CITY::GENETIC is an on-going project, a creative adventure and a meeting of inspired minds. A number of artists from different disciplines are sowing the seeds for a “genetic” experiment. They start with a single piece that represents the beginning of a story. Then they pass the seed to a second artist who makes the story evolve with a second piece. The process repeats until the creation of a genetic chain: the art work.
Simultaneously, the curators of Citypulse send the same seed to another 3 artists in each discipline in order to create a total of 4 parallel stories per format, all sharing the original DNA.
This site is updated continuously as the genetics of creative evolves.
From Monday 19 December… Handstitched* will close for the holiday season, any orders made from now-on will be despatched on January 4, 2012. Of course, orders for digital items via the Handstitched* Bandcamp page don’t apply and can still be purchased at any time. There is a very small number of Atlantis CD’s left in stock – if anyone has missed out.
Thanks to all that have supported Handstitched* and any other Maps and Diagrams-related releases this year. Happy holidays!
“The Day The Music Died” is the new album from Atlantis, this sonic expedition ventures into new, unchartered worlds which before have only been visualised by explorers and scientists alike. As on previous releases, Atlantis uses self-experimentation to conjure a vision of imagination and nostalgic intrigue. Written, recorded and produced at Roadmap Studios, Cambs UK, 2011. Artwork and packaging designed by Tim Diagram, CD sleeves produced by Steph Gherardi.
Available now for pre-order, released 2 December 2011. Purchase digital or physical CD over at Bandcamp…
27/11/2011 marks the release of the Snowglobe EP by Maps and Diagrams, six exclusive tracks recorded for Sutemos. The Snowglobe EP marks a return to a rhythmic structure for Maps and Diagrams who has spent the past few years on an ambient-acoustic kosmiche journey creating textural soundscapes and drone work. Appearing on this release are six remix artists, giving their own interpretation of each song in their own unique way.
Follow the link for more information and to download the release over at Sutemos.
Next up are two new albums by Maps and Diagrams on the Nomadic Kids Republic label, release dates vary in the UK but both albums are already released in Japan and the US. Check the reviews for both The Town Beneath the Sea and Lights Will Call On You over at Fluid Radio.
Lights Will Call On You which is out now can be found at these good record shops;
Taken from the forthcoming album “The Day The Music Died” by Atlantis. Released on Handstitched* 2011.
- Applying antediluvian, contemporary and illusory charts and graphs, tonal topographer Tim Martin (Maps and Diagrams) embarks upon a quest as Atlantis to find the lost acoustic continent that has eluded all other ambient explorers for centuries.
With his latest blueprint Atlantis, Martin locates this misplaced celestial dominium and releases “The Day The Music Died” to document his extraordinary expedition.
The necessity to move effortlessly predestined enforced and rudimentary tactics for sound, structure, melody and rhythm. The consequential textural quantities retain a lucidly defined emphasis on science friction.
Drifting in uncharted analogue oceans with only synthesisers, electronics and tape manipulation to guide him, he eventually plots an audio atlas that contains ten transitory improvisational melodies.
These unearthly anti-pop voyages of expressive self-experimentation leave the listener to ponder whether times other than the present moment exist, with questions about the nature of identity over time.
Maps and Diagrams The Voices of Time, reviews, info and buy:
From Norman Records….
Not content with the awesome Get Lost CD which landed a couple of weeks ago here’s another brand new album! I’ll talk about the sexiness of how it looks cos it’s one of the fittest releases I’ve seen in a while. It’s packaged in a case-bound wiro booklet made from old book covers, stencilled with a Japanese stencil (from 1936) that Mr Maps bought and they’re all hand stamped on the front. They look amazing and if you’re obsessed by packaging then it’s time to get on board as this is pretty unique! It’s ambient city as well with 13 tracks of varying ambient styles. There’s some Schole-y more piano-y led electronic numbers, there’s some proper old school style ambient tunes like the ones you used to get in the early 90′s with lots of whooshy noises (ie. interesting ambient music), celestial sounding ambient jobbers and some electro acoustic pieces. A few of the tunes have an aquatic feel so you Dolphins Into The Future fans will dig bits of this. 10 years on and he’s still doing the biz. Nice!
