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Heads On Platters (Undetectable III) LP
- Artist
- Andrew Zealley
AM Exclusive
Disco Hospital Books & Records, the independent imprint based in Toronto, is pleased to announce the release of Heads On Platters (Undetectable III). This LP phonograph is published in an edition of 200; with jacket, centre labels, and insert featuring artwork by Dutes Miller (Chicago, USA).
Heads On Platters is the third in a series of three vinyl phonographs that respond to issues of queer pleasure and pandemic, a project funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. The series, Undetectable: Queer Pleasure and Pandemic, explores and listens to queer sexualities, chemsex practices, public sex, and emerging queer cultural production models that respond to increasing global homophobia, transphobia, drag-phobia, violence, and silencing. True resistance is loud, and is rarely sober.
Produced by House of Intergenerational, and mastered by Stefan Betke (Pole), Heads On Platters features voices that speak critically to the subject(s) at hand. Mikiki (art, activist, and gay men’s sexual health worker), takes a leading role in the recording and speaks candidly and explicitly about sex, substance use, and mental health. Graeme Lamb (activist and writer), responds to issues of queer anonymous sexual practices, bathhouse cultures, and app cruising cultures. Maticus Adams (artist and activist) talks briefly about the ways methamphetamine takes root in users. Sonically, the LP opens with the staid, overture-esque “Meth Ascending” before transitioning into the extended meditative float of “Platters On Heads.” On the B-side, “The Law of Disclosures” shudders under a twisted synth-horn motif; “This This This (Not This This This)” lets loose with a dynamic rhythm section that supports Lamb’s diatribe on the benefits of anonymous sex in bathhouse darkrooms and the manipulative tendencies inherent in cruising apps like Grindr; “Lights Out” draws the LP to a close with vital beats, a bouncing bass station line, and a ghostly chorus of disco dancers.
Andrew Zealley is an artist and researcher whose work focuses on and responds to the queer body politic, HIV and AIDS, public sex practices, and theories of sound and listening. He is in his seventh decade of physical form. His doctorate research, Risky Beeswax (2021), explored risk in relation to art and sex in the era of AIDS industry (PreP, U=U), and featured traditional and creative outputs including a video, a 2LP gatefold vinyl release, Soft Subversions (PNPLP-01, 2021). Zealley started Disco Hospital Books & Records in 2011, as a platform to independently publish artist bookworks. On Heads On Platters, Zealley blurs the lines between sound-art and musical practices, and tunes into the lived experiences of recreational sex, substance use, and the nature of disclosure in queer lives.
This is audio harm reduction.
More information and audio samples: skyclinicsound@gmail.com
Disco Hospital, http://discohospital.com/
Heads On Platters (Undetectable III) is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
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