Jessie Baylin & Richard Swift's 'Pleasure Center' EP Comes To Vinyl For RSD This Week

[Cover photo credit to Matthew Followill]

Jessie Baylin has announced  the reissue of Pleasure Center EP, a collection   of original songs and cover versions recorded in 2011 with her longtime friend and collaborator, the late artist/musician/producer Richard Swift. The six-song EP will be available on Record Store Day this Saturday, October 24. All sales of the vinyl edition will be donated to Richard Swift’s Fug Yep Soundation benefiting The Recording Academy’s MusiCares.

The EP includes raw recordings of classic songs by artists like Sonic Youth, Arthur Russell, and Thin Lizzy, along with an early version of Baylin's own fan favorite, “White Noise”. To celebrate the Record Store Day release, Baylin will be hosting a livestream this Thursday, October 22nd at 5pm Central Time via her own Instagram account during which she’ll perform songs from the EP and more.

Jessie Baylin and Richard Swift first met in 2009, the beginning of a productive relationship that lasted until the producer’s untimely passing nine years later.

Baylin explains:

“Our creative sensibilities were so aligned since our first meeting. I was looking for a specific sound and Richard was the first person who didn’t look right through me – he listened, and heard me and was able to pool my broad swatch of reference points, as if he crawled inside my head and knew how to arrange everything and bring them to life.

Richard had a gift, not only as an artist, but as a friend. It was pretty damn special to be one of his artists.”

In 2010, Baylin told her producer of an idea she’d had, "something immediate and lo-fi", comprised mostly of cover songs, to be recorded and released as quickly as possible. Swift was on a plane just days later, with a four-track cassette recorder in hand. Five stripped-down tracks were recorded at Baylin’s Nashville home between November 14-17, 2011, including a nascent version of Baylin’s own “White Noise,” later to appear on Dark Place.

As intended, the EP premiered on November 20, 2011, a free download available exclusively via American Songwriter. By Christmas, the link was down. It become a lost classic. Now, almost a decade later, Baylin is reintroducing the EP back into her discography.