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Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See (Deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition)

by Jim White

supported by
moonconjunctneptune
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moonconjunctneptune This is Jim’s best record. It’s a killer record
with no filler. That Girl from Brownsville Texas a phenomenal pallets. It
Is one of the greatest down on my luck songs I’ve ever heard. Entire album awesome. Joe Favorite track: That Girl From Brownsville Texas.
Peterji
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Peterji Because it is totally brilliant! So beautiful, has accompanied me for years, since its release. Love it. Had the album on CD. happy to buy it again here, supporting JW. His music is awesome, an endless inspiration and, well...
PDD
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PDD Of the now-six Jim White albums I own, this is the most ambitious. Favorite track: If Jesus Drove A Motor Home.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Pre-order of Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See (Deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition). The moment the album is released you’ll get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card
    releases April 5, 2024

      $10 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl

    Pre-order now. Ships from UK, AT, and US.

    This deluxe 20th anniversary edition of Jim's fan favorite has not one not two but THREE extra bonus previously unreleased tracks on it from the original sessions.

    Pressed on Substrate Black, with a gatefold jacket.

    Includes digital pre-order of Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See (Deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition). The moment the album is released you’ll get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    shipping out on or around April 5, 2024
    Purchasable with gift card

      $28.99 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD)

    Ships from EU, UK, and US.

    Comes in a gatefold sleeve. Please note this is the original version of the album, with no extra bonus tracks.

    Includes digital pre-order of Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See (Deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition). The moment the album is released you’ll get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    digital album releases April 5, 2024
    item ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $14.99 USD or more 

     

1.
Static on the Radio
2.
Bluebird
3.
Combing My Hair in a Brand New Style
4.
That Girl From Brownsville Texas
5.
Borrowed Wings
6.
If Jesus Drove A Motor Home
7.
Objects in Motion
8.
Buzzards of Love
9.
Alabama Chrome
10.
Phone Booth In Heaven
11.
Land Called Home
12.
Suckerz Promisez (New Bonus Track)
13.
Stranger Candy (New Bonus Track)
14.
Cinderblock Walls (New Bonus Track)

about

It's the 20th anniversary of Jim White's beloved cult classic that has a title so long nobody can remember the name of it.

It's on vinyl for the first time (pressed on 2 LPs in Substrate Black, and in a gatefold jacket). And because he wasn't wordy enough the first time, this time he's added 3 extra tracks.

Here's Jim himself:

Location: a Motel 6 in South Carolina. It’s midnight. I see the silhouette of a suspicious character slumped down in the front seat of a tricked up Caddy a few parking spaces down. I should make for the safety of my room but instead I stay put, for just a few feet away, hovering around the warm red glow of the Coke machine, is a huge ghostly green Luna Moth. All is silent but for the dreamy hum of the vending machines and the gentle fluttering of those luminescent wings. Down in the Caddy I see the faint halo of a cigarette being sucked on just above the darkened steering wheel. A moment of pure bliss overtakes me. It’s all about the seeing, this lonely, lovely esoteric moment.

Location: Navy Boulevard here in West Pensacola. It’s a few weeks later, and my truck’s broken down near a construction site. While I’m hunched over the engine trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with it (accelerator linkage), I overhear the can-do foreman bark out at one of his helpers the phrase that will eventually become the title of this album. “Drill a hole in that substrate and tell me what you see!” he bellows. I find myself quietly laughing—no, maybe sighing in relief. Without knowing it he’s named some ghost inside my head, but which one? The phrase flutters around in my mind for days, like that ghostly Luna Moth in the midnight sky of South Carolina.

Flutter flutter flutter. Why do those words stay with me? Finally I get it—it’s an allegory of the physics of my life; the construction site is my mind, and the substrate I’ve been drilling holes in is the tangled maze of impressions that Jesus, poverty, and the loneliness of being raised an outsider in the South have conspired to lay beneath my feet. Hearing the phrase brings a sigh of relief because at long last I possess a handy name for the machinery of my existence. When you can call some such thing by name, often times it gives you a mysterious and happy kick in the ass, something akin to “power”.

Thinking back, from as far as I can remember, from earliest childhood I’ve been drilling, looking for something the surface world didn’t provide, something to make life worth living. Sad, but true. I’d unearth some relic or mysterious object and call out; “Come see what I found!” but for the most part not only did people not want to see, but they fled at the very sound of my voice. In recent years I’ve come to realize that what I was digging up were artifacts comprised mostly of personal bullshit. No wonder people were uninterested.

Eventually, like most failed John The Baptists, I resigned myself to the fact that I’d probably spend my life drilling alone, digging up things of value to me and me alone. But fate’s the trickster, isn’t it though? Not long after I truly embraced the notion of a solitary life, I noticed something that had not happened before—little crowds began gathering around my construction site. They were watching me drill. But why? Had something changed in my drilling and seeing? I guess it had.
Soon enough interesting characters began showing up, even offering to help me in my endeavors. Can you imagine? Someone like Joe Henry appearing and saying “You need a hand with that drilling?” Can you imagine, after 20 years of solitary labor, for Aimee Mann, or Chocolate Genius or The Bare Naked Ladies, or The Sadies to stop you in a hallway or an airport or a gas station and say, “Hey, you want some help with that drilling, give us a call.” Can you imagine?
What a fucking relief. You work for twenty years, you hope it’s to some good end.

On this release here you’ll find disguised in the form of “songs” some reports that I made about all that drilling I did. At times the sheer number of folks helping me drill was all but overwhelming. You’ll find their names listed on the credits page and I’m deeply grateful they took time out fo their lives to help me. Don’t be fooled by the fact that these reports are disguised in the form of “songs”, as they are reports about the state of hidden realms and should be regarded as such. I pray to God that they have some meaning to you. Otherwise why the hell did I do all that drilling anyway?

Damn, there’s that moth again.

JW

credits

releases April 5, 2024

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Jim White New York, New York

He's that erstwhile druggie, drifting, storytelling, taxi-driving, recovering Pentecostal maverick talent from Pensacola, Florida who took sadcore outer-space alt.country by storm.

"From the splinter in the hand, to the thorn in the heart

to the shotgun to the head

you got no choice but to learn to glean solace from pain

or you’ll end up cynical or dead."
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