New Charity Album Based Around Fugazi Samples

Chris Lawhorn will release his fifth album Fugazi Edits on October 30th on Case/Martingale Records. Fugazi Edits features 22 tracks, which were pieced together using excerpts from every song in the band Fugazi's discography.

The album's been in the works for almost two years. It's entirely instrumental and combines over 100 Fugazi samples with a variety of effects. Ian Mackaye (from the band and their label Dischord) has authorized the album's release. And, the profit from will be donated to a pair of charities—one that works with senior citizens in Washington, D.C. and another that provides aid globally to folks impacted by disaster and civil unrest.

Lawhorn started the Case/Martingale label in 1996, while playing drums for the (admittedly Fugazi-influenced) band Cataract Falls. A decade of disastrous tours and middling solo albums followed. Along the way, he became the staff DJ at a spring break company—playing for drunk, college students on South Padre Island each March—and recorded the rap album Pole Position.

This gradual switch from rocking to beat-making isn't exceptionally unique. But, it led to an 18 month stint as the resident DJ for Marie Claire magazine. When that concluded, Lawhorn began work on Fugazi Edits—in an attempt to make something that employed both the musical influences of his youth and his love of cutting up tracks and reassembling them.

Interested folks can visit http://www.chrislawhorn.com to check out samples from the album, the artwork, and so on.