Bandcamp opens up many opportunities for avant-garde artists in regards to how they make their music accessible to the masses. Artists can simply host albums on Bandcamp that they would have released anyway without impacting their release timeline, while others perhaps get carried away with the ease and freedom that the site provides, releasing so much music that fans get overwhelmed and the individual merits of single works are drowned out by prolificacy (I’m looking at you, O’Rourke and Drumm). Joe Posset is no stranger to handmade CDrs or ultra-limited cassette tape runs, media that certainly coincide with his sonic aesthetic, but he also doesn’t shy away from having an established online presence, something many of his peers in the field of text-sound, tape skronk, and lo-fi surrealism often eschew in favor of obscurity. Posset’s Bandcamp allows us access to many things we otherwise wouldn’t be able to hear, such as the short We Are Fresh Weekend collection or a collaborative live set with fellow UK gargle poet Territorial Gobbing. Nine Copper Rods rings in the new year with eight pieces from various origins, along with easily one of the most entertaining album descriptions I’ve read through in a long time. The slithering, plasticky swirl of “Exi” encourages us to “feel the whirr [sic] of polyurethane nestle the gong farmer” while the kinetic swipes and yanks of “Dicta Solo 26th Oct (take two)” contradict its being “recorded in bed, sunny afternoon. Probably should have been doing something else.” The absence of any single unifying theme on Nine Copper Rods, abandoned in favor of scatter and sketch, allows the walls of impenetrability to fall away and reveal the truly amazing technique and skill involved in Posset’s music-making process.

“Download, press play and go about your business. I hope soft grey clouds bloom in your ears and it makes you sizzle a smile like Nicholson’s bacon.”