Over the course of his career, Martin has maintained dual obsessions: electro-acoustic ambient music, and handmade artwork to package it in. He’s a prolific studio artist, having put out ten albums in less than a decade, plus a smattering of cassettes, 7-inches and CD-Rs. Voices of Time is his second album this month, after Get Lost, a travel-inspired album that comes with a compass. That one came out through the design-happy imprint Time Released Sound; Voices of Time will see release on Martin’s own label, Handstitched* Recordings….. Read the full article over at Resident Advisor
Released today Kanshin is a double CD compilation album compiled by Fluid Audio & Hibernate that presents a collection of sound design work from some of the scene’s finest artists from across the globe. It has been put together to raise money for the current recovery in Japan following March’s earthquake for distribution via our good friend Ian Hawgood.
To listen and buy the album go to Kanshin on Bandcamp.
Included in the amazing line-up is Hessien and Maps and Diagrams with Ylid:
As Maps and Diagrams Get Lost is released on Time Released Sound (see below for details) another Maps and Diagrams album is lurking, waiting for release; The Voices of Time features on Fluid Radio with a review…
The reputation garnered by a slew of excellent releases on labels such as Static Caravan, Fluid Audio, Smallfish, Moamoo and Symbolic Interaction has made each Maps and Diagrams release an event within itself, inspiring a mixture of anticipation and excitement. Once again, this latest album from UK based Tim Martin exceeds expectations and delivers an excursion through the artist’s vast imagination, this time made available by Handstitched.
The Voices of Time opens with Your Weakness and Martin signals his intentions by weaving together various sound sources with meticulous care, guitar usually holding centre stage. The organic lo-fi beauty of Your Weakness and indeed, on each of the tracks which follow, bring to mind recent output from musicians such as Taylor Deupree, Marcus Fischer and Offthesky, all artists who work in an unusual and unique way with audio, but nonetheless create music which has some cohesion when taken as a whole. One feels that there should be almost another term coined to describe this genre within a genre which comprises found sounds and broken melodies to make music which is less about the destination reached and more focused on the journey taken.
On an album of innumerable highlights, title track The Voices of Time is as fine a moment as any to note as possible apex, with gentle piano notes rolling atop a shifting foundation of guitar, synth and drones, peppered with static throughout – though in truth any such track could be chosen at random with similar results, such as the gentle floating ambience of Letraset Addiction or the abstract experimentalism of Three Blows To The Mind. The Voices Of Time is an album without fault and is a joy to experience.
This is not an album to be thrown on while jogging or doing the dishes, or at least to do so would be missing the point. Rather, The Voices of Time should be enjoyed as a whole in one sitting, enabling one to lose track of time and become immersed in the sonic memories which the artist so generously shares with us here.
The Voices of Time comes packaged in case-bound CD covers, stencilled with a Japanese Plum Blossom stencil and individually hand-stamped. Release date: May 27.
Get Lost, the new album by UK- based sound artist Tim Martin aka Maps and Diagrams certainly embodies this statement to perfection. Over the course of nearly an hour, Martin explores strange and beautiful worlds, in a vein not dissimilar to On Land by Eno himself – worlds all unique in their own way, familiar and yet profoundly alien.Fluid Radio
Available now from Stashed Goods, the new album by Maps and Diagrams on Time Released Sound, order at Stashed Goods or direct from the Time Released Sound website and over at Experimedia
The album comes in 2 different formats, one in handmade, bespoke packaging constructed from an old atlas, limited to 60 copies and the other as a digipak version, limited to 300 copies.
It’s been a busy month for British experimental electronic composer/producer Tim Martin, the sole member of Maps and Diagrams. The band name is a perfect fit for his music, which floats non-linearly in celestial patterns, moving from slow-motion post-rock figures to swirling nebulae of sound to driving minimalist rhythms. Red Moon Rising, a limited release of 30 casette tapes via the Chemical Tapes label, and The Voices of Time, a CD-only release limited to 100 copies on Handstiched*, were both released in April 2011. The two albums work wonderfully as Yin and Yang companions, the former a buzzing soundfield of analog synths and pulling rhythms, the latter an ambient, cinematic vista of gentle organic and electronic sounds.
