Increasingly, I feel like there are fewer and fewer entities that I am constantly impressed with and therefore, always looking forward to hearing and seeing more from. One of those special exceptions is the collective output of Michigan artist Chris Pottinger. For quite awhile, Chris has been churning out a wide variety of noise and free-form releases with his projects: ODD CLOUDS and SLITHER, as well as COTTON MUSEUM as his solo machine for regurgitation creature creations. Some of these have found homes on important and valid labels such as Qbico, Ypsilanti and Not Not Fun, however, Chris also coordinates his own “label”, appropriately named TASTY SOIL, an umbrella for which his recordings and art (painting, pin collections, tote bags, ect) are kept dry until lucky consumers stumble on to their existence.
Chris has a very specific style, a beautiful and colorful species of creatures, who are quite often cartoonish intestinal extractions / boiled over brain masses, eyes bulged and drooping, slobbery flesh flowing onto the floor, and yet in this extremely appealing way that a child would undoubtedly find cute and approachable. I am 26 right now, I know what “Mad Balls” were. If you do too, imagine if those were tossed in the oven for awhile, and then repainted with brighter colors. ...I mean, maybe. More often than not (or: pretty much always), the records are adorned with these magical Michigan menaces.
Odd Clouds usually has a “big band”, free-form style feel to it, much like the finest moments of a strange Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice recording, and similar to what my own Tent/City project would frequently organically (de)construct. Slither usually has unhealthy dosages of reed / horn mass, with even unhealthier amounts of electronics / noise / signal destruction, though that's all circumstantial, and it's not like one thing might sound anything like another. Wasteland Jazz Unit comes to mind, as a similar idea and project.
Doing things alone always leave the most room for vagueness. Specifics as well. For me to enjoy the average “noise” recording, it needs to be of a particular style or with direct context, and Cotton Museum is easily the single most recognizable voice for Chris' army of diseased, infectious creatures. If you look at the covers for these various records, strewn across your bedroom floor, it becomes apparent that they have found their vehicle of communication in the grooves of the A-side of “Pus Pustules”, or any other Cotton Museum release.
Stuttering, churning, electronic chirps / mangled machine tones that speak the language of split stereo digestion, slicing through speakers and misfiring with precise calculation, and yet: this is also, in a way, lighthearted and fun, legitimately exciting and not exclusively harsh. “Pus Pustules” is not only housed in a five-color screen-printed cardboard fold-over, but it's 21 minute A-side is backed with an excellent etched B-side, offering yet an additional helping of hand-cut creatures doing their thing (you know, reaching, melting, floating, losing their eyeballs and looking insane and adorable simultaneously).
ECT: (I remember digging through Portland record stores the first time I was up there, trying to find a copy of the Odd Clouds LP like it was a cure for a cancer that only I had. It had just gone out of print after I put off picking it up, and luckily, Exiled had a copy. That was several years ago, and I'm glad that Chris is still active with his various projects and that labels from all over the world have been interested in documenting it ever since).
Check out TASTY SOIL: http://www.tastysoil.com/
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