One Hand Clapping RecordsThe Field Recorder Society
A chartered documentary project that learned to harmonize — four people who believed one specific thing: that a song recorded in the place where it actually happened contains that place the way a jar contains the summer. They set out to prove it the only way a thing like that can be proven, which is one porch at a time.
American documentary folk — banjo, fiddle, fingerpicked guitar and upright bass, recorded on the porch and in the field where the song happened. The weather is a credited member.
Recorded On Site
Not a release schedule — a logbook. Each one captured where it happened, or not at all.
Four, the Weather, and the Witness
Eli chronicles on banjo, June presides on guitar, Bram watches the sky with a fiddle, Wren holds the bottom for two bands — and the weather is a credited member, every time.
Eli
the chronicler; word-dense, Darnielle-coded
June
the president; old-time patience
Bram
the weather-watcher; harmony in the rafters
Wren
the double agent (also Cardboard Cosmonauts); quiet rhythm
the weather
a credited member by charter; on every field pressing
One Porch at a Time
It started as a documentary project and only later learned to harmonize, which is the correct order, and the Society will tell you so, at length, with dates. Four people who believed one specific thing — that a song recorded in the place where it actually happened contains that place the way a jar contains the summer — and who set out to prove it the only way a thing like that can be proven, which is one porch at a time. They proved it on porches. They proved it in fields. They proved it at a rail crossing where the song was nearly lost to a train.
The charter is binding: record on site, never in a booth; the weather is a credited member; and anyone who has ever held the recorder — the Witness — is a member forever, which is why the roster only grows. The Witness itself is repaired, never upgraded. A song is not a performance to them. It is a place, jarred, with the lid screwed down before the summer can get out.
The Extras
The small stubborn objects and the lyric books — some free, some sold out, some lost. Scarcity is part of the record.
The Witness
The field recorder that has caught every song the Society ever made. Repaired, never upgraded, on the theory that the scratches are part of the document. Whoever holds it is a member forever. It has never been set down for long.
The Society Charter
Record on site. Credit the weather. The Witness is never upgraded. Once you have held it, you are one of us. Mimeographed, weather-stained, exactly as intended.
Pull a Thread
Every band on the label is one room of the same house. A few doors out of this one:
These live where they were recorded. Go and stand there.