''The Futurist'' was an album issued by

Shellac Shellac () is a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes and dissolved in alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and ...

in 1997 to their friends only. The album was originally used as music for a performance by La La La Human Steps.

Friends Only

The cover of the album contains 779 names—one for each copy of the album. At the bottom of the cover is a blank space for anyone not named on the cover to write their name. Each person who received the album got a copy with their name circled on the cover; this was done for identification of a "culprit" should the album ever end up for sale. ''The Futurist'' was never released commercially. There is speculation that this was because Shellac were not satisfied with the finished product. A year later, Shellac released their second commercial full-length, '' Terraform''.

Movements

The music on ''The Futurist'' is divided into ten total movements. Versions have floated around on file-sharing communities which have divided the album into five movements, and into two sides (vinyl sides A and B—Shellac are notorious vinyl purists, and ''The Futurist'' was only issued on LP).

Reception

Andy Kellman of

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

gave the album a mixed review, citing its overtly experimental nature. "Rather than proper tracks or songs," he writes, "the record seems to have ten "movements," as each piece flows steadily into the next. Oscillator tweakings mixed with

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one ...

transmissions and overseas correspondence give way to brief guitar/bass/drum bursts. Skronking noise here, guitar twists there, and familiar band interplay every now and again à la "QRJ" (off

1000 Hurts ''1000 Hurts'' is the third studio album by American indie rock band Shellac, released on August 8, 2000. In its official promotional materials Shellac jokingly described this album as follows: "There are no 12-minute songs on this one. This re ...

) double dutch with each other, never outlasting their welcome." He is, however, more favorable in viewing the second half and cites the "bombastic" final movement as "the high point of the record". He concludes by writing: "It might be second-rate Shellac, but second-rate Shellac is just fine."

References

External links

a premier source of information about ''The Futurist'', including a definitive list of who all the "friends" are.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Futurist, The Shellac (band) albums 1997 albums Self-released albums