The aptly titled The Voices of Time takes a textural approach that focuses on compositional space, both in terms of temporal “events” and movement of sound across sonic space. Reversed sounds cycle between the speakers behind deftly played three- and four- note piano figures. Spoken voices emerge from and fade back into swells of sustained analog synth chords. The title track is a nuanced blend of twinkling keyboard, choral harmonies, shimmering electronics, and electric guitar arpeggios, floating listlessly between two slowly morphing chords. In “The Next Frontier,” the album’s epic finale, quiet vocal snippets float atop churning tides of vocals, electronics, and tape hiss. “Rapid Ear Movement” features howling guitar distortion over oceanic swells of synth chords. To pigeon-hole The Voices of Time as “ambient” is to unfairly simplify a series of songs burgeoning with textural subtleties (and the occasional “not-so-subtlety”), but the album does deliver a hypnosis-inducing quality that shifts the listener between bouts of passive and active listening.
Conversely, Red Moon Rising is marked by a seeming textural simplicity. Most of the nine songs are constructed around minimalist layers of keyboard, making for a propulsive and occasionally dance-y listen. From the first notes of the opening track, “Lost In Space,” you’re sucked into a mesmerizing maze of contrapuntal synth lines, ping-ponging bass lines and buzzing electronics that encase slowly morphing, ultramelodic motifs. Unlike the borderline stasis and cloudy haze of The Voices of Time, the compositions of Red Moon Rising are endlessly restless, churning rhythms and melodic figures through ongoing augmentation and diminution. Separate electro-lines fuse and divide over undercurrents of rhythmic repetitions. As unified as the overall sound is, the separate electronic lines have distinctly different timbres, making it easy to follow any one part through the entirety of a song section. The composer’s constant use of arpeggios and the manner in which different sounds complete each other’s melodic/rhythmic patterns before fracturing into separate lines has a strong Baroque quality, making for a space age take on Bach miniatures. The entire album clocks in at just 30 minutes, with each track serving as a mathematical etude that develops an economy of material into rich prisms of counterpoint and texture.
Taken together, The Voices of Time and Red Moon Rising offer an intriguing cross-section of Map and Diagrams’ compositional process. Both albums share a fascination with economy of material. The former stretches limited material through sedate textures and epic swells, focusing as much on the empty space that surrounds the sounds as on the musical ideas. The latter condenses small sets of ideas into busy interlocking patterns, making for an equally nuanced and hypnotic sound, but approached from the opposite extreme.
The obvious digital element is dealt in such a way that it is not often identifiable as such (no visibly obvious ones and zeroes) meaning the more tactile elements like the instrumentation then sit in the mix without leaping out as obviously separate tones. Read the full review at Cyclic Defrost
Unofficial video by Levan Kakabadze for Waking up from Red Moon Rising by Maps and Diagrams on the Chemical Tapes label. Also appearing on the Chemical Tapes stellar line-up is Machinefabriek, Flotel, Indian Weapons, Mohave Triangles, Drekka and Relmic Statute with more to follow…to listen to all songs featured on Red Moon Rising or for more information about all the new and forthcoming releases visit the Chemical Tapes website.
Maps and Diagrams new album Red Moon Rising is out today (4 April) on the Chemical Tapes label and is available on cassette, featuring 9 new and exclusive songs focusing on the ever-evolving sounds of Kosmische. Strictly limited to 100 copies. Also appearing on the Chemical Tapes stellar line-up are Machinefabriek, Flotel, Indian Weapons, Mohave Triangles, Drekka and Relmic Statute with more to follow….
What the label says: Maps And Diagrams takes us back to the analogue kosmische universe with his new album Red Moon Rising. A joyful journey of modulation, movement and deep exploration. An edition of 100 pro-dubbed c30 cassettes.
To listen to all songs featured on Red Moon Rising or for more information about all the new and forthcoming releases visit the Chemical Tapes website.
Almost instantly after the release Get Lost on Time Released Sound is another long-player by Maps and Diagrams. The Voices of Time is released on Handstitched* and features 13 new songs, focusing on compositional space, sound source and dimensional musical mechanics. The Voices of Time deploys de-automised production with a transfer away from technologically driven tenets in favour of a more tactile tonal humanity, as sound and texture are trusted to recognise their own ambitions. Released as a limited edition CDR of 100 with handmade recycled covers, each one individually hand-stamped. Release date TBC.
Some new releases have landed here at Handstitched* HQ from Time Released Sound over in the US;
Founded in 2011, Time Released Sound is a lovingly hand made, limited edition release music label that is as much an art project as it is a musical outlet. Focusing primarily on classically infused and folk based ambient and electro-acoustic sounds by the artists we know, love and admire, we will be striving at all times to produce visuals and packaging for these fine releases that are as original and uniquely beautiful as the music itself.
