Abilene (ex-Hoover) “Endee Burial” 3LP discography available for pre-order

The complete output of turn of the century post-hardcore outfit Abilene is finally seeing an official re-release by HALIFAX A.D.’s 795 Media and Landland Colportage.

Abilene Endee Burial cover (Art by Damon Locks)

I can still recall the day in 2013 that I walked into Dan Black’s Landland studio in Minneapolis and shared this idea:

I want to reissue both the Abilene LP’s with their original art and put them in a muddy purple slipcase with a gold foil-stamp that just says ‘Abilene’ on it using the handwriting from the CD covers.”

Abilene (L–R): Scott Adamson, Fred Erskine, Alex Dunham, Craig Ackerman

Abilene were a short-lived band from Chicago featuring Alex Dunham of Hoover and Regulator Watts on guitar, Craig Ackerman of Lustre King on bass, Chisel.Drill.Hammer’s Scott Adamson on drums and, for one record Two Guns, Twin Arrows, Alex’s former Hoover bandmate (as well as being a member of June Of 44, The Crownhate Ruin and HiM) Fred Erskine on trumpet.

Abilene CD (Slowdime, 2000)

I had been obsessively listening to the self-titled record from 2000 and thinking “It’s insane that there are people who love Hoover’s Lurid Traversal of Route 9 LP that don’t know these records exist.” I didn’t want to start another record label or anything like that — I just wanted to re-introduce this music back into the world. When I told Dan my idea we both kind of tripped out about how incredible their 2 LP’s are and how distinctive each one is. But ultimately that was it — a “Wouldn’t it be cool to have that?” — and then we got back to screenprinting whatever it was we working on at Landland. The idea would always occupy the same “That would be cool” spot in the back of my mind but never emerge as a thing that I needed to do.

5 years later Dan was living and working in Chicago and we didn’t talk much but we had another one of those short conversations that I remember with extreme clarity. I don’t know what record specifically prompted the call but he said

“We need to do that Abilene project before someone else does it badly. I’ll pay for it — just figure out how to make it happen.”

We had both been seeing these kind of lackluster vinyl reissues of records that we cared about and didn’t want to see an Abilene record where we held it in our hands and said, “I’m glad this exists buuuut…”.

A tentative DM to Alex Dunham that same day eventually culminated in a project much larger than our initial intentions:

• Both LP’s remastered and pressed on180 gram vinyl in 3 different colorways

• The original Damon Locks artwork (with lettering by Alex Dunham) expanded into gatefold sleeves

• An entire 3rd LP of demos from the Abilene writing process, 2 rare compilation tracks and their final unreleased songs (with Doug McCombs on Tortoise on bass)

• A heavyweight slipcase with new artwork by Damon Locks

• A screenprinted booklet outlining the history of the band in their own words — from pickup baseball games in 1999 to finding a suitable replacement for Craig’s departure in 2002

I was experimenting with soundtrack-y stuff. I had been recording 4-track shit in my attic in the early years of Hoover, but I was really focused on it coming out of Regulator Watts and moving to Chicago. — Alex Dunham on Abilene’s early sound.

• A foreword by fellow Dunham-obsessive Evan Patterson of Jaye Jayle, Young Widows and Breather Resist

• T-shirts for each of the LP’s

• And finally, the Abilene discography will be up on digital platforms with the band seeing royalties

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There are few things that I’ve done in my work life that truly terrify me and this project has been one of them. It’s taken a long time, met too many delays (for which I’ll take a big chunk of the responsibility), cost a lot of money and required a high level of trust by people whose work I adore. These guys have made 2 of my top 10 albums of all time and when you add in Alex’s records with Hoover and Regulator Watts we’re talking about my favorite musician of all-time. To be perfectly honest my own delays in finally putting an announcement post out is that I still worry that this could get messed up despite the fact that I have the actual boxset on my shelf, I have worn samples of the shirts, seen the final edits of the interview and the only thing that is left is screen-printing the booklet.

I have no idea how to write a press release so I’ll just say this: I am beyond proud to say that “Endee Burial” — the complete record works (and then some) of Abilene is now available to order on vinyl or download here (along with t-shirts) and will be available on streaming platforms on October 3rd.

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