lluminating the horizon #8
Welcoming back the Remakquels, a slow ebb on the radio, MEANS magazine + recent cloud cover
Degrees of Slowness and Speed
The Remakquels return after 2023's Lost Wisdom with a new collection of smudged, lofi melodies originally conceived as an ekphrasis to Milan Kundera’s 1995 novel Slowness.
The 12 tracks of Degrees of Slowness and Speed blends Wolf Eyes style electronic noise manipulations with vinyl doo-wop harmonies in order to explore the sensations of speed and slowness we experience when remembering and forgetting.
Thank you to those who picked-up the physical edition which is now sold out. Digital is still available to stream and support on Bandcamp.
A Slow Ebb
I was thrilled to be asked by Michał Fundowicz (a wonderful sound artist and label owner of czaszka (rec.) and Molt Fluid) to create a guest mix for their monthly Tumeric Acid radio show on Lahmacun radio – with the idea to play music from cassettes.
A Slow Ebb is a selection of tracks from tapes collected at home. Labels featured include Human Geography Recordings, Brachliegen Tapes, Anticipating Nowhere Records, Falt and Difficult Art and Music.
Kate Bush - The Kick Inside
Teresa Winter - Wool / Drowning By Numbers Pt iv
Lucy Liyou - Hail mary
Yara Asmar - come back later
Lirra Skirra - Bones of a Creature's Hand
Cabbaggage - There was smoke for a whole month
black_ops - we(x)interrupt
Jo Montgomerie - i don't always like what i see
Pendant - The Story Of My Ancestor The River
Heavy Cloud - Unreleased Edit
Nobuka - Miniatüre 04
J. Lynch - Underneath Clang (For Magpie And Bee)
Delam - Ports of Entry [Excerpt]
Stonecirclesampler - Out at sea
Ishmael Cormack - Wurr
James A. McDermid - Finzi Contini
Abby Lee Tee - A [Excerpt]
Dole Fam - Cut Up for Cage [Excerpt]
Schwerpunkt - Drumswell
Amy Cutler - goodbye, reprise
All of Tumeric Acid’s previous radio shows are available to listen back to on Lahmacun radio’s website.
And if you haven’t already heard it, I recommend you check out Tumeric Acid’s Magnetic Mud, recently released on Kirigirisu Recordings and go and support Molt Fluid’s growing discography.
Recent cloud cover
Two Heavy Cloud cassette releases were released over the last few months and I was very grateful to work with the wonderful Grisaille and Human Geography Recordings labels.
Recordatio
Recordatio, Latin for ‘recollection, remembrance, reminiscence’, was created with: audio processing, prepared samples, field recordings, synths, guitars, voice + text.
Thank you very much to Julius from Grisaille for their support and collaboration and releasing this work on the label.
Recordatio is available from Grisaille on [now sold out] limited edition cassette and digital download.
A 40-minute short film was created to accompany the release and explore the themes of Recordatio. It can be watched on YouTube.
Where Do I End and You Begin
Following on from the release of Anamnesis on Human Geography Recordings in November last year, I was delighted to return to the label as part of their on-going C-15 series.
Where Do I End and You Begin was created with waves of processed guitar, feedback, synths, piano and field recordings and is available on [now sold out] limited edition cassette and digital download.
Compilations
Eternal Return of the Same is included on the first volume of a fundraising compilation to support the new physical magazine MEANS. Supporting independent artists of all genres, MEANS is a community-led project aiming to support artists at grass-roots level (there’s more on MEANS below).
Transfixed by the power of the loop, Eternal Return of the Same finds inspiration in Bill Orcutt’s Fake Estates’ fixation with repetition, symmetry and arrangement, by way of Fernand Léger’s Ballet Mécanique.
Living Within Our Means Vol 1 can be supported on Bandcamp and track review can be read on the MEANS website.
Studies made on a typewriter is out now appearing on Hard Return’s epic Compilation. Each track is a response to an open call for "the most repetitive thing you've ever done", with all money going to Doctors Without Borders. Its 8-hour runtime is packed with so many talented artists and is an amazing listen. Studies made on a typewriter was made during an extended period of weeks when I was suffering with a cervicogenic headache.
MEANS magazine
MEANS is a magazine dedicated to underground, experimental, and intermedial arts and culture. Founded by Daniel Alexander Hignell-Tully (The Quietus, Freq, Toneshift), the project consists of a both a digital site and a quarterly physical magazine.
Working with a community-led, artist-first model, MEANS aims to restore power to artists, and seeks to encourage fair renumeration for the work they do.
To find out more about MEANS and how you can get involved, please check out the MEANS website.
I am grateful to have been reviewed and also had the opportunity to contribute to the site – this includes track reviews for two that feature on the MEANS compilation album
In focus: abstract poem
abstract poem’s debut collage triptych is a collection of three sound works which explore change of states and identity, processing and association, and fragmentation of the self.
These themes serve as through lines for the evolving sound palette and accompanying visual artwork. Time is elongated and pulled apart. Speed and slow become arbitrary icons. The performed and the recorded and the edited and the listened to become fragile terms.
abstract poem is an open vessel. White paintings which have attracted the artist's subconscious. Sounds, visuals and language are the trinity of expression of the soul. collage triptych offers up a portal to experience this expression.
Language is broken down into noise, textures, tones, static, feedback, dirt, darkness, melancholy, hope, searches, particles, neurones, gestures, scratches, vibrations, processes, loops, hiss, warbles, erasures, omissions, playing, joy, accidents, light, healing.
Each of the three sound works (or triptych panels) can be listened to individually (as denoted by the separate physical editions) or as part of the full 2-hour works.
collage triptych is available to stream and download on Bandcamp.
Lapsus memoriae
The latest CAMP Radio show aired on 9 March on listen.camp and is available to listen back over on CAMP Radio’s Mixcloud.
The next show will air on 6 April with a special mix: Memoria in limbo – transmissions from past, present and future works.
Sounds
Some of the excellent releases that have been soundtracking the end of winter / first shoots of spring.
Aaron Dilloway – The Absence Of Milk In The Mouths Of The Lost (Original Score) [Hanson Records]
Still House Plants – If I don’t make it, I love u [Bison]
Rory Salter – On the Floor, by the Door [Index Clean]
Lætitia Sadier - Rooting for Love [Drag City]
Beachers – Off the hook [ineffectual suns]
Fred Frith – Guitar Solos / Fifty [Week–End Records]
Vanishing Corridor – Vanishing Corridor [Mahorka]
Bristol Pirates – Death Is Not the End [Death Is Not The End]
NPVR – 33 34 [Editions Mego]
Linda Smith – Nothing Else Matters / I So Liked Spring [Captured Tracks]
Abby Sage – The Rot [Nettwerk]
claire rousay – sentiment [Thrill Jockey Records]
Marika Hackman –Big Sigh [Chrysalis Record]
Sonic Youth – Walls Have Ears [Sonic Youth Archive]
William Doyle – Springs Eternal [Tough Love]
Grandaddy – Blu Wav [Dangerbird Records]
Falt – February tape batch
Grisaille – February tape batch
Molt Fluid – February tape batch
Other texts
Agustín Fernández Mallo – The Book of All Loves
Andrew Gallix - Unwords
Blake Butler – Molly / Aanex
Marc Masters – High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape
Stephen Prince – A Year In The Country: Lost Transmissions: Dystopic Visions, Alternate Realities, Paranormal Quests and Exploratory Electronica
Don DeLillo – The Silence
BOULDERDASH: stones, drones & noise // issue #1
[fragment]
My shadow had grown sharper
and darker across the hour,
as if I had outgrown my body
and my spirit escaped.