Alan Vega 'Mutator'

Alan Vega’s name is synonymous with unfettered, tireless creativity. Beginning in the late 1950s, when he was a fine art student at Brooklyn College, through his years playing in Suicide, and all the way up until his death in 2016, Vega was constantly creating. That process naturally led to a wealth of material that didn’t see the light of day immediately when it was recorded, which came to be known as the Vega Vault.

'Mutator' is the first in a series of archival releases from the Vault that will come out on Sacred Bones Records. 'Mutator' was recorded alongside Vega’s longtime collaborator Liz Lamere at his NYC studio from 1995-1996, and it serves as a document of a particularly fertile time in his creative life.

Lamere and Vega’s friend and confidante Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots) rediscovered the raw, unmixed recordings from the 'Mutator' sessions in the Vault in 2019. Soon after, they mixed and produced them into the visionary album that was lurking within those tapes. 

At the time of the Mutator sessions, Vega was massively inspired by what was happening in the streets of New York — not only the hip-hop scenes that were exploding throughout the outer boroughs, but also the literal sounds of the streets, the traffic noise and industrial ambience of city living. That influence trickled into the sounds he and Lamere captured in those sessions.