Track 1: Robert 1972

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

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. Comp…