Releases out now include;
Shaula “The Girl in the Clock”,
Alessio Ballerini – “Music from the Puddle”,
Fabio Orsi “The Theft of a Rose”
To follow shortly after the aforementioned releases on Time Released Sound is Maps and Diagrams full-length album “Get Lost”. More information about how to buy and listen to audio samples from the schedule can be found on the Time Released Sound website.
Ever since Fluid Radio was initially set up the plan was to have an online store that would serve to support small labels and artists alike as well as to help fund the ongoing costs of running the station. After 2 years of thinking about it we finally set up Stashed Goods and hope over time it will become a hub for selling alternative music that never raises it’s head above the mainstream parapet. We are not just interested in selling the latest music available. The focus of the store is about stocking music that we love first and foremost regardless of genre, age, format or popularity. As time goes on the Stash will grow and we hope that you find something of interest for your listening pleasure!
Maps and Diagrams announces the new album “Get Lost” on the wonderful label Time Released Sound -release date to be announced shortly. Other releases scheduled on Time Released Sound include; Shaula, Fabio Orsi and Allessio Ballerini. More info can be found here
Two short edits from the forthcoming album “Get Lost”
Released: January 31, 2011. Compilation featuring The Remote Viewer, Leyland Kirby, The Seven Fields Of Aphelion, Lackluster, Manual, Maps and Diagrams, Ian Hawgood, Hessien, Green Kingdom, Hakobune…. and many more. All profits go to The Humane Society and UNICEF.
Erasure is the first new media exhibition at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent and runs from 29 January – 2 May. The exhibition asks, ‘What is created when you remove something?’ It features work from local artists as well as two major pieces on loan from Arts Council England.
There will be a programme of associated activities and events, as well as a dedicated website www.erasureexhibition.org.uk The Museum outreach team worked with pupils from Gladstone Primary School throughout autumn to create various short digital films using Scratch and Art Rage, and these will be on show during the exhibition as well.
Appearing with Broken Mirrors is Matt Pearson who is a writer, coder and generative artist also known as zenbullets. Pearson creates organic forms by electronic means. He adapts logical programming language to create a chaotic, unpredictable naturalistic aesthetic. He is also interested in digital memory and its recording of social interactions. These interests have converged to create Broken Mirrors 1 – 4, a generative art work which directly responds to social interaction with the viewer. Broken Mirrors 1-4 is a large-scale reflective projection, that only exists while a spectator is interacting with it. Each viewer’s movements control one of four generative animations, so no two visits will produce the exact same visual. The experience is made more immersive thanks to a specially written soundscape by Maps and Diagrams who has constructed a series of loop-based compositions to accompany each module of Broken Mirrors. Each of the four pieces were based around each of the four animations and sketches on sound were built-up around the visual pieces to create a feeling of movement and a sense of tactile interaction. Matt Pearson has previously created visual work as zenbullets for Hessien.
Other artists appearing at Erasure are; Chris Twigg who uses bold colours and patterns in dramatic, static pieces, Toby Zeigler combines subtle patterns with scale, and John Frankland creates permanence for transience.
Vibrant and consistent, both show Martin’s continual relevance in the continually changing landscape of the style he was centrally involved in developing.
Maps And Diagrams ‘A Pulsating History’
Tim Martin’s work as Maps And Diagrams over the last several years has focused increasingly on texture, mood and increasingly subtle dynamic manipulation; and his most recent full-length release, A Pulsating History, follows in this vein. A continuation of the experimentation with field textures that became a primary element in Koom and Foel (and continued through further ambient works Cubiculo, Tööpudus and Tintinnabulate) the album presents as a dual sided digital LP release through French netlabel Beko, four songs per digital side (A&B) and an accompanying text document on the history of lentils.
The lentil essay is an engaging red herring – presenting something so incongruous with the material reminds this aging reviewer of Tool’s presentation of a recipe for hash cookies, read in a sinister German context on Aenima several years ago. Whatever the point of this diversion is, it comes as a welcome circuit breaker to your perception of the music on offer, and is also a welcome injection of humour into what can at times be a self congratulatory and po-faced genre.
