Will Long - Long Tra (2016)

Rare is it these days that we report on a new record from Terre Thaemlitz’s Comatonse Recordings. Alongside music from the UK’s Simon Fisher Turner, a Mute recording artist and actor in his own right, it’s only been DJ Sprinkles and Mark Fell with their two Fresh Insights EPs that have provided the label with new music over the past three years. With Mule Musiq kept busy dishing out compilations and four vinyl samplers of DJ Sprinkles Queerifications & Ruins remixes, Thaemlitz’s now uses her platform to shine a light on Will Long, an American artist based in Yokohama, Japan. Long is perhaps best known for his work as Celer with his late wife Danielle Baquet-Long, a project he’s been spearheading solo since 2009, and now Comatonse has indulged the Mississippi native with a deluxe grouping of seven 12″s to be spread across three vinyl releases and double CD package called Long Trax.

A Comatonse press release examining Long’s critical notions on ‘change’ and ‘revolution’ within the music explains, “these tracks have a minimal rawness that contends we’ve been wrong the whole time about how far the US – and the world – has come.” Made using rhythm composer percussion, polyphonic synths and rack sampler vocals, each Long production comes matched with a DJ Sprinkles overdub. To be dealt across two 2×12″ EPs, one 3×12″ EP and subsequent 14-track double CD sampler, Tsuji Aiko’s fine art sketches will provide the series with its artwork, in addition to a poster included in the CD release.

Comatonse further add, “although these tracks are sonically unlike anything Long has produced as Celer or his other aliases for minimal and ambient experimental audio, they share a stripped-yet-full sound that reacts against overproduction – within the dance music industry, and societies at large.