V/A - Hex Enduction Hour LP

I wrote the liner notes for this amazing comp LP, heartily recommended for Pennsylvanian weirdos. 

"FROM THE LINER NOTES by Herbie Shellenberger (Love's Devotee label):

"I am awake and re-listening to the Hex Enduction Hour. This compilation—a landmark in my personal music history—first made its way to me in 2002, a year after it was releasedby Easy Subcult, as part of a mailorder with several other releases in tow, (music by The dEALERS, The Russian Meatsquats, Hashigo, xPlanet And Bethx and the Gang Mods of Bethlehem mix) all on the au courant format of the humble cd-r. As with several of these contemporary Easy releases, Hex Enduction Hour was packaged inside a shipping label pouch, the kind you sometimes see affixed to boxes with a list of contents - a free, DIY and bootleg packaging solution. Inside: a folded, printed insert with a tracklist; images of hex signs (a type of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art that adorns every old red barn in PA) and, importantly, local foliage—some tiny, lovely flowers and grasses. Outside, an obi-style horizonal strip of cardstock listed the artist names and title. Altogether this totemic item felt completely, powerfully, handmade. Fertile. Febrile.
When I got it in the mail I listened to it over and over again. Two decades later, its sonic contours are still fresh in my brain. Speaking personally, the early 2000s feels emotionally very recent; but in actuality it was a whole era ago. While I was coming of age as a high schooler in the Lehigh Valley, Easy Subcult’s Eric de Jesus and Elizabeth Duby were returning from a three-year sojourn living in Japan, immersed in the rhythms of Tokyo. Moving back to the USA, they found themselves living in a 150-year-old farmhouse in Virginville, PA, the polar opposite of Harajuku, Shinjuku or Shimokitazawa. Everything in their world was suddenly saturated with folksy American-ness and so supremely rural. That context directly informs the music heard throughout Hex Enduction Hour, which was made by the duo’s extended artistic community (aka the mysterious Weird Panther Party or Family) back during that golden era of promise which ended on 9-11. Besides de Jesus & Duby’s own xPlanet And Bethx project, this arcane, rural and folky sensibility is shared by Steve Gunn (here is his first ever recording!!!), Millbrook’s Douglas Forrest Anson, The Twin Atlas’s Sean Byrne and Luke Zaleski, The Photon Band’s Art Di Furia and Currituck County’s Kevin Barker. These artists, all having met in the college ghettos of 80s & 90s Philly or connected scenes nearby, were the first of a small subset of a larger folk (re-)revivial, which would soon bubble over in the form of now-classic albums by Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Espers as well as a seemingly never ending slate of reissues of once-obscure artists like Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, Jackson C. Frank or Dr. Strangely Strange. However, that’s not to say that the music on Hex Enduction Hour sounds dated. Rather, listening now in 2024, it feels contemporary and universal, and also refreshingly under-the-radar. While the music industry wrung dry the glut of early 2000s indie-folk, in an
era prior to massive changes in technology, corporate consolidation and journalism that all fundamentally changed the business and interpretation of music, those featured on
this compilation will be genuine discoveries to many listeners today. Artists like The Photon Band, Steve Gunn and Currituck County/Kevin Barker have substantial discographies to track down via physical releases, while The Twin Atlas distribute much of their past work on Bandcamp. We are still awaiting a much-needed anthology of xPlanet And Bethx to bring their body of work (strewn as it is across short-run cd-r and tape releases, with much still unreleased) into the current era. For now, the 2 tracks on here remain the only avail- able recordings of Millbrook, though Doug Anson has released music prolifically under his noise-rap project Aleister X, including collaborations with Andrew W.K.

"But anyway, Pennsylvania Forever! Heartache. Longing. Contemplation. Cricks. Witches, gnarled wood, stone foundations, crumbling red painted eighteenth century barns adorned with HEX SIGNS & white trim to keep the devil at bay. Roaring rivers. Rusted-out factories reaching up to the heavens. Trespassing. Kissing. Lying. Dreaming... "
—Herb Shellenberger (LOVE’S DEVOTEE label) 9/22/23, 3:52AM"