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Acknowledgment

by Mark Trecka

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APE
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APE With a musical life spanning over two decades of music, Acknowledgement is easily Mark Trecka's most unique record, and definitely among the most singular. The comparisons to Hollis solo are not unfounded. Longtime collaborator Theo Karon's mixes reveal warm performances for an album that might have become too black-and-white in anyone else's hands. Yes, bring your patience, and also bring your joy to embrace these loud sounds over and over again. Favorite track: Guides.
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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    All pre-orders will come with limited edition poster designed by Mark Trecka and Will Brady + Insert + DL Code.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Acknowledgment via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $22 USD or more 

     

  • Poster/Print + Digital Album

    Limited to 100 copies. Includes digital pre-order of Acknowledgment.

    A further extension of the intertextuality of the record. Two-color, risograph 11x17 poster printed on grout gray French construction paper and featuring a 1300-word essay by Mark Trecka elevating guides over leaders, connecting the wisdom of images, friendships, and synchronicities. Designed and printed in Beacon, NY by Will Brady.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Acknowledgment via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 100 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited to 50. All pre-orders will come with limited edition Risograph "Guides" poster designed by Mark Trecka and Will Brady + Insert + DL Code.

    About the "Guides" Poster:

    A further extension of the intertextuality of the record. Two-color, risograph 11x17 poster printed on grout gray French construction paper and featuring a 1300-word essay by Mark Trecka elevating guides over leaders, connecting the wisdom of images, friendships, and synchronicities. Designed and printed in Beacon, NY by Will Brady.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Acknowledgment via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 50 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $27 USD or more 

     

  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Get Implication + Acknowledgment LP together as one package.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Acknowledgment via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $30 USD or more 

     

  • *Limited to 25* LP + Zine + Poster
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    ***Limited to First 25 pre-orders***

    First 25 pre-orders will receive a limited edition "Wave Games" zine + poster designed by Mark and Will Brady.

    All orders come with specialty insert / liner notes and download code.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Acknowledgment via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Acknowledgment Test Press + LP (Edition of 1)
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Ultra-limited edition test pressing + Acknowledgment LP + LP of your choice.
    Test pressing from Smashed Plastic. Edition of 1.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Acknowledgment via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out
1.
Different Walls / Beach Grass 08:51
buy track
2.
Acknowledgment 07:48
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3.
Guides 03:57
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4.
Wave Games 04:34
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5.
A Sea of Tents 11:46
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6.
Hood in Wind 04:01
buy track

about

Recorded using only voice, piano, and handmade cassette loops, Acknowledgment was conceived of and is presented as an intertextual document reflecting on 15 years of dialogue between the personal and political. “Acknowledgment” according to Trecka is presented here not as some kind of moral high ground, but rather an elusive action that runs “somehow deeper than recognition.” How do we acknowledge our deep interdependence upon one another when faced with the ever increasing atomization of modern life? It is through Acknowledgment’s existence as an intertextual and intermedial piece of art that Trecka explores this fascia connecting us all, despite the designed invisibility of certain communities – stateless persons, incarcerated persons, houseless individuals. This record is about heavy things, but it is certainly not about the burden of interdependence or the void left by nature’s dispassion. Rather, it is about the utter joy that may be found through the acknowledgement of these things. Compassion – a word that gets close to acknowledgement’s aims – allows us to share in the pain and joy of our common existence.

Although this album is sparse and some ways abstract, the intertextual elements provide excellent entry points into the work itself. Musically, Mark Trecka offers a few oblique references. Listen deeply to hear the clanging rhythm and idiosyncratic timing of John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes, the minimalist drama of Haley Fohr or Nico’s The Marble Index the floating and commanding vocals of Mark Hollis, or Robert Wyatt’s hopeful but utterly wild solo work. It should come as no surprise that Acknowledgment’s closing track, “Hood in Wind” builds off of Public Enemy’s “Revolutionary Generation '' while Trecka’s impressionistic liner notes quote from prison abolitionist and poet Jackie Wang. The album’s cover itself features a quote from Mexican author Yuri Herrera’s “A Silent Fury” which is about a mining disaster and the criminal response of the mine’s owners. This story echoes in Trecka’s own exploration of a remote desert cemetery which provides the cornerstone for the album’s inserted essay / reflection.

Songs on Acknowledgement often drift between the political and the personal. On “Wave Games” an anxious piano line provides the backbone for Trecka’s reflection on visiting the ocean with his child and, while watching him play in the waves, reflecting on the multivalence of bodies of water – as connectors, dividers of land masses and the struggles of those who cross them in search of better material conditions. Ships literally passing in the night as supertankers valet the refined natural goods of several countries reduced to a supply chain. “A Sea of Tents” reflects on statelessness and unreasonable responses to unreasonable situations over an impressionistic piano composition punctuated by brash bass notes and distressed tape loops that signal like a lighthouse fading from sight. The only instrumental track on the album, the album’s title track opens up caverns between piano notes that are wide enough to cast our worried thoughts into and never hear them hit the bottom. There is a lift, however, towards a cacophonous conclusion that finds joy in making very, very loud sounds over and over.

credits

released May 28, 2021

Written and performed by Mark Trecka. Recorded by Rob Kissner. Mixed by Theo Karon.

Mastered by James Plotkin.

Layout and design by Will Brady. Fence drawing by Marshall LaCount.

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about

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Mark Trecka New York

Mark Trecka is a Chicago-born writer, sound artist, performer, and activist. His work utilizes intermedial techniques, engaging various juxtapositions of text and sound to explore both explicit and implied meaning.

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