Cassette and digital release on 5/19/17.

C44 – purple tape with black imprints. Pro-dubbed chrome plus cassette. 2-sided 3-panel J-Card with album artwork by Max.

Under the Khaki Blazer moniker, Pat Modugno records freewheeling solo jams that unite plunderphonic beat deconstruction and textured noise collage. Didn’t Have To Cut joins Modugno’s catalog of more than a dozen releases since 2010, including 2015’s Moontan Nocturnal (HAUSMO 37) on Hausu Mountain, and albums on labels like Experimedia and Alien Passengers. As half of Ohio-based free-jazz noise duo Moth Cock, a mainstay project on Hausu Mountain, Modugno’s arrhythmic percussion loops and effects manipulation provides the accompaniment to lead skronks from saxophone, clarinet, and/or trumpet. His solo work achieves equivalent levels of brain-boggling density within the context of standalone pieces buoyed by clattering percussion patterns and fragments of chopped pop and R&B vocals. His self-proclaimed “downer album,” Didn’t Have To Cut trades in a measure of Khaki Blazer’s typically high-tempo freneticism for doses of dreary narcosis cast off in smeared drone loops, pitched-down vocals, and sickly upper register synths. While still informed by the energy and relentless grids of footwork and the no-holds-barred sampling mentality of 90s hip-hop, Modugno’s tracks flit between distinct atmospheres in real time and resist settling into any easily legible looping structures. Khaki Blazer approaches his twisted analog creations from the perspective of a surrealist film director, heaving new twists and obstacles into view to complicate the landscape and shatter the audience’s attention span beyond repair.