what is it, by frenia

what is it

by frenia

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1.	whatever it is 07:11	buy track
2.	it is 09:38	buy track
3.	it is not 03:11	buy track

about

some people
came together
at the frenia duplex
masked in the living room
sitting on carpet
facing each other
in a sick world--
they happened to make frenia exist

what is it? it is not a person or a thing or a property of a thing. it could hardly be called a "practice" because it requires no discipline and no knowledge. it overflows living vessels while it empties them; it escapes all, while always returning to a place that may or may not be its home.

frenia is a stormy nimbus of nothingness insofar as it fails to be circumscribed by any word or seen image. it is seeping out of every particularity, entering a space where the distinctness of objects becomes insignificant. like a parody of a word, a pastiche of a joke that's funny (to us) because it's not... autosatire, as it were. ;)

frenia is a metonym for some incorporeal force that found us and acted through us. for our part, we found ourselves in it by letting go and losing ourselves within it. sound and mind, so distantly intimate, together and separate. A vibrating "self" opening totally onto the world without being forced to become identical to it.

credits

released May 31, 2021

Annie Grizzle - Vocals, objects
Eli Smith - Guitar, Clarinet, objects
Pedro M. Gutierrez - Electronics, Bass, objects
Conner Jann - Guitar, Electronics, Bongos, Harmonica, Bells, objects
Ryan Winslow Jann - Guitar, Pedals, Vocals, Doumbek, objects

(Ryan read excerpts from Georges Bataille's book Inner Experience and Guy Debord's book Society of the Spectacle)

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Eli Smith.

The drawings on the album cover were made by Devon Hatton.
Paul Rabe did the graphic design.

license

about

frenia Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Frenia is a fluid collective of artists and musicians based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin founded by Ryan Winslow Jann and Paul Rabe in 2016, joined by Pedro M. Gutierrez. Today we are this, tomorrow we are that. Discovery fuels our creations, forming a live experience that is seemingly chaotic, phasing in and out of harmonious noise. ... more

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discography

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Jul 2022
what is it

May 2021
TARV 4+11.5

May 2020
OH / AH (cassette)

Jan 2020
AH

Apr 2019
OH

Apr 2019
EH

Apr 2018
UH

Oct 2017

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