Those familiar with and appreciative of the Maps And Diagrams releases above will find this material to their liking – one primary point of distinction is the creative use of what sounds like field recordings, seemingly consistently used throughout the release. The enveloping nature sounds behind the static drone of opener “This Modern Century” continue through the manipulated guitar of “Anti-Clockwise” before the addition of the reassuring bottom end of “First Quarter.”
The release notes provided with the record state that the project was designed around the concept of pulses, and nowhere is this more apparent than on “First Quarter.” Elsewhere, unconventional loop work and restrained peaks and troughs prove effective in continuing the pulsating theme. The emotive “On Esquiline Hill” (featuring Cactus Island stable-mate Ylid) proves a tantalizingly unsolvable puzzle with its submerged conversations at the tail end of the track. The devolving drone of “Particles Of Earth” deconstructs gently into the electronic lilt of “Coming In From The Cold.” The Baraka-esque percussion of “The Lonely Planet,” and its insistent representation of mobile phone interference, closes out a well-paced and intelligent exploration of mood and electronic experimentation.
As with other Beko releases, This Pulsating History is available from their site at no cost, as is Martin’s recent collaboration with poet Estela Lamat (which also falls squarely into the category of electronic experimentation). Vibrant and consistent, both show Martin’s continual relevance in the continually changing landscape of the style he was centrally involved in developing.
A Pulsating History is out now on BEKO DSL. Download it here
Hidden Landscapes compilation on Audio Gourmet in conjunction with Hibernate Records; features some great music, including an exclusive song by Hessien “Hypothesis”
Audio Gourmet presents Hidden Landscapes… A limited edition CD of just 200 copies.
More info here
For the first full compilation to be released on Audio Gourmet, we have teamed together with Hibernate Records, the Felt Collective and a selection of some of the finest names in the modern ambient music scene. The compilation, called ‘Hidden Landscapes’ features fourteen pieces of music in which the artists were briefed to compose something particularly wintery to match the mood of the colder season.
The resulting soundtrack should be the perfect listening companion for colder times, with its icy cold exterior. Perhaps once the ice melts and the temperature begins to rise, parts of this album will reveal themselves to you and sound different in the warmth. There are 200 limited edition CD copies of Hidden Landscapes available for purchase thanks to Jonathan of Hibernate Records. He has kindly offered to design and print this stunning album as a physical copy. He’s also provided the front cover photography through his Cragg Vale Photography project.
The digital counterpart is available through the Audio Gourmet Bandcamp account, with proceeds going towards keeping the netlabel section up and running. This has become necessary with Bandcamp now charging account holders to distribute music for free. Since we wish to continue using the site for its aesthetics and ease of use, these compilations will become a frequent feature here on Audio Gourmet.
First things first, 2 new Maps and Diagrams-related releases on behalf on the Beko Digital Single Label in France.
First: “The worst of us” is a collaborative effort between UK-based sound artist Maps and Diagrams and Chilean poet Estela Lamat.
For this haunting EP, Maps and Diagrams has engineered richly textured soundscapes to accompany Lamat’s intense and elegant recitations, but it is much more than that: one cannot so easily separate the music from the poetry, the speech from the sound, for within this palimpsestic and polyglot play of vocal and non-vocal cartographies, figure continually melts into ground and ground thickens to emerge as figure. The real strength of these tracks is the way in which they unfurl into greater and greater complexity. For example, in “caminaba como un pájaro,” the expansive resonance becomes punctuated (and punctured) by ominous percussion while lyric clarity gives way to distorting opacities of speech; this is a work of layered condensation, of static hiss and refraction.
In “the land of never ever,” the brooding and pulsating contours of Maps and Diagrams’ sonic landscape become variegated with stuttering interferences and ratcheting dissonances which ultimately converge and dissolve, leaving behind only a spectral signature; likewise, Lamat’s voice splinters into an articulate disintegration, shadowing itself, mimicking its echo, as if in a fugal flight away from its own identity. Thus, when she signs off her trance-like and entrancing audiotext with the phrase “Yo, la peor de todas, en el país de nunca jamás [I, the worst of all, in the land of never ever],” we are paradoxically (and uncannily) unsure of whose voice we are hearing and where it is coming from.
This conceptual collaboration truly allows (to paraphrase Ezra Pound) the poetic image to become a dark vortex of vibrating energy, from which, and through which, and into which delirious drones, vertiginous reverberations, and sonic fragments are constantly rushing.
