Altered Zones

Nicholas Williams has been managing the Massachusetts label and record store Feeding Tube Records for two years now while maintaining a complex and comprehensive inventory that had a knack for uncovering lost classics. Now, Nick is breaking out on his own to start One Kind Favor, a record label that will specialize in re-issuing rarities from all locales and styles. He recently started a Kickstarter page that offers copies of his first two planned re-releases: Kenneth Higney's 1976 LP, Attic Demonstration, and Sound Ceremony's 1979 self-titled LP. Higney's effort ended up as his only full-length; a record of warped folk and rock deconstructions originally intended to shop his songwriting in what was an unsuccessful quest for a career in the music industry. Sound Ceremony's was the second full-length for the UK group who chose to reinvent and hyperbolize pre-hippy rock 'n roll, rather than take a razor to it like many punk groups of the time opted to do.

The Kickstarter page has samples of several tracks from each record, showcasing a strange camaraderie between these seemingly unrelated LPs. Attic's weird world is shrouded in a subtle rhythmic and tonal dissonance that eschews its Americana influences, exhibiting an intimate songcraft that's in stark contrast to Ron Warren Ganderton's-- the guitarist/songwriter behind Sound Ceremony-- humorous and maniacal rock n' roll caricature. But, both records rely on a potent emotional honesty that provokes gasps of shock and laughter in equal measure, and it's that sort of quality that will cause collectors to chase these down. --Matt Sullivan, Altered Zones