Since 2019, Joseph Branciforte, the New York-based musician and engineer, has been releasing music of his own and that of other artists under his greyfade label. The music is experimental, ambient, often processed-based and a deeply immersive listening experience. A staunch supporter of high-quality physical recordings over the usually subpar quality of streaming services, Branciforte branched out in 2024 by launching the Folio series, which includes audio releases featuring a 6.5 x 8″ linen hardcover companion book with an included high-resolution album download.
The first two Folio releases—Kenneth Kirschner’s Three Cellos and Taylor Deupree’s Sti.ll—featured a book with essays, extended artist statements, reflections on process and technology, photography, and a selection of scores. The third Folio release, Josh Mason’s Kicking a Dark Horse, is now available, and its accompanying book is more curious and experimental than its predecessors.
The book for this new release, like the previous Folio installments, was developed in parallel with the music, and according to the Bandcamp page, it’s designed as “an ambitious multi-modal work articulated across sound and text: a nine-track electronic album alongside a book-length work of experimental writing.” Unlike the previous two Folio releases, there are no scores, artist statements, or descriptions of the writing and/or recording process. The book is a 111-page piece of striking experimental prose.
Billed as a “nonlinear travelogue across the states of Florida”, the words are intended to be experienced alongside the music and embrace a sort of quasi-dystopian landscape where nature lives somewhat uncomfortably alongside bridges, gas stations, and, in one of many eloquent lines, “Quivers of abused surfboards marred with wax and salt / Lashed to latticed fences that creak and murmur as the winds blow.”
I read the book and found the experience of matching the words to the music an intense, powerful sensation. Still, it’s important to note that Josh Mason’s music stands up spectacularly well on its own, and his words are effective by themselves as well. In keeping with the spirit of Branciforte’s Folio series, both mediums are beautifully matched here. There’s a deft combination of warmth among the chaos throughout the entire album.
“Unincorporated Community Fight Song” kicks off the record with damp echoes of percussion while the ebb and flow of the notes bring to mind a psychedelic, tropical vibe. “Traumahawk (Volunteer Corps.)” seems a bit more in the greyfade wheelhouse, with stuttering notes cutting off and glitching at random intervals, suggesting a more experimental and unsettling sonic landscape.
There are times when the music becomes positively alien, as “Hellified Ire” sounds more like static-laced transmissions from another galaxy. The approach here initially seems completely random, but repeated listens—like so much of the music in the greyfade catalogue—eventually present distinct patterns. Mason splits the difference with “Repair 22,000,000”, as the glitches and distortion remain odd but also increase in sonic fidelity and warmth. It’s as if the aliens are getting closer and more welcoming.
For every moment where Mason is releasing seemingly untethered bits of experimental madness (“Live, From Behind the Power Curve”), he allows the listener to dive deep into warm oceans of percussive sonority (the exquisite, elegant closer, “A Garden”). There is light and shade to his luminous, revelatory compositions, and Branciforte provides the perfect platform with his Folio series. In the press materials, Branciforte likens the greyfade label to a “complete conceptual universe”. In this world of disposable streaming content and questionable sonic fidelity, he and Josh Mason add another chapter to a series of artistic statements that make music and prose exceptionally vital and valuable.