Japanese Whiskey is STLNDRMS and KATS1R1S. Live drums, bass and keys, tracked straight to tape. Fire is the first thing we have put on vinyl, and this is the night we put it in your hands.
The night runs like a listening session. Fire gets played the way it was made, on a system that can hold it. Around it goes the music it came from and the music it is headed toward. Soul, jazz, rare groove, off vinyl, all night.
A few more names are sitting in. We will say who closer to the date.
Fifty exist. Each one is an acetate with a cover painted by hand on wood, so no two are alike. When they are gone they are gone.
A cocktail bar and listening lounge on top of the Stella tower at Star Metals, in West Midtown. Most of the city has not been in it yet.
A terrace with the skyline lined up in front of it, about a hundred and seventy feet over the street. Doors at golden hour, on purpose.
L-Acoustics. Point source boxes and subs built into the furniture instead of hung off the walls. The best install we have heard in this city.
Fire is the first of six. It is not a pressing. Each one is cut to acetate, fifty in all, and every cover is hand painted on wood by Kei Murakami. No two are the same, so every copy is one of one.
This is the first record we have ever sold. The only way to have one held for you is the ticket that comes with it. Whatever is left goes on the table at the door. When the fifty are gone we are not making them this way again.
Grand Cru Records · GC-001, the lead single.
Japanese Whiskey is a recording project from a production duo. Soulful, jazz and funk driven grooves built on real instruments, tracked live and straight to tape, with guest vocalists and players sitting in the room.
Chris Wilkes is a Grammy Award-winning producer. His production credits run through Erykah Badu, Madlib, Rapsody and Raekwon, and he scored MadWorld and Anarchy Reigns for SEGA. He co-founded Controllerise and built the rooms behind High Bias, Good Food and Sunday Soul. On Japanese Whiskey he plays drums, bass and keys.
The other half of the room, and a founder of Grand Cru Records. Guitar, bass and keys across the whole series. Real hands on real instruments, take after take, until it is right.
Stacy Epps sings on Fire. Her voice is on Madvillainy, and her work runs through Madlib, MF DOOM and a long line of records people still dig for. Her album Flowheart came out in August. She lives in Atlanta, where she also practices law, teaches, and runs LOVElikeWATER, a nonprofit that puts healing and art in the same room.
She paints the covers. Enso and kanji, by hand, on wood. Every copy of the single wears a piece of her work, and every piece is different.
A vinyl-first Atlanta imprint built around records meant to be held rather than streamed. Six singles, one at a time, each with a night around it. Fire is the first out.
The room holds 135. Fifty acetates exist. When a tier sells out the link closes on its own.
The name at checkout is the name at the door. 21 and up.
Fifty acetates exist and they are not being made again. The bundle is ten under the price of the record alone.
Sold out, or waiting on the next one? Get on the list.
A lounge the city has not gotten into yet.
Seventeen floors over West Midtown, on top of the Stella tower at Star Metals. A cocktail bar and listening lounge inside, a terrace outside with the whole skyline in front of it. The room comes from Grassfed Culture Hospitality, the Miami group behind Los Félix and Krüs Kitchen, who also run Füm downstairs. It is named for the rabbits that were here first.
Friday, September 11 at Rabbit Ears. Doors 9pm. Your name at the door is the name you gave at checkout.
If you bought the ticket with the 45, your copy is held for you. Ask for it on the way in, not on the way out.