If you didn't catch the WHITEHAUS FAMILY RECORD'S second-ever compilation, Are You in Paradise?, when it debuted on bandcamp back in November, now would be a good time to do so. The comp is still available online to stream in full or buy as a digital download, but since the internet isn't the most durable medium to host a lasting document of a label's ever-evolving roster, Are You In Paradise? is now available as a 12" LP.
To celebrate, the Whitehaus clan is throwing an event this Saturday at Spectacle, an artist loft in Jamaica Plain, featuring a round robin-style run-through of the entire album as well as full sets by MICHAEL COLLINS, MANNERS, KNIGHT HOWLS, and other top shrimp.
The 25-song LP, which will be available to buy at the celebration, covers a lot of ground. Singer-songwriters represent heavily, including Chris North's reverb-soaked "Hold My Hand," to Greg Mullen's classic guitar/harmonica combo on "The Great Molasses Flood of 1919," Avi Jacob's addictive singalong song "Jailbird, Jailbird," and the fingerpicked longing of fey rey & freedom sound's "Midwifery." Brian Ellis and Erich Haygun deliver spoken word pieces and Hot Company starts to do the same, until the words are swallowed up by a wave of sound. There's a gorgeous classical guitar piece by Illich, giddy garage warbles by the Needy Visions, plodding stoner-folk by Hurricanes of Love, and a dreamy transcendentalist soundscape by Manners asking the ever-present question -- "what the fuck is money?"
Variations on genre tags can go on forever, but in a lot of ways, these are all folk songs. Are You In Paradise? rebuilds the Whitehaus as a sonic entity, then takes you by the hand and tours you around the rooms, introducing you to current residents and ghosts and anyone who's passed through long enough to leave a little bit of themselves there.
Many of the artists still live in the Haus, or at least in JP, but some have moved on -- Brian Ellis is in Portland, Shira E. is in New York, Michael Collins is in Gainesville, Florida.
Thankfully, Are You In Paradise? is a family album in the truest sense of the word and all the wayward cousins and strange uncles from the north will show up at the family reunion -- either in person, via the internet, or as represented by a proxy. The shindig kicks off at 8pm with a rare acoustic set by party people Streight Angular, who are co-releasing their Everyone Is Syncopated EP on the Whitehaus label.
Both the album and the celebration promise to be more fun than that time your great-grandpappy drank too much wine spritzers and busted out the sea shanties from his sailing days.
In other words, long live family values.
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