It took the much-loved little label Orchid Tapes just the course of this past weekend to sell out their first vinyl release, Three Love Songs, the debut album from Maryland DIY do-it-all’er Ricky Eat Acid. The solo electronic project—at times cooing and ambient, other times Burially danceable—is only one Sam Ray’s many endeavors, each with varying levels of tape fuzz and moody singer-songwriterness: Teen Suicide, Julia Brown, Starry Cat, plus backing-band contributions on an unknowable number of other people’s Bandcamps. In that vein, Ray’s half-hour FADER mix calls attention to a half-hour’s worth of likeminded, self-releasing and small-label-affiliated artists, linking them up like a wiki of indie pop or a menu where the cost of everything is “Buy Now—name your price.” The tracklist is below our interview, featuring talk about weird ladies running in the dark and why Ray’s suited for such fantastic, diverse output.
Download: Ricky Eat Acid's FADER Mix
What's it like where you are right now? it was super foggy all day, it's been super cold too and i'm enjoying everything about it. the other night it snowed for a really long time and it was really bright & we turned all the lights off and opened all the blinds and watched fast times but then all the snow turned into weird slow-slush and now it's just foggy. and cold. i still like it though. a lot of strange characters keep cropping up in the fog. an old lady who goes running around 3-4 am when i'm taking deliveries in the cold. empty, deserted foggy streets and her running along them shaking her hands vigorously. a lot of similar apparitions. it's a really dull college town and it's winter break so it's more dull than usual and there's something really unnerving about that since it's slower than usual but still very ugly. a lot of apparitions. even the real people feel like apparitions right now.
Across your different projects, you use pretty different styles and sounds—what do you think about you makes you suited for that? a complete and total restlessness. i don't like to jump around different sounds and not revisit things but i like to just do whatever appeals to me or inspires me at any given time and find a way to bring it together later, across albums or across various projects even. i feel like the longer i do it the more underlying unifying themes and signifying things pop up and i can start connecting it all for myself and learning from it. i never want to restrict anything i do to one style or genre or trend or sound or even name. i just want to do what seems like the most fun and worry about classifying it later, if at all.
What was something you read last year that you identified with, or were affected by? in 2012 etgar keret finally collected a new book of stories (and had it translated into english) and i went to see him read in DC with some of my best friends. he drew a flower for me and something else i forget for my mom (who originally introduced me to his work some 7 or 8 years ago). I got to meet him and see him read and talk with him and he's just as amazing to talk to as his stories are to read. i read all of his collections endlessly in highschool and college and still revisit them regularly, so a new collection was an event for me. i've been reading it since i picked it up, but at a glacial pace because i never want it to end. i've read the final story in the collection though - the last one is always the best. the last story in this collection is heartbreaking and probably one of the strongest things he's ever done. also it was the one he read live and it's stuck with me because of that, i'm sure. i've been reading other books in between his stories but nothing has stuck with me quite as much as the way his words do.
What's this mix like? Did you think of anything in particular with the song selection? it's a very indie pop mix. it's like being in love in the spring or something. or the fall. or the winter. it's like waking up at 8 am every morning with someone you love after years of waking up at 3 pm and waiting until 5-6 to get out of bed at all because you don't really have anything to do either way. it's like you wake up at 8 am and drive them to school or to work and this plays in your car and you roll the windows down when you're alone and listen to it and wait for it to start raining. it's kind of like that. a lot of the songs on it are either by friends or friends of friends or just people i admire a lot. some is older some is newer some is unreleased still. i wrote one of them. it's a very bittersweet bunch of songs. it's like listening to a love song and hoping that real love is at once both as fun and bright but also not nearly as transient as pop music can be.
What food do you like to cook and how do you make it? oh my god just everything about breakfast food. i will make french toast and just use anything to bread it. cereal (captain crunch!) nilla wafers sugar cookies candy. crush it up in a bowl and dip some french toast in it and cook it. it's just so fun. i want to have a party where we all make and taste different kinds of french toast. i like making pancakes & filling them with different fruit. raspberries are best. butterscotch pancakes are really great. i have a lot of fun making breakfast. i can't really make anything else that adequately besides like, pasta & soup & dessert. i should probably learn.
Tracklist:
1. Sportscenter - QUARTERBACKS
2. Hold Me - Trixie's Big Red Motorbike
3. Together Forever In Love - Go Sailor
4. Dreamboat - Mirah
5. Blue You - Lizard Kisses
6. track7 - Solidbrock
7. Drawbridge - All Girl Summer Fun Band
8. Lemonade Grrrl - Joanna Gruesome
9. I Don't Know - Plumtree
10. trapped - Butterglory
11. Feelin' Like a Bean - Baby Mollusk
12. Mannequin - Attic Abasement
13. Intimate - PORCHES.
14. My Love I Love - Bogdan Raczynski
15. Without you (full) - Julia Brown
16. Truly Great Thing - Sebadoh
17. bike - Alex G
18. Dig Your Own Grave - Heavenly
19. It's Gonna Be Soon - Rocketship
