Contrary to popular belief among my friends and well-wishers, I am a mug who is eager to please. Thus, when it came to my attention that people who were fans of my then-fading-into-irrelevancy solo project Actual Birds (total fandom≈8; my mom, while a supporter, could hardly be called a fan…) were put off by a handful of “noise” cassettes I released under the same moniker I usually used to wax spiritual/cry about girls, I decided to take the Meat Puppets’ advice and split myself in two.

At the project’s inception, I assured myself (well, and other people, but I’m pretty sure they were thinking about dinner or Fleetwood Mac or something while I was talking) that while Mall Mutants might occasionally have vocals (no matter how often I would be encouraged otherwise), the project would definitely not have songs. Particularly enamored with the conceptual thrust running through the works of John Cage, İlhan Mimaroğlu, Robert Ashley, Marcel Duchamp, Yoko Ono, Frankie Mann, Joan La Barbara, etc., I also committed to a desire to not be “just another dude putting out noise cassettes”. Whether it plays out that way, though, is probably another story.

A year and a half on, Mall Mutants is… well, mutating. Given that, after a couple months of juggling, I put the Actual Birds moniker to thankful rest, it was inevitable that such would be so. I’m even starting to incorporate repetitive spines to improvise over, which for all intents and purposes, you might call… songs. All is fleeting. This compilation compiles the first few Mall Mutants cassettes, the availability of which being especially fleeting (two were released in editions of 12). Herein, I’m completely dipping my toes into abstract forms. I cast it into the ether, in hopes that someone might catch it.