Released July 23, 2019 on cassette and digital by Strategic Tape Reserve. Includes my song “What Penumbras.”
Best Of
- A Closer Listen The Happiest Music of the Year
- Houdini Mansions Favorite 100 Albums of 2019
- Tabs Out Top 200 Tapes of 2019
- COUNTERZINE Shosa’s Top 40 Albums of 2019
- “What Penumbras” made COUNTERZINE Top 200 Tracks of 2019
Review Excerpts
Elizabeth Joan Kelly follows with “What Penumbras”, a frantic but industrious piece that captures the childhood nostalgia of beelining from megastore to megastore in the quickest, most efficient way possible so as to experience as many wares as possible before die Ausgangssperre. A sure-to-be favorite for fans of the practical aspects of tiny supermarkets: smaller stores means more stores and less distance between each one, a prime selling point of ShopLand this track expertly communicates. – COUNTERZINE
If I heard a plastic rock spewing “What Penumbras” by Elizabeth Joan Kelly, I’d be intrigued; it’s like space age music performed by drunken shopping carts. – A Closer Listen
The soothing timbres soon turn eerie with Elizabeth Joan Kelly’s “What Penumbras,” with glitchy synths (not for the last time on this set) shifting into a chorus of electronically-altered voices muttering unintelligibly. This isn’t a trip to the dazzling cornucopia of the modern grocery store, but a descent into a commercial hellscape, with a quick succession of shimmering blips suggesting a nightmarish aural vision of the checkout aisle. – Spectrum Culture
First shopping mall I entered was one curated and owned by Elizabeth Joan Kelly. Once in I got the surprising surprise of being tossed into what could only be described as a surreal slide into something named ‘What Penumbras’. A heaven for consumers that likes to buy psychedelic experiences from a jar by mumbling gurus that got themselves deliciously surrounded by smoke and special sound effects. It made me not only feel very enthusiastic, it also gave me a very weird feeling in my stomach; a shopping sensation like this, you simply wouldn’t even expect to happen at a well thought out shop in a chewed up Disneyland theme park… This was the impressive place that once you had found the exit again would have made such a impression that it would simply stay with you for days on end. – Yeah I Know It Sucks
Of course you can’t have a ridiculous concept without a ridiculous concept album to go along with it. And Strategic Tape Reserve delivers with ShopLand World: Music for a Discovery Park of Miniature Supermarkets, a cassette tape packed to the brim with your favorite STR and STR-adjacent artists. Just look at this roster: Nicholas Langley, Fire-Toolz, Dere Moans, moduS ponY, MonoLogue, qualchan. (three times!), Elizabeth Joan Kelly, Marsha Fisher, Heejin Jang — that’s just a taste, you’ve gotta get this thing to dig in further. – Tiny Mix Tapes
Song starts off with some very cool drums and effects. Great utilization of noise and rhythm. Some very alien sounds appear later in the song. – I Heart Noise
Elizabeth Joan Kelly 