Dead Wood / Phantom Heron Seas

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About

Yes, this is made from a picnic plate, and yes, it does actually play!

Easily our most obscure format to date, and also the debut release by the shed dweller collaboration of Dead Wood / Phantom Heron Seas. This is not a vinyl record. This five minute zoned out dreamer jam has been lathed onto one side of 26 thin blue picnic plates, which have been hand cut to 7” size and could be likened to a one sided primitive homemade flexi disc. 

This record began life as a Safeway brand plastic picnic plate.  It was intended to hold sandwiches, not music. As such, the plate itself adds certain “audio artifacts” to the sound. There may be some surface noise, light pitch fluctuation, an occasional whir etc. You can minimize many of these things by lowering the high frequencies on your amplifier equalizer. You may also need to adjust the tracking weight of your stylus. They do not play well on all turntables. Modern DJ turntables are the most reliable, and very old turntables with no weight adjustment on the arm tend to sound the worst. This was designed to be a lo-fi record and does not come with a download code. It is what it is.
Each one was individually hand cut in Olympia, Washington USA on a 1940s Presto 6n Record lathe, and play tested to make sure they sound the way a picnic plate should. These records are are handmade and each one is unique. They are a thin, flexable item, and come in a 7” cardboard mailer with cover with artwork by Michael Latimer. I hope you enjoy!

Here’s a video for another recent recording by the duo: