Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
Purchasable with gift card
name your price
T-Shirt/Apparel + Digital Album
Unisex
sand / dawn orange print
Details:
100% cotton
Preshrunk jersey knit classic fit
Tear away tags
Hand screen printed with eco-friendly water-based inks by my friends at Silkshop Screen Printing in Chico, CA.
Designed by me and Arif Suseno
Ships worldwide
SIZE GUIDE
S: 18" wide 28" long
M: 20" wide x 29" long
L: 22" wide x 30" long
XL: 24" wide x 31" long
XXL: 26" wide x 32" long
RETURN POLICY:
Exchange permitted if unworn. Buyer pays shipping.
Includes unlimited streaming of Happiness Complete
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
ships out within 5 days
$25USD
T-Shirt/Apparel + Digital Album
Unisex
sand / dawn orange crewneck sweatshirt
Details:
Classic fit cotton blend
Preshrunk fleece knit
Air jet yarn for softer feel and reduced pilling
Double-needle stitching at shoulder, armhole, neck, waistband and cuffs
Tear away tags
Hand screen printed with eco-friendly water-based inks by my friends at Silkshop Screen Printing in Chico, California.
Designed by me and Arif Suseno
Ships worldwide.
Size Guide:
S: 20" wide x 27" long
M: 22" wide x 28" long
L: 24" wide x 29" long
XL: 26" wide x 30" long
XXL: 28" wide x 31" long
RETURN POLICY:
Exchange permitted if unworn. Buyer pays shipping.
Includes unlimited streaming of Happiness Complete
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
ships out within 5 days
$35USD
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
In an attempt to turn lemons into lemonade, I’m selling these defective test pressings of Happiness Complete. Maybe they’ll become collector’s items someday, who knows? There's just four in existence.
If you’re not familiar with the vinyl pressing process, there’s a stage along the way when you receive what’s called test pressings. The idea is that you listen to the test pressings and check for errors before giving the production plant the green light to make all of the records. This way, you won’t get stuck with a bunch of defective vinyl.
I received these four test pressing from the company that I hired, Erika Records in Southern California. Just moments after lowering the needle, I heard an error; the music distorted and jumped from one channel to the other. I was devastated, but continued listening. The errors continued, over and over; more distortion, more channel drop outs, dramatic volume fluctuations... I checked out the second test pressing, then the third, and finally, the fourth; they were all defective. Just to be super sure, I played the records on my engineer’s hifi system. They were definitely defective. To add insult to injury, I noticed that Erika Records had forgot to include the custom matrix etch dedication that I had requested. It was for my sister, Shannon, who recently passed. (The matrix etch is a tiny scribe on the vinyl surface, you can find it next to the center label).
I had already waited 8 months for these test pressings, so I was very concerned that I’d have to start all over.
OK, no need to panic. I contact the office manager, Ken Brisbin, and explained what happened. What happened next, was shocking. Ken, as well as the CEO, Liz Dunster, vehemently denied that the records were defective. They accused me of lying; they were belligerent, defensive— totally unprofessional. Ken said “our QC doesn’t make mistakes," and “look, I’ve been doing this a long time.” My thoughts were: there’s no way these records went through quality control, the errors are glaring. Regarding the left out dedication, Ken told me to not worry about it, that they won’t charge me for it. After they made it very clear that they will not repress the test pressings, I asked for my money back (they had already made me pay the entire cost upfront). At this point, I was willing to accept six months wasted, however, they refused to refund me.
I had no idea what to do. I was furious, frustrated, and heartbroken that I had wasted all this time. Now, I would lose hundreds of dollars and have to start all over again with another vinyl pressing company.
In a last ditch effort to get these records made, I got the idea to film myself playing all four test pressing on four different turntables and speakers. Additionally, I ripped the audio from all eight sides of the vinyl into Audacity (a recording software program). Then, I emailed Ken and Liz the two-hour long video, and the audio files with screen shots of the wave forms that clearly showed the audio errors.
Weeks later, Ken replied and told me that he’d send me new test pressings, but I’d have to wait 8 weeks for them. He told me that eight weeks was "expediting" them and that he was “doing me a favor.” Even after all of this, he never acknowledged that the records were defective, and of course, he never apologized. 10 weeks later, I got the new test pressings. Thank God, they were free of errors; and this time, they included the dedication to my sister. I gave them the approval to do the run.
