, and as Porter says: "I started getting interested in the idea of creating something beautiful out of a bunch of stuff that people had thrown into the bin". Once the aesthetic was established, Porter went to work, writing and recording songs on the fly, piling take after take into an amorphous, organically spreading quilt of sound elements which would eventually form into songs like "Window Seat" and the title track. Despite technical limitations, some complex pieces were attempted, like "Hospital", "Good People with Bad Credit" and the remarkable "Slow Torpedo". These "took a lot of time and killed three computers" says Patrick. "These sessions were like a womb, I just sat in a tiny corner crammed with instruments and made my fun", explains Porter. Real world sounds - sirens, grocery checkout squawks, someone doing the dishes - would occasionally intrude and get included. A hit and run death outside the house informed the mood of the song "Hospital". "End Badly" was recorded on the porch, first thing in the morning with the birds still chirping and morning traffic going by. "Lisha Kill" is a ghetto of stories like that; ghost whispers of AM, broken stuff, hidden junk drawers. The sounds of an old man bumbling around in the barn, enjoying loneliness but knowing he can't stay there. It's a loner's loose-woven fabric of deconstructed space folk, taking Porter beyond the footwear introspection of earlier recordings into a more experimental territory, both lyrically and sonically. Porter says: "These are my favorite recordings. I feel like "Lisha Kill" is my first album - like the other ones were pre-season football games or soccer friendlies. It's not perfect, but it's the first one that I feel came from the genuine, where I wasn't trying to pull the wool at all. So I have a soft spot for her. Now she finally gets tattooed with a bar code and sent out into the world to sit in the bins with the rest of 'em. Be kind to her, she's a fragile one". The title: "Lisha Kill" (pronounced "ly-sha") refers to a river near the town Schenectady where Patrick recorded this album. Go here for Lyrics

Other resources: Patrick Porter Web Site CAM034CD - Phineas Gage - "Reconsidered" CAM049CD - Patrick Porter - Reverb Saved My Life" MP3s from this release can be found here Review of "Lisha Kill" from "The Inappropriate" Magazine

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