Track 2: Angel 1972

Another dip into Damien Jurado's "Postcards and Audio Letters" (2000), plus voice memos with Damien about the album

In the background of Robert 1972, which opens Postcards and Audio Letters, you hear the ghost trace of an audio letter from Angel. These two traded the same cassette multiple times, recording over one another in reply, erasing what came before.

On Track 2, Angel 1972, we don’t get Angel’s response to Robert’s searching, painful letter, but an earlier recording, made before the developments Robert reckons with on side A.

Angel is chit-chatty and lightweight for most of her letter, but vulnerable with Robert near the end, contemplative about what still might be for them. She’s far from an ending, which is where we found Robert on Track 1.

Like the vanishing voice in the background of Robert’s letter, it’s laughably meaningful to hear the faint sound of seconds ticking by, a watch on her arm or a clock in her room, in the background of Angel’s letter. Listen below.

After the track, paid subscribers can hear Damien and me trade voice memos about the album.

🖤AV

From the The Seattle Weekly:

According to Jurado, Postcards and Audio Letters bears more in common with his musical recordings than one might assume. "The tapes have been a huge influence on me as a songwriter," he says, crediting them for inspiring many of his recent tunes. "In almost all of my writing now, I've taken things from the tapes, or I base characters on these people."

Jurado isn't certain who the disc's audience will be, but he does have a little bit of an agenda. "I hope it would encourage people to document their lives and save their memories," he says. That's certainly the effect these materials have had on his family. "My wife and I are expecting our first child next month," concludes the singer. "And this week, we've been talking to him on a cassette recorder, telling him about the Kingdome imploding."

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Track 2: Angel 1972

Postcards and Audio Letters

1. Robert 1972
2. Angel 1972
3. Christmas 1983
4. Christmas 1983 (Part 2)
5. “Hi Dawn. This is Phil.”
6. Phil Wakes Dawn
7. Phil at the Airport
8. “Our Kid is Getting Hurt”

Tape salvation and editing: Damien Jurado
Polaroids: Adam Voith
Design: Jesse LeDoux

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Damien and Adam trade voice memos about the album. After all this time, Damien admits he had the tape of Angel breaking Robert’s heart, but it’s since been accidentally destroyed.