»It's OK to give it a try« by Jul Gordon [SB-007]

SB-007
It's OK To Give It A Try
Jul Gordon

We are following a bike ride through the city, past buildings, trees, graffitis, parks, ads. A voice sets in, speaking only in polarities: It's ok. It is not ok; it will do, it won’t. In SB-007, Jul Gordon tells us a tale as old as time: a tale of artistic brooding.

On route to an appointment, the protagonist is giving herself a pep talk: It's worth a try. You can give it a try. She is supposed to record singing pets in order to incorporate them into an art project.
The passing urban scenery and the repeated mantras create a unidentifiable strangeness despite the rather familiar set up. The sober tone of the voice-over creates constant unease and even the quasi-documentary line drawings tingle with tension: clearly, the absurd feeds off reality.
Eventually, the book turns on itself - is this already a story? Is the narrative enough? For a book? Well, it’s OK to give it a try.

The tape WELL DONE! by Tintin Patrone accompanies the book. Howling, whimpering animal sounds merge into rhythmic, machine-generated sounds, a digital voice output imitates different tones of the human voice, followed by actual human voices of proud pet owners who join in with songs of praise for their “good girls”. Between the heartwarming affection that animal sounds trigger in us and the humorizing incomprehension when humans think that animals can sing, WELL DONE! abruptly grows into a screeching creature. The boundaries between sounds produced by humans, machines and animals are rendered unrecognizable, or united in their primal nature, just so we can get ready for the wholesome soulful auto-tune grande finale: the cat piano lady.

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Published by SofortBooks in November 2024
Edition of 150 (Zine) + 50 (Tape)

Zine
Edition of 150, 95x115mm, 98pp + coil-binding in Fluo Yellow.
Printed in Fluo Yellow & Brown on Fedrigoni Freelife Kendo 250g with thermography finish on cover+back cover, at Risofort.

Tape
Edition of 50, made at Headless Duplicated Tapes, CZ.
Riso-printed J-Card

Edition Split: 75 (Jul Gordon) / 75 (SofortBooks)