Marsha Fisher - New Ruins (2021)

Full Spectrum is pleased to welcome yet another newcomer to the label with our next release, which comes to us via the Minnesota-based sound artist Marsha Fisher. Collecting recordings made during the artist’s time living in Lincoln, Nebraska, New Ruins exists quietly as a hushed meditation on hidden beauty, spirituality, and cultural consumerism.

Composed of modular synthesizer and heavily processed tape-loops, primarily sourced from old Christian genre music and praise cassettes scavenged from Midwestern thrift stores, the fuzzy ambiences on display here are an exercise in seeking beauty in the banal. One of the tapes sampled here was a jazz fusion record, another featured instrumental soft rock – conceptually dry and inoffensive cultural documents created by Christian record labels for consumption by God-fearing men and women who perhaps did not want to associate with outlets like Windham Hill or Nadara Productions, who might have been slipping blasphemous ideas into their record, what with their eastern religious iconography and casual dips into spiritual mysticism.

As Fisher puts it, “tapes for people that like new age but not Buddhism. Super surreal.”

Instead of taking this source material and casting it in an ironic light – a la vaporwave or harsh noise – the aim of New Ruins is to find the parts of these strange recordings that are actually beautiful. Where so many might dismiss these recordings as soulless kitsch or Christian easy-listening, Fisher sought to put it in a context where it could be considered inspired art. It’s a fitting duality, highlighting the complicated role Christinaity itself plays as both a damaging force to so many throughout history, as well as the ultimate salvation for others. There’s parts where something shines through.