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9 songs recorded from 2004-2005 in Xi'an and Oakland.
In August 2003 Sikwaya Condon moved to Xi'an with his girlfriend. In 2004 he picked up a $20 acoustic guitar and started fiddling with recording software he hadn't touched for years. Programming drums was alien, but it wasn't as weird as recording string or organ parts only using a mouse. Eventually a cheap electric guitar was procured and amp simulation software was discovered. Although the tools were artificial, the songs were there and he was intrigued by the struggle to make the artificial sound authentic.
Over the next two years the songs were re-recorded and re-shaped. In 2005, on a visit back to Oakland, he convinced a friend (Jim Yoshii Pile-Up's Ryan Craven) to play drums on a few tracks. Back in Xi'an he struggled to record satisfactory vocals and finally decided enough was enough. He took the Chinese title of a early 90's action blockbuster movie as the project's name and put the songs up on his website under a Creative Commons license and told his friends, some of whom listened.
These are beautiful songs, quiet epics realized with minimalism and buttressed by Sikwaya Condon's insistent and wavy vocals. The lyrics are concise, cutting, observational, and wittier than you think.
When Management first heard this record, it reminded them of why they fell in love with so-called "bedroom pop" in the first place: one person making records because they have to, because they can't not make records, allowing us to peek inside their heads for a brief, crystalline moment before going back to twiddling the 4-track knobs (these days replaced by the laptop) and trying to mic a Yamaha Portasound.
Special Agent Crazy Flower is Sikwaya Condon, whospent some time in The Jim Yoshii Pile-Up and helped Owen Ashworth with one of the Casiotone for the Painfully Alone albums, among other things.
Coming soon!
Download: "Half-Silvered" (from COC006, Special Agent Crazy Flower)
Special Agent Crazy Flower logo
Special Agent Crazy Flower album cover
Good question!
(all logos by Ian Darken)
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