Charlie McAlister

Charlie McAlister is a visual musician and musician from SC who began releasing art-splattered banjo music and found-sound collages in the later ’80s. With the mid-’90s he previously countless cassette-only produces to his name, many released by his very own Flannel Banjo label, but a lot more released on hopelessly obscure and short-lived tape-only brands. Like his religious brothers Daniel Johnston and Jad Good, McAlister is normally a pop songwriter in mind. Regardless of the clatter and sound — rather than to mention the entire inaccessibility and unavailability of several of his produces — his melodies are solid, catchy, and incredibly often gorgeous. He speak-sings within a trailer-trash tenor that properly suits his usual subject material, which is, in most cases, Southern dread, suburban hopelessness, and the usual love and loss of life. His albums have become frequently interspersed with such sonic detritus as field recordings, arbitrary interactions, snippets of instructional information, speeches, industrial sound, etc. Combined with often handmade product packaging, McAlister’s recordings become relaxing items of folk audio art instead of mere choices of tracks (incidentally, you’ll still can’t download a hand-screened or separately attracted cover). A pinnacle of types arrived in 1997 when Catsup Dish released Mississippi Luau, a loose idea recording about (as you may think) Hawaiian tradition in the South. The recording featured a few of McAlister’s most concentrated songwriting, while keeping his quality weirdness. In 2003 Catsup Dish released Death Drinking water Estates, a compilation attracted from four incredibly limited cassettes which were originally released in 1994. But these choices are just two from the more easily available produces in McAlister’s kudzu-sprawl of the discography.