In February, Chicago sound artist Lou Mallozzi was preparing for a short European tour. Among the tasks on his checklist was to obtain 30 or 40 copies of his first CD, Radiophagy, to sell after performances. But he was having trouble getting in touch with Adam Paul Vales, who’d released the album in July 1997 on his label, Eighth Day Music, and neither Mallozzi nor acquaintances in other parts of the country could even find copies to buy back from the shops that were supposed to be carrying it. Mallozzi knew his cerebral, rigorously experimental work wouldn’t be flying off the shelves, and with an initial pressing of 1,000, he couldn’t understand why no one seemed to have it in stock.
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Nearly every artist once affiliated with Vales has a similar story. This Wednesday at the Empty Bottle, percussionist Michael Zerang and keyboardist Jim Baker will celebrate the release of a beautiful new double CD, The Earth Sessions, which was made for Eighth Day in September 1996 but has only just come out–on the local Boxmedia label. A Meeting in Chicago, by Joe McPhee, Ken Vandermark, and Kent Kessler, has been released by Okka Disk; a couple albums by Bay Area clarinetist Ben Goldberg have been released by Tzadik and Victo; Seikazoku, a Japanese experimental outfit featuring Tatsuya Yoshida from Ruins, took its Out Takes ’66-’78 (recorded in ’96) to the French label Fractal; and in coming months at least three more projects recorded for Eighth Day will be released on other imprints.
“I think he had a good time writing checks, and then when he had a bunch of records to sell it was no longer very interesting,” says Lonberg-Holm, whose In Zenith trio with Zerang and Jeb Bishop was cut for Eighth Day but will be released soon by a Swiss label.
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