Dekalb Works - For Barney, Who Was A Bad Dog, But A Good Boy, And Very Much Loved. (2024)

“For Barney, Who Was A Bad Dog, But A Good Boy, And Very Much Loved.” comes from Brooklyn-based Dekalb Works, the collaborative project of Austin Peru (Vision Fortune) & Daniel Creahan (Sweat Equity / Alien D). The record summarizes a series of experimentations between live performance contexts and sample-heavy collage work. Since starting their residency on Radio alHara, Dekalb Works found themselves drawn to the act of performing, whether as a live act or DJing, and the space between these two often overly rigid modes.

“For Barney…” draws heavily on the sonic palette of American country and western music, treated through the lens of heavy studio processing and the production techniques of dub, ambient, and trip-hop. Recording hours-long live improvisations with guitar, piano, or drum machines and samplers, they pillaged these sessions as source material. Whereas previous work focused on the voice and the interaction of text, voice and music, these recordings pulled from the sounds of musicians playing together in a room. The arrangement process remains the same, chopping and manipulating small samples and momentary gestures into dense, rhythmic collages.