Torn Hawk - Weedwackers CS

“The smell of gasoline in the back of a Ford Econoline van, grass pesto on blue jeans stuck to your legs in the humidity. A private investigator's classic glass office door with the name stencilled on it--- the mail slot is stuffed with student loan statements. The P.I. takes a break during an investigation to take gulps from a half gallon of milk while leaning on a big blue mailbox.”

Elations Recordings’ ‘Deviations’ imprint returns with “Weedwackers” from Torn Hawk, nom de plume of NYC-based artist Luke Wyatt, a trio of cuts in the mould of 2022’s “Toxic Sincerity” and 2024’s “Trustfall”. “Weedwackers” continues a run of decidedly individual work combining deconstructed lo-fi electronica with absurdist spoken word meditations on the self, humanity and sentimentality, exploring parallel worlds and personalities in a way that reflects the fractured qualities of modern life.

A-side and spoken word title track “Weedwackers” is a meandering tale of a down and out Private Eye (“let’s call him Scott”) set to Blue Jam-esque snippets of music and SFX; unreal and mundane, unsettling and absurdly hilarious, an impressionistic window into another world intersecting our own with hints of the paranoiac metaphysical realism of latter era Philip K Dick. The B-side is a sonic expansion of this world - “Dork Armor” like the industrial psychedelic basement sounds of Chrome meets Repo Man’s sci-fi tinged Americana; “Like The Fear Groupie You Are” channelling Alan Vega’s “Deuce Avenue” post-cosmic Rockabilly period through the lense of mid-2000s indie-electronica.

“Weedwackers” comes to us as a double sided cassette, housed in a hand painted box accompanied by two screen printed posters designed by Melbourne based artists James Vinciguerra and Hana Shimada. An artifact of uncertain origins, “nonetheless, there it was. Was this a window into a possibility or something that was actually occurring in this plane of reality? Find out later on.” –Fresh Hold