This album is a little different from what you might expect from me.

Even to me, “Direct Lines” came as a bit of a surprise. A somewhat live, somewhat improvisational set of songs that came out of my jamming with a touch-pad Korg synth. It is amazing what happens when you get a new instrument and start playing around. That is exactly what I did and I kept the proverbial “tape” rolling.

These twelve instrumental pieces were recorded in order over two sessions. The title for the record comes from the fact that I recorded this as basically one continuous set and then divided it up. There are no over-dubs, with the exception of making the set sound somewhat continuous. Essentially, this is just straight-up electronic construction.

After years of recording indie-rock and trip-hop and experimenting with folk, country and blues on my records with Samuel Bean, I have been alternatively also interested in electronic instrumental records.

Sure, I’ve dealt with these kinds of sounds before with the extended “Xenon,” the somewhat chilled “Without Words” and its crazier, more unpredictable cousin “Nocturnal Weekend,” but to me “Direct Lines” is a completely different beast. It sounds like a DJ set. At the same time, it shows influence from the likes of the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk and Four Tet. In a certain light, this is kind of my love letter response to albums like “Dig your Own Hole” and “Homework.”

At the same time, when working with these extended pieces, I was also thinking about jazz. (Real jazz. Not the “smooth jazz” stuff.) Jazz purists may disagree with this notions I’m about to set forth here, but while constructing these pieces, I kept thinking about classic albums by Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Working with extended grooves, I was thinking about the jazz fundamentals. Instrumental jazz often has its groundwork laid by a loose set of rules. There may be a phrase that comes in and out but in between, each player gets to solo. Those solos are improvisational and have to fit within the landscape established by hook.

What does this all have to do with what I’m doing here? Well, it hit me, that in a much less advanced way, I kind of have to do something similar. One of these songs might start off with a beat and I have to instantly construct elements that go with that beat on the fly. I have to keep adjusting on the tracks that clock around or over the ten-minute mark. Sure, everything is mechanical and so there is less sweat and honed skill involved but playing music this way, as with improvisational jazz asks that one trusts one’s own instincts.

In its pre-determined tight construction, techno is essentially the opposite of jazz. Playing samplers and synths in a live, human way can in turn give the two genres a surprising amount of common ground.

I’m not and will never be a fist-pumping EDM “DJ.” I am not one to take the easy route. You can play with new technology and attempt to have the focus of the old masters. The means may be built into the machine to some degree, but you have to know how to construct and build something compelling and moving.

I had fun here. “Televised Warfare” sounds like an apocalyptic video game. “Scattershot Dub” has a bass refrain that may hit you in the center of your eardrum. “Acids & Bases” morphs into something strangely psychedelic, as does the woozy “Tight Gloss.” “Swizzle Stack” may have the sharpest instrumental hook I have ever constructed while the album’s nearly fifteen-minute closer, “Thunder Beach Siren” is an unrelenting mix of “drum-n-bass,” punk abrasiveness and an overpowering punch that sounds like it should be blasted over a loud speaker at a giant, outdoor neighborhood block party.

Sure, this record is really different from say, “Rumbling Sigh,” “Aromatic Plastic” or “Spraypaint & Gravel,” but even though my voice is silent here and I remain a wordless presence while (occasionally loudly) maneuvering new technology, my art-rock and left-field alternative ideals remain intact. I am at my heart a punk who wants to mess with conventions and improve what sounds get put out into the mainstream. Will this album be heard? Hard to tell. In this busy landscape, who knows?

I say, if you like what you are hearing, I hope you have bought this collection. Supporting art that you enjoy is essential. Music today with the streaming culture has become recyclable. Listeners too often take music’s existence for granted. Art is worth something. If you want art to continue, we need to create an environment where artists can not only survive but thrive.

The music business was in many ways ruined by record companies and record executives taking too much off of the top and passing along the bill to the consumers. The streaming culture is in many ways an over-correction to make up for the wrongs of the past. (To its credit, however, it has also somewhat curbed piracy.)

Technology has made many of us now independent entities. In the crazy world of music available to the modern consumer, that landscape can provide something daunting and threatening. As someone who will continue making music of varying styles no matter what the future may hold and following my creative muses in ways like I did here on “Direct Lines,” my work will exist whether or not people buy it and support it.

The compulsion to create is a very powerful force. It is always nice to know when you have taken someone else for a sonic ride.

This is my 22nd album as The Slums of Mediocrity. As I have said, it is a bit of a sonic outlier within my discography. For those of you who do not feel the direction I went with this record, I will tell you to rest assured. More traditional offerings are just around the corner. Plus you have more than twenty years of back-catalogue output to explore.

I hope “Direct Lines” speaks to you. I hope it makes you fall into its grooves. I hope its odder corners make you think and mostly I hope to some degree it makes you happy to be alive.

It is my dream to someday be at a party and hear “Thunder Beach Siren” blasted at full volume. Part of me thinks that it could really tear the roof off of the joint, given the right crowd and right reception.

Enjoy this record. Love it and tell your friends. I hope this set takes you on an unexpected journey. Correction….That sounds blowhard-y and pompous. I just hope you like it.

Thank you!

Allan Raible – March 22, 2018