I was at the Acid Living Room one night, sitting in the middle of a furniture-less room on the floor with my pal Kell Bells. We were eating our nightly Taco Bell when Andrew came in and said he would play a record for us as we dine. As the needle dropped, a single, warble-y "beep" tone sounded, followed by hollow air of analog tape playing a low fidelity voice from the other side of a phone call. "Hey this is Bobby Dale, pick up the phone," the voice announced in a thick southern accent. "Pick up, pick up, pick up... alright, I'll holler at ya." Then the beep sounded once more. What was being played for our enjoyment was a compilation of answering machine tapes, compiled by a Nashville-based label, Sebastian Speaks, who collected vintage, obsolete answering machines from southern pawn shops that still contained their previous owners' cassettes, chock full of interesting messages. The recordings include dramatic notifications, such as, "I'm in jail!" as well as the desperate and lonely, speaking endlessly to themselves, as if using the answering machine as a therapist.
While the messages are entertaining, no doubt, what's really enamoring about the record is the obsolete technology and how it stimulates a deep nostalgia for the years it represents with its haunting tape warble. The sound quality itself creates this womb-like comfort, but at the same time an anxiety about the loss of such experiences and the end of archived material in the easily deleted digital age.
Hilarity and Despair is one of numerous project put out by Sebastian, with other works including a 64-page book of discovered artifacts in an abandoned house and a somewhat kickass record by Deluxin (featuring Nathan Vasquez of Be Your Own Pet and far superior to the more successful act).
