The collaboration between these two North Carolina projects feels, upon listening, almost inevitable. Magic Tuber Stringband (Evan Morgan and Courtney Werner) is an instrumental duo often employing traditional Appalachian-style playing within contemporary drone and song-oriented contexts to create undulating, cathartic, organic compositions. Weirs (Justin Morris and Oliver Child-Lanning) is a bit more stylistically diverse, but very much rooted in the fascinating crossover of traditional and contemporary music which is recently abundant in the mid and south-Atlantic states.Recorded live with field recorders inside Virginia’s pitch-black Crozet Tunnel, the album presents four individuals experiencing the beautiful and intense sonics of both interior and exterior space, and their own forms of communication with one another. The singing in particular is powerful. Flat, strong broad voices without vibrato evoke a sense of the tragic or stern, notable in opener “Bright Morning Star” (originally a Masonic hymn which entered the American folk lexicon)—as if things might at any moment descend into dissonant sadness—but then become gentle and anodyne, trafficking not in freak-folk innocence but authentic connection to their sources. As potentially radical as the old music is, the solidly unhurried pacing of both the “song sections” and “drones” allows each word of each line, each vocal plait, each scrape of echoed object, to ring with surprise.The performances emphasize the distinctively rich reverb of the physical space, using the acoustics to re-situate the art in the heart of the land. Side B is an entrancing altered playback of the music from Side A, re-recorded under a dome behind a science museum in which the surrounding ambience layers seamlessly with the music: bird and insect sounds, shuffling movements, a child’s voice. Far from feeling performative or even conceptual, this feels earned and intimate, teaching the listener about the interplay between the music and the site of its creation. That the musicians semi-jokingly refer to this side as a “dub version” reflects the depth and breadth of their vision.

Historically Fucked is a four way entanglement. It is trying to make short songs at-once but also to destroy them then too. It is about playing and laughing at playing, and it is about not doing either of those things sometimes. Sometimes it is to do with talking, howling or grunting, and sometimes it is to do with hitting and rubbing. It has to do with some of the four people who do it. Phoneme Signals From The Brigantes is a record of songs played in one place and time, surrounded by steam and people. The titles refer to syllabic utterances of both children and adults present. Mossy Tapes (and Historically Fucked) are proud to present this record. -- David BirchallAlex PierceOtto WillbergOdie Ji Ghast

Water Shrews is a mysterious and ever shifting organic music community based in Portland, Oregon. Mossy Tapes is proud to release their new album, ‘Red Eared Slider’ recorded by the founding duo Skyler Pia and Emmet Martin. A collection of 4 expansive improvisations, recorded in different spaces and each a reflection of their own environment, spiralling outward into perfectly quilted free form psychedelia from the misty heart of the PNW. -- Skyler Pia: Guitar, Pedal Steel, HarmoniumEmmet Martin: Reed Organ, Guitar, Tape Loops