Re Retreat by Michael Tee
For me this is probably the definitive A Cloakroom Assembly release, along with the early cassette releases, 'Territory and Population', 'Hawkline' and 'Slight'.
It captures the dark soul which resides inside of my shallow and optimistic upvibe exteriors.
My version of 'blues music' if you like - or - at worst 2 hours 51 minutes of gloom from my bleak internal world.
"Retreat with a friend" suggested Dru in 1983. And with that I paused the first version of ACRA, with 'Retreats 1-12' recorded at M.Squared Studios in Surry Hills and the unreleased 'Defeat' sometime 1982-83.
Ross had to do a bit of work on theses tracks to get rid of the analogue tape hiss.
'Retreats 12 - 25' were recorded in the early 1990's on a four track cassette tape recorder as a respite from the rock version of Ya Ya Choral, while we were touring the UK or later based in Seaforth, Fairlight and Brookvale. My first use of digital tec.
The drones became my undoing as I left behind pop and rock music and hated lyrics.
'Retreats 26-29' were recorded in Warriewood and Newcastle in the 2010's. '28' was too annoying so I put it through the mincer in August 2021. No tape involved in theses recordings.
This is a very self-indulgent project, I make no excuses.
As I have been doing this ACRA stuff for over forty years.
Yet in 1979 there was only a few players, but now there are just too many people in this space. Ho-hum.
Maybe unintentionally 'unspectacular' - 'boring' - in the early 1980's (if you believe Tom Ellard from the Severed Heads), but definitely 'unspectacularly unspectacular' in 2021, zzzzzz.
Time to make quilts, goodbye.
Michael Tee
August 2021
Tracklist
| 1. | 1.1 - 1.4 [Side A] | 24:58 |
| 2. | 1.5 -1.11 [Side B] | 22:18 |
| 3. | 2.13 - 2.19 [Side C] | 25:23 |
| 4. | 2.20 - 2.25 [Side D] | 28:12 |
| 5. | 3.26 [Side E] | 18:24 |
| 6. | 3.27 [Side F] | 13:34 |
| 7. | 3.29 [Side G] | 21:40 |
| 8. | 3.28 [Side H] | 16:32 |
Credits
This is a remastered version of 'Retreat Music' that was intended for a release as a cassette box in the US in November 2019. These tracks were remastered and edited by Ross Waitman during 2019, cept for 3.28 which was re-edited by Michael Tee in August 2021.
Cover photo taken in Tokyo November 2015.
License
All rights reserved.
Michael Tee/Coffey no-longer hides behind the ACRA moniker. So this Bandcamp site is now an outlet for Tee stuff, Ya Ya Choral, Frosty, Tee/Marshall, Space Therapy Robinson et.al. Michael Tee/Coffey co-founded the post punk msquared label in 1979 and was a founding member of 'legendary' noisemakers Scattered Order, A Cloakroom Assembly (ACRA) and the much misunderstood Ya Ya Choral/s (YYC).