Press
O Utopia [2017] - Digitalia Records
Purchase: Mobile/Desktop ($24)

Artist: Digitalia Records
Album: O Utopia
Year: 2017
Label: Digitalia Records - DR03
Format: Vinyl LP (Etched Hologram)

Track-list:
  1. Intro Version
  2. Hush Hush
  3. Shebang
  4. Mostest
  5. O Utopia
  6. O Utopia Part II
  7. Just Like That
  8. We're All Gonna Die
  9. Y2K Dub
  10. Knute's Tune
Companies:

Infinity Light Science: Etched at
Private Studios: Mastered at 
United Record Pressing: Manufactured by - L-25943
Polehouse: Recorded at, Mixed at

Personnel:

 Eureka Brown: Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Bells, Banjo, Bass, Drums, Produced by, Written by, Recorded by, Mixed by
Tristan Duke: Artwork (Center Label), Holograms (Deadwax)
Guido Sinclair: Written by (10)
Kris Bauer: Artwork, Executive Producer
Alissa Bauer: Saxophone (10)
Jonathan Pines: Mastered by

 © 2017 Digitalia Records. All rights reserved. Written, performed & recorded by Eureka Brown at Polehouse. "Knute's Tune" Written by Guido Sinclair and Performed by Happy Blues Orchestra. Mastered by Jonathan Pines at Private Studios. Design by Kris Bauer. Hand-etched holograms by Tristan Duke of Infinity Light Science. Additional artwork by Kris Bauer & Tristan Duke.

Barcode: 045928496306
ASIN: B072DY64V6
OCLC: 1000156614

Notes:

The 12 inch mini-album is the fifth "Hologroove" of its kind. The song "We're All Gonna Die" made the Official 2016 Festive Fifty (#41). "O Utopia" was It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine's "Vinyl of the Day" in April of 2019. To see the holograms in the dead wax, hold an LED light directly above the spinning record.

Related: When Tristan was first approached about the prospect of collaboration, on a Digitalia Records album, it was in the form an offhand quip, about how he should etch his holograms into tortilla based, edible records, for the Eureka Brown release that was already in the works. When his response was a serious inclination to work on the project, it was the catalyst for Digitalia's vinyl aspirations.

The concept, then in mind, was for a grey alien and a UFO, containing hidden meaning in the fact of their holography. The only request, up front, was a refrain from symbolism of religious or fraternal organizational character, specifically and most especially not the old all-seeing eye. After several months of holding our breath in bewildering suspense, the prototype was unveiled, behold! The old all-seeing eye!


Upon closer examination you'll notice the absence of the floating oculus, which instead has been reassigned to the base of the pyramid structure. Our collaboration drawings, like the one for the High Street Orchestra, after all, made frequent use of this sort of representation. It still has the UFO on the back, though it's from a less customary angle. From a birds eye view, it's less readily recognized; that's no doughnut, it's a straight up flying roll!

While it's only the 5th "Hologroove" by inventor Tristan Duke, it's not the first CU record decorated with such motifs. Big Daddy Sun's Out Here In Space, Hot Glue Gun's Every Little Spaceship, and Love Cup's ...Greefus Groinks And Sheet are all adorned with UAP.

O Utopia's CU natives worked remotely across the land though. When the LP very first dropped Dave Riotto crashed a Rob Quist interview on The Monster. In April of 2017, while Quist was live on 103.9, Riotto demonstrated the hologram with a Crosley and a test pressing. While advanced copies of the record were sold exclusively at Exile on Main St, in Champaign, IL, for a Record Store Day event with the Dirty Feathers, a show was planned, during our pit stop in MT, with a person called Bob Bucko Jr.


Calvin Johnson of K Records played a show there, months before, in the dingy basement of the record store downtown. We had the opportunity to give him one of our test pressings, and show him video footage of the hologram prototype. During his set he also danced with all 20 people in the crowd, and so we momentarily broke it down. Riotto later played harp on Paradiso's Ten Fifty Nine, probably the best track on the sophomore Digitalia Records album. He played live, decades earlier, with the Steve Miller Band's Norton Buffalo, at the Great Northern in downtown Whitefish, so we are told—he certainly knows how to rise to the occasion! 

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