When I went to go pick the records up, they told me that they had made 20 extra copies, and that I would need to pay for them. They also added a second 15% tax.
I had no choice but to forfeit it all or pay. They knew this. I paid.
So, that’s the story behind these test pressings. If you pick one up, you can hear for yourself how defective these records are.
And, if you’re ever considering getting some vinyl made, be sure to steer clear of Erika Records. Fuck those guys.
Each test pressing is numbered and comes with good karma, a whole lotta gratitude, and some stickers. Thank you for your support!
Includes unlimited streaming of Happiness Complete
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
ships out within 2 days
edition of 4
$100USD
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Heavy duty 180 gram UHQ black vinyl, 12" 33rpm.
Limited release of only 200.
Recommended stylus force of 4 grams.
I can't tell you how difficult it was for me to get these made...actually I can; you can read all about it in the "Defective Test Pressings" description (above).
Thanks for the support ya'll!
Includes unlimited streaming of Happiness Complete
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 3 days
edition of 200
6 remaining
$22USDor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Every time I hear music on a CD, I remember how amazing CD quality is-- streaming still has NOTHING on it. Experience "Happiness Complete" on high-fidelity compact disc, you will be astonished at how great this record sounds on CD.
This is a limited release that I did in partnership with my favorite local record shop's micro-label, Hollywood Land Records. Redlands Vinyl Records & Collectibles has been incredibly supportive of my music. But, FYI, 100% of the sale goes to me (aside from Bandcamp's fee). Buying my merch helps me afford to keep making music, so thanks in advance!
Just 1,000 copies in existence! Comes sealed.
Includes unlimited streaming of Happiness Complete
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose
YGTUT:
Had to slow grind to make it to the top
Got some clout now, we got bad bad falling down
Started with a little, made a lot
Gotta get this money, can't be out here tryin' to play around
Hesitatin'
You gon' wait or you gon' sit and watch
I got people out who can't wait they tryin' to show me off
And I'm putting every dollar that I got
Make it flip, look at how I get to fold the money now
I'm stackin' cheese up with some freeze cup
Honies on my Visa, girly look like Lisa
I go deaf when the haters start hatin'
I can't hear a word that they sayin'
I never let people play me for a chump
Don't care what you say, you really outta touch
I can wait but this money can't
At some point you gotta sacrifice
Money wasn't really given to us
If you want it, you gon' have to fight
Get the family and the homies straight
Really, we just tryin' to do it right
I can wait but this money can't
Hope one day you people see the light
'Cuz really we used to be dead broke
This shit been a long road
We keepin' it headstrong
Trying to make it through your headphones
Just some people from the 'Nooga tryin' to make music that you can ride to, smoke out and vibe to, you cannot die, it's true
Had to slow grind to make it to the top
Got some clout now, we got bad bad falling down
Started with a little, made a lot
Gotta get this money, can't be out here tryin' to play around
Nardo Says:
Money, money, money get enough until you get it right
True it wasn't given but decisions make your livin' right
Once you get it baby, what you spending your investment like
I mean shit, I'm trying to keep it coming fresh just like a re-up
Stack your bread and get your mind right and keep your chi up
Man, I'm out here grinding diamond finding keep that pressure up
It was never meant for us, but fuck it we Columbus it
When we buy it all, we sell it back, just quadrupled it
Had to slow grind to make it to the top
I'll be right here baby, ain't no fallin' down
Started with a little, made a lot
Gotta get this money, can't be out here tryin' to play around–
Hesitatin'
You gon' wait or you gon' sit and watch
I got people out who can't wait they tryin' to show me up
And I'm stackin' every dollar that I got
Make it flip, look at how I get to fold the money now
2pac:
Only you know what you've got in your pocket, and that's wrong, no matter what they do, if they take it and drink it, they take it and drink it. But, I mean, you got. You understand? And we all know how hard it is, and it's not about if you good or you bad. So, since if it's not about if you good or you bad, we know, that because he don't got, don't mean he was bad, or don't mean he's a criminal, or don't mean he's crazy, or a drug addict, or none of that. It just means he don't got.
