The Whitehaus Family Record
There is a large part of me which looks at the nature of the Whitehaus Family Project and wonders why the Whitehaus Family Record isn’t complete shit. It’s not though, it’s bloody brilliant.
The Whitehaus is an actual house in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts in the States which seems to be inhabited by a shifting cast of artists, musicians and almost any other creative type – between about eight and eighteen of them at any one time, apparently. The house itself is used as studio, performance space, recording studio and all sorts, and this is where the Whitehaus Family Record comes from.
Released on double vinyl, and now down to the last fifty or so copies, this is a compilation of tracks from artists associated with the project. There is blurb here, where you can also buy the record, but whilst evocative it is not particularly informative. The whole thing can be streamed on Bandcamp though, which is generous of them.
The results are a splendid, eclectic mess, however. The music ranges from lo-fi to folk to experimental to quirky pop and most places in between. But if you’ll pardon my cynicism and bear with me while I explain myself, I am going to go back to the statement in the first paragraph: I am really impressed that this isn’t total shite.
Generally projects like this rely strongly on enthusiasm to maintain momentum. A small handful of people need to care passionately about keeping it going, and they need to pick up the slack in the ebbs and flows of the interest of others – it’s the same with any cooperative enterprise. You can’t afford to be too picky either, because real dedication is hard to come by, and it is not wise to go turning it down, but herein lies the problem. There are a lot of well-meaning, hard-working, generous-spirited people out there with absolutely no talent whatsoever.
This sounds enormously mean-spirited, but it’s true. There are always useless people whose infectious enthusiasm means you can’t ignore them, but whose actual ability is limited to say the least, and I have seen a lot of collectives or cooperatives of various kinds struggle with this issue.
Whatever it is that The Whitehaus Family are doing right, though, they are doing very right indeed because this is excellent. It manages to be both eclectic and extremely consistent which is something I have never really seen in projects of this nature before, and I am massively impressed. Only fifty or so left, remember. Buy one!
The Great Valley – Lucky Me
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“Lighthaus Family Record”?
Freudian slip from Toad there. Revealing his true musical leanings. ‘We can be lifted…..lifted’.
Christ, even writing it I knew I’d end up doing that at some point. Balls!
To further nit pick – the1st line doesnt make much sense “There is a large part of my which looks at the nature of the Whitehaus”.
Do you want a sub-editor? Muahahah.
it appears you have great insight into communal artistic production!
With great cynicism comes great responsibility.
Do you remember when the Lighthouse Family first came out and they had quite a big hit with Ocean Drive, then they had a bit of a bigger hit with Lifted, then after that they just released Ocean Drive again.
Everyone thought they only had two songs and were just going to release them over and over.
What a pair of cunts.
My mum bought one of their records. There is no greater shame.
I do remember the guy’s singing voice being absolutely unbearable. Horribly low with a real rattly quality to it. Totally weak.
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