A Conversation with Yours Truly

Paul

Wednesday, October 4, 2017 5:45:47

Last month, my dear friend Greg Bem interviewed me for the online arts magazine Queen Mob's Tea House. If you'd like a guided tour of my brain, have a look! Hope you enjoy.

http://queenmobs.com/2017/09/centagonalism-conversation-pj-anderson/

-Paul

Bandcamp for Transgender Rights

Paul

Monday, July 31, 2017 11:38:23

On July 26, the President of the United States tweeted that transgender individuals would be banned from serving in the military. Like many of my friends and family members, I was appalled by this news, but not at all surprised. The President was elected on a platform of bigotry and cruelty. His words and actions are not only hurtful, but an affront to the dream of an America that lives up to its stated principles of equality and egalitarianism.

Today I learned that this Friday, August 4, Bandcamp will donate its share of sales revenues to the Transgender Law Center. In response, Centagon Records will do the same. You may read Bandcamp's announcement here:

https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/07/31/this-friday-stand-with-bandcamp-in-support-of-trans-rights/

My vision for Centagon is to create a label that is inclusive toward human beings of all identities, especially those who are marginalized. In order to accomplish that, I understand that words are not enough. I applaud Bandcamp's leadership in taking a stand against oppression, and I'm proud to do business with them.

Terror Wave by Air Jackson is available on vinyl and digital via Bandcamp. You may find it here:

https://airjackson.bandcamp.com/releases/

Thanks for listening.
-Paul

Introducing Centagon Records

Paul

Thursday, June 23, 2016 6:01:50

Well folks, here it is. Everyone who knows me knows that Centagon Records has been in the works for a long time. If anybody needed to see hard evidence that I’m actually doing this, I hope this shiny new website should suffice.

Centagon’s story began sometime in 2009 in my cramped studio apartment on Seattle’s Capitol Hill when (for reasons I don’t even remember; perhaps some misguided hipster sensibility) I brought home my first turntable. Among my first vinyl purchases was Things We Lost in the Fire by Low (Kranky, 2001), which I’d already a favorite, having bought it on CD years before. Thumbing through the LPs in a now-defunct record store, a sticker on the shrink wrap peeked my curiosity. It said “AAA,” explaining that the album’s production had been entirely analog. Unaware that such a thing was still available outside my parents’ basement, I took it home and listened. And the way I listen to music changed forever. It just sounded real, in a way that digital audio, for all its precision, just couldn’t quite touch. It infected me with a fantasy of creating such an artifact of my own. I didn’t know how to do such a thing, but I set about figuring it out.

Today, in 2016, that fantasy is about to become a reality. I’m proud to announce Centagon Records to the world, or whoever is listening.

In today’s saturated music landscape, it might seem hubristic to think the act of starting a small record label to be some kind of statement. In an age when a song can be catapulted across the globe with the tap of a touchscreen, a label’s function as producer of physical media may seem obsolete. Yet physical media persist, even flourish. Obviously, I wasn’t alone in what I experienced in that apartment in 2009. It was something as old as music itself, when it becomes something more than just cheap background noise. Sometimes, whether it’s live, digital or analog, music has the power to create a moment in time when you’re compelled to sit down and just listen. It’s time well spent.

My goal in this weird, likely unprofitable enterprise is to create more of those experiences. Here’s to misguided effort, to thumbing our noses in the face of capitalism and obsolescence. Here’s to art. Come along for the ride.

-Paul