Phil Maguire
smll hnd/dctfl hnd [CS; Drone Warfare]

Debates about limitations on music matter not to Cerberus. Sure, the ability for as many people as possible to possess said artifact matters, but there’s also a lost art in private pressings and rare monuments of a recording in its first iteration. It carries with it a personality, and though a market has arisen to commodify and profit/prophet from the sell and trade of these rare resources, it’s ultimately up to a buyer what a personal connection/collection is worth.

I’d like to think smll hnd/dctfl hnd is Maguire’s treatise on such trivial notions. In an edition of only 50 copies, Maguire’s debut is inauspicious in its release and conservative concerning its first impression. There is no desire to make this an artifact that balloons in value, just modesty about the interest from a saturated market that is hard to tap as a new voice. But this tape tears at the very fabric of that choice, as if to say its 50 copies are truly 5 million. All those zeroes buzzing and clawing among the stacked sounds of lives being lead outside the metropolitan. The static of hard wired electricity navigating empty fields and lonely roadways; the longing of distant lovers across the world; the sine waves of incomplete thoughts feelings fighting each other over which shall prevail. Dichotomy seems too innocent an idea of Maguire’s work. Modest as it may be in size, it lacks no amount of bravado in scope. So if you cannot save up your pennies to buy a copy now, best continue to sit on them for awhile because in the future smll hnd/dctfl hnd sketches, you’re going to need them for a far greater cause.

Cerberus

Cerberus seeks to document the spate of home recorders and backyard labels pressing limited-run LPs, 7-inches, cassettes, and objet d’art with unique packaging and unknown sound. We love everything about the overlooked or unappreciated. If you feel you fit such a category, email us here.

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