Solo project from Jim Blaha of the Blind Shake. No-fi DIY that conjures The Go Betweens, The Clean, Jesus And The Mary Chain, New Order, Guided By Voices and Flip Your Wig-era H1sker D1 I Will Die In This Jean Jacket is a testimony of how the lines between commitment and attachments are often blurred. It is the new gloom-punk project from Jim Blaha (The Blind Shake, Green/Blue). Blaha has collaborated with luminaries including Michael Yonkers, John Reis, Shannon Selberg, Dale Flattum and Zak Sally and has released records on Goner, Castle Face, Dirtnap, Hozac, Feel It, Slovenly and Swami. On Hang From A Cloud he concludes over three years of artistic solitude by heading back into the basement to create in an even deeper state of isolation. Formed in Minneapolis this past December, the late-night sessions gradually revealed a concept: capturing the feeling he had from the mixtapes a friend used to make during their teenage skateboarding years-where late ’70s post punk sat comfortably alongside the more exposed underground sounds of the ’80s and ’90s and every song seemed to come from the same hazy, imaginary city somewhere far, far away. Recording onto a 1/4″ tape machine and mixing everything down to the all important cassette, Blaha emerged with an indiffussable sound. Hang From A Cloud is a long-lost pirate radio transmission from an alternate 1980s universe. The album is entirely analog by design. Guitars, vocals, drums, drum machines and bass all captured on cobbled together equipment in a cinder block bunker on a frigid midwest, winter night. There is a one dimensional resonance with a sheen of distortion and rust that is betrayed by the direct and simplistic beauty of the songwriting. Hang From A Cloud is a no-fi, DIY treasure that transports the listener to a parallel dimension where The Go Betweens, The Clean, Jesus And The Mary Chain, New Order, Guided By Voices and Flip Your Wig-era H1sker D1 are cherished and celebrated the same.
