A PLACE IN THE FALLOUT: “Represa”

Aug 23

The following is a nine (9) song record, myself (F. Phillips) and my best friend and cellmate (C. Knowles) recorded in our cell, circa 2005. The tape recorder was smuggled in and then after playing through nine (9) acoustic originals in one take, it took one (1) calendar year to smuggle the tape out. My supervisor in Receiving & Release finally agreed to drop the envelope at a random mailbox in Sacramento on his way home.

I was 22, a fresh fish only one year into my term and Cedric, the 27 rounding his 7th lap around the Sun inside the place we called, the hate machine.

“Represa,” captures the real and raw sounds of a prison in motion, the sounds of 1000 sinks and toilets flushing through 150 year old plumbing, shouts, laugher, the stomp of boots, and jingle of the kind of keys that were proudly forged for oppression, instead of freedom. Swirling voices, like a pentecostal church, the unintelligible words of 1600 prisoners in Folsom’s building 2. This background choral of Folsom State Prisoners, living life on pause, color the sound and feel of this record, like no other place can. The opportunity to record in prison is less the zero. Had we been caught, we would have certainly been placed in the hole and given more time. So with two acoustic guitars on either side of our cell (B-1-26), with a tape recorder in the middle of us. this album is punk, its hardcore, its trip hop, its metal, jazz and blues.. It’s every feeling we had to hold in, but by some miracle of fate got to share with the world outside. So we went all in and its palpable.

The record was released on tape and usb drive through Fanorama Distro in Cranston, RI and on a compilation disc through The Prisoner Correspondence Project, in Quebec Canada.

It is encouraged that you download the record for yourself and most of all enjoy.

UP THE PUNX,

-Faith Phillips