For those unfamiliar, the Kuleshov Effect is the proposition, originally by Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov, that a viewer derives more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from either shot in isolation. To reduce the concept even further: context is everything. Any lone artistic idea is ultimately subservient to the structure it is placed within, to the glue that binds it to the ideas surrounding it. Raw footage, for whatever beauty a given frame may contain, is largely meaningless until it is imbued with meaning by the editor.
Happiness Complete is, before anything else, a showcase for Clark Barclay's skills as an editor. As the album’s cover art suggests, he approaches the songs here not unlike collages, but they could just as easily be montages, skimming over vast swaths of music and compressing a half-dozen choice moments into a single, coherent impression. The samples culled from years’ worth of thrift-store crawls, his own bandmates’ original contributions, and even the vinyl crackle itself- Barclay takes it all as building blocks, isolated shots to be lovingly woven together into an immersive, cinematic listening experience.
Don’t be deceived by the slim 28-minute runtime– Happiness Complete’s musical density makes it every bit as substantive as most albums twice its length. Again, the name of the game is context. For as impressive as any element is by itself, their interplay is what ultimately stands out, and there are a lot of elements interplaying here. Listen as Bobby Salehnejad’s molten-lava guitar lead on “West Coast For Suuure” dissolves and mutates into a G-funk keyboard line, exposing a mind-bending cross-section of the Golden State’s cultural history in the process. The transition is what gives the whole thing depth, meaning, a feeling that goes beyond mere aesthetic fulfillment. As the album progresses, it becomes apparent that tricks like these are The Bins’ bread and butter. Highlights include Michael Birnbryer-Lao’s saxophone stampeding out from “Somewhere”’s lush bed of fingerstyle plucking and slinky film noir trip-hop, and “Santa Cruz Mountains”’s ingenious melding of mid-70s psychedelic pop with a surging boom-bap beat, but from start to finish there’s hardly a moment that doesn’t prove rewarding in its own right. Even the interstitial snippets of dialogue do an admirable job expositing the world The Bins create here, populating it with a colorful cast of voices saturated in the wonder of their surroundings.
It all builds to a head on “Beijos”, Happiness Complete’s closing track and crown jewel. In five and a half minutes, it summarizes everything Barclay and The Bins are about in a dizzying rush of folk guitar strums, carnival organs, strings, horns, funk licks and bass runs, and a cavalcade of sampled vocalists. It is simultaneously joyful and melancholic, nostalgic and forward-thinking, imbued with explosive abandon yet never anything less that completely controlled. At times, there are too many layers to even discern what’s coming off wax and what’s being played live, and the track briefly becomes a gestalt entirely unto itself. Each sound contributes to the whole, but it’s the space in between those sounds where The Bins find something warm and alive and definitively theirs.
credits
released July 30, 2021
Produced by Clark Barclay
Mixed by Scott Zschomler
Mastered by Shawn Hatfield at AudibleOddities
Bobby Salehnejad: electric, acoustic, and bass guitar, keyboard, electric piano
From rocks to coins to comic cards, Clark Barclay was a kid obsessed with collecting. Today, his grown-up fixation lives in
the secondhand bins. Using rummaged found sounds, percussion instruments from all over the world, and strictly dollar bin records, The Bins tediously arranges sonic fragments into a mosaic; capturing an array of genres, cultures, and histories....more
A thoughtful, pensive, honest, heart-wrenching record. Nardo Says is an artist who continues to evolve and open up his heart. I.B.T.B.U. produced by the late great DJ Vex, RIP. The Bins
Gabriel Soriano is an ultra-talented multi-instrumentalist and good friend who you can find all over Bins tracks. Tune into his solo work, it's mind-blowing. The Bins
supported by 10 fans who also own “Happiness Complete”
Like so many others, this came like a bolt out of the blue and, even though it's well before payday, I had to have this astonishing album on vinyl to prove it exists. The feel of the tunes makes me feel like the Impressions do, Curtis Mayfield, the big spaces and instinctive horns and stuff drifting in and out. Great grooves and I can see lots of ghosts nodding along to this with big smiles on their faces. At last! Anthony Cottrell
This LP tells the story of a witch, a pair of magic gloves, & an enormous shark via wonderfully surreal electronic songs. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 9, 2021
