I hit up the great indie record shop Stinkweeds on Saturday. And I found the new Half-Handed Cloud (aka John Ringhofer) What’s the Remedy? EP on Asthmatic Kitty, which features Sufjan Stevens’ assistance. Hallelujah! Judging by my Web stats, getting Sufjan’s name into posts is a boon for traffic.

The EP has five tracks (Sufjan) on a 7″ vinyl (Sufjan) with pretty cool cover art (Sufjan). From Asthmatic Kitty:

“In addition to lots of piano, they both sing, play organ (including its foot pedal bass notes), and occasional acoustic guitar. Sufjan recorded the drums on another day. He created and tracked some additional embellishments (toy piano, banjo, recorder flute, tambourine) a few months after that, and sent the results to John. John was pleased–he trusts Sufjan’s ears pretty well!”

All Sufjan, all the time. Glorious! By the way, I ripped these tracks immediately after taking off the shrinkwrap, thus avoiding the dreaded dust on the vinyl. The longest track on this EP is 2:16. Amazing.

And this post is dedicated to my boy Justin at Aquarium Drunkard, who gave me a major shout-out in his Q&A with Muzzle of Bees. Go get to know him!

(In case anyone was wondering, I use this turntable for my rips.)

Half-Handed Cloud | I Got a Letter
Half-Handed Cloud | Here’s a List