“The worst of us” (beko_71) is released on the Beko Digital Single Label on 13 December 2010 and can be found here and more information on Estela Lamat and her work can be found here
Second: A Pulsating History. . .. .. . .. . ..
Next up is Maps and Diagrams, working along the “pulsating” theme with new and exclusive tracks for a mini album… “A Pulsating History” (beko_lp03). The mini album also features an appearance from Ylid and contains Dean Rocker’s written text about the history, benefits and under-estimated phenoniums that are lentils. This written document has never seen the light of day, until now…..
Newsflash – “Home is where the Ghost is” is now sold out. Thanks to everyone that supported.
OK, so, there aren’t many copies left of the debut album by Hessien “Home is where the Ghost is”. Norman records have sold out but there are copies winging their way over to Experimedia in the US and also White Noise in Hong Kong, keep your eyes peeled for those. You can still order a copy via Handstitched* - they will be limited to one copy per person,
For more info about other Handstitched releases, past, present and future please contact: handstitchedinfo@gmail.com
For sale at Normans Records now – Hessien ”Home is where the Ghost is” here’s what they had to say about it….
‘Home Is Where The Ghost Is’ is the debut full length record from collaborators Tim Martin and Charles Sage, known collectively as Hessien. They are creators of a super restrained form of ambient music that merges subtle melodies with waves of breezy drones which makes for particularly relaxed listening. Guitars play a prominent role on ‘Home is Where…’ providing much of the melodic front whilst layers of synths and tones back it up. On first listen it reminds me of the loose ambient moments that precede a Tortoise track kicking in. This brings me to the conclusion that Hessien dabble in a sort of ambient post-rock/jazz type sound. It’s dynamic and playful in much the same way as the Chicago strain of post-rock/jazz and it also has that conversational feel you’d expect from artists playing off each other in real time. I can’t tell if these tracks are improvised or carefully structured, in parts it feels like they probably do both. Incredibly relaxing stuff that will more than likely appeal to the Norman massive, so get in… There’s only 100 hard copies available and we have 30 so catch ‘em while you can.
Maps and Diagrams appears on the Audio Gourmet label with “Tintinnbulate”. The work is a continuation of the conceptual drone-based sounds of “Koom” and “Foel” that was released on the Handstitched* imprint in 2009.
This continuation sees the recycled use of original source material, layers and processed sound created during the making of the pre-mentioned releases. Collectively, “Tintinnbulate” as a body of work travels and drifts through a distant rumble and sub-level murmur which force dense fragments of distorted melody from within the body of each piece – this content remains intentionally corroded and disjointed from the human ear – cascading into more a more audible, crystalline landscape. Each piece is framed within its own floating horizon; it appears visible close-up but subsequently out-of-focus at the furthest point. In the layering of sound there is the natural aspect of field recordings, continuous static and human-influence which surround the listener and create a vast expanse of experimental and applied sound. Music written and recorded by Tim Diagram. Photography by Tim Diagram…. Follow the link to Tintinnbulate here
“….Working under their Hessien guise, acoustic sound artists Charles Sage and Tim Diagram produce beautifully crafted works that merge the acoustic and electronic together to form a seamless whole. Home… is noticeably sparser than Hessien’s previous works, allowing the album to grow as a whole over a longer period of time.”
For the full, in-depth review of “Home is where the Ghost is” head over to Fluid Radio
Pre-orders are welcomed –they will be limited to one copy per person and will be limited to a first come, first serve basis, for more info contact: handstitchedinfo@gmail.com
Hessien – Home is where the Ghost is. Released mid-November.
Placing Shells - 3:11
Part of You – 4:40
The Invisible Man – 4:39
Sasparilla – 4:00
Get Polanski – 2:56
Overarchangel – 3:48
The Death of Abba – 4:57
Thuilm – 2:36
Loch Quoich – 4:29
Deep in the Mountains – 5:16
Rontgen’s Vibrations – 3:15
Speckled Peaks – 4:02
Centipede – 3:24
Out today (14 October) “Broken” by Hessien, a 3-track ep, released on the Audio Gourmet label….
The muffled voices in the walls and the murmurs behind doors of Hessien continue on “Broken” — the new release on Audio Gourmet. Something of a departure from recently released material, this outing sees a subdued and distant approach to the melancholic side of implied melody.
The dirty windows display looped field recordings, sustained acoustic delay and the fragile vocals of Jane Sage; the dark hallways are layered, wide-open passