Track 1: Robert 1972

Damien Jurado's "Postcards and Audio Letters" (2000)

Oct 09, 2024

In Seattle at the turn of the millennium, my friend Damien Jurado was stealing cassette tapes from boomboxes and answering machines sitting on the shelves at Goodwill and Value Village. He compiled selections from those tapes into Postcards and Audio Letters.

The small press I ran at the time co-released it with the Seattle label Made in Mexico, calling it Jurado’s new album, the follow-up to his breakthrough second record, Rehearsals for Departure. We put a warning sticker on the jewel case: There is no music on this CD.

From the review in The Onion:

Over the course of two albums, Waters Ave. S. and last year's remarkable Rehearsals for Departure, Seattle singer-songwriter Damien Jurado has demonstrated a mastery of intimate music informed by fearless sincerity. Jurado's fans may want to hesitate before seeking out his new Postcards And Audio Letters—after all, his voice and music are nowhere to be found on the record—but in many ways, it's a logical extension of what he does best. Compiled and edited from an assortment of old audio tapes Jurado found in thrift stores, the album presents extended fragments of answering-machine messages and recorded correspondence, allowing the listener a voyeuristic look into the lives of strangers. The concept seems crass, but the results can be as sensitive and compelling as Jurado's music … An intense and unnerving collection, Postcards And Audio Letters is an essential companion to Jurado's music, as if he'd been making a soundtrack to this documentary all along.

Postcards and Audio Letters has been out of print forever, and never streamed. As we approach its 25th anniversary, Damien and I want to honor the weird-ass album by reissuing the tracks in Little Engines. First up is “Robert 1972,” an audio letter to Angel. Listen below, and come back soon for a letter from Angel.

🖤AV