One Hand Clapping RecordsThe Spaceman Spiff Quartet
Spaceman Spiff, interplanetary explorer extraordinaire, bound for the outermost reaches of the universe — by popular request. The ship is a cardboard box, flipped over; the engine is belief; the box is always crashing and always low on fuel. The Quartet does not wink. The Quartet has never winked.
Vintage space-age pop — Moog-and-vocoder cosmic lounge that shape-shifts per song, from 1948 noir to golden-age sci-fi anthem to kazoo-class Calvinball chaos, all delivered with total solemnity.
Transmissions
Out now, with three more broadcasting in from the outermost reaches.
Four Voices, One Box
Zog behind a visor that never lifts; Mox shifting register per world; Plimm's fuzz-bass tucked in like a blanket; Tarq's kazoo, authorized once per album by treaty; and Zaïa, holding the Mare in reserve. A quartet is a state, not a count.
Zog
the reflection; the mirrored visor never lifts
Mox
the chameleon; a different voice every track
Plimm
cosmic-tender; the warm bottom
Tarq
the rationed kazoo; one solo an album, no more
Zaïa
the Vol II voice; carries the lost Lorelei album in coral
By Popular Request
The ship is a cardboard box, flipped over and flown to the outermost reaches of the universe — by popular request. The engine is belief; the fuel is always nearly gone; the landing is always a crash. Zog vocodes the dust-speck meditations from behind a visor that never lifts; Mox is the vocal-actor, a 1948 noir on one world, golden-age sci-fi pulp on the next; Plimm's fuzz-bass is tucked in like a blanket; Tarq's kazoo is authorized once per album, by treaty. The Quartet does not wink. Zog physically cannot, or so the visor implies.
Velcroed to the dash: the Wrong Compass (point it where you mean to go, then go the opposite way), a cracked coral record that breathes once a day, eighteen trunked pears regenerating in a pocket dimensionally larger than it should be, and a folder marked FUTURE COMPLAINTS, currently empty — filed twice, both retracted before reading.
The Extras
The small stubborn objects and the lyric books — some free, some sold out, some lost. Scarcity is part of the record.
The Wrong Compass
The box's navigation system. It points exactly wrong, on purpose; you read it, then go the opposite way, and arrive. Velcroed to the dash, never recalibrated. It has never once been lost, because it was never trying to be right.
The Cockpit Logbook
Plimm's leather logbook, read aloud only when invited — the crash reports, the dust-speck meditations, the Kazoo Treaty in full. One copy. It stays in the box.
Pull a Thread
Every band on the label is one room of the same house. A few doors out of this one:
The broadcast is on the air. Tune in.
Listen on Spotify ↗