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Center

by or best offer

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  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Cassette version of Or Best Offer's album, Center

    Includes unlimited streaming of Center via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

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1.
unfulfilled desire not constituting shame acknowledge mediocrity be on the true way he is showing you his love pressing it against you i see something that glows though all it seems against you building up from the bottom from what ground? i found this on the ground and i thought of you too big to quantify i am showing you i love you i am showing you i am showing you do i do i do i i do i do i do i
2.
crawl up 07:07
how humbling to have something to turn away from stumbling you see the sun i see the corner of the room totally subsumed by the weight of failing in the valley of understanding just laying it’s a slow crawl a slow crawl up your chest why would i lie? to a first timer come thick night why would i lie i’m a first timer come thick night come thick come thick come thick
3.
deserved 03:57
put new picture on your wall reservoir of liquid does its crawl across the train between my legs shooting paths out of its center what deserves the structure of speech i am afraid of what i could need by what Grace can i learn again to speak? what deserves, what deserves? over deserved over served won’t want anything
4.
mistake nothing for not yet said the shape of forgiveness is lopsided and sacred a store just for things that feel good on your skin decide on a sensation and drive it toward salvation stop expecting sense and accept all the other offerings it’s like nothing i’ll be on your side if there is one in time if there is an i is a thou is a ground to stand on stop expecting sense and accept all the other offerings it’s like nothing this is nothing
5.
it’s like building a building  miniature or just small  i am building a bridge  that goes from me  to my wall  there could be tunnels  under most things  i have a question that asks  from which center you came  god grant me a moss couch  and a cedar ceilinged house  more things that aren’t touched  more something like cloud  sweet dear tornado  falls down on his knees  sorry for making a mess  i’m just air you could breathe 
6.
a reckless invitation to a system of doubt that you feel the bones of built the foundations of but will never meet and should i choose to stay allow this moment to be holy we could quilt an understanding we could lay under while we sleep made you the face of a lack that i couldn’t name and i felt my age made you the face of this lack that i couldn’t name and i felt the age in the room can you feel the age in this wavering slipping into the pool wanted to be part of a whole wanted to live inside the hole where everything grows i felt my age in the room you have no weight in the pool you have no weight in the wavering
7.
jacket 06:18
o shiny you on my back you appeared wings tucked seemed scared o shiny thing crushed sidewalk penny still glistening i so know much nothing make you into blanket ancient cradled precious things like god is a jacket listen for softly spoken offerings see my not knowing and still hold me a special thing given to me take it back just to say the same thing you could take it back but i’d just say the same thing i know that you know that i know that you know do you get it? do you get this? i could take it back but i’d just say the same shit i can take it i can take it i’m a big boy i’m a big boy i’m a big boy i’m a big boy!!!!!!! i promise! i promise this

about

“I found this on the ground / and I thought of you,” hums Grace Schmidhauser as the first track unfurls on Or Best Offer’s debut album. It’s a deceptively sophisticated mission statement and a perfect introduction to the band’s universe, one where the mundane suggests the holy, where moments of intimacy become tokens of the cosmic. The experimental rock duo made up of primary songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Schmidhauser, and drummer and synthesist Brian Culligan, work with a sense of ceaseless wonder and invention, moving between instruments and technique with fluidity and intuition. But the humble consolation suggested by the band’s name belies what is actually a remarkably uncompromising sound, one given to sudden bursts of raw electric energy and total abstraction. Based, intermittently, between Brooklyn, Providence, and Chicago, the duo has found increasing notoriety for their arresting live performances, which project immersive electronics against muscular, cathartic performance. After years of collaboration in various forms since their initial meeting in 2018, Or Best Offer’s debut album Center arrives as both a document of and extrapolation on their live sound. The album was created and mixed during a period of geographical transition for Schmidhauser, and fittingly, the world of Center has a unique physics and an unstable gravity, as prone to sudden weightlessness as it is brute force. Recorded and produced by the two entirely in Culligan’s Ridgewood bedroom, Center takes a sensitive, loving approach to its materials with both molecular precision and widescreen grandeur. Distorted ribbons of Wurlitzer twirl against clattering cymbals; signals cut in and out like farewell transmissions.
There are a few aesthetic reference points for Center: the textural complexity of drone artists like Tim Hecker or Fennesz; the threadbare vulnerability of Cat Power; the gnarled post-rock of early Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Gastr Del Sol. But the throbbing core of Center is utterly unique, distinguished by Schmidhauser’s vaporous guitar work and profoundly spiritual lens. Center sounds like an unlikely miracle: songs swirl into existence from spinning shards of sound, words slowly gather into melodies, guitar lines dissolve and reform. The alchemical shifts between form, intensity, and scale are summarized evocatively in the title track’s closing lines: “sweet dear tornado / falls down on his knees / i’m sorry for making a mess / i’m just air you can breathe.” The dust settles. There is peace.

credits

released January 26, 2024

recorded, performed & produced by brian culligan & grace schmidhauser in ridgewood, queens in 2022
grace: vocals, guitar, wurlitzer, melodica, kazoo, more
brian: drums, light sensor synth, kalimba, radio, drill, ukulele, chimes, steel drums, more
mixed & engineered by brian culligan
mastered by seth manchester at machine with magnets in providence, rhode island
all songs written by grace schmidhauser
released by ba da bing records, 2023
tape design by adrian ocone
cover art by grace schmidhauser & brian culligan

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or best offer Brooklyn, New York

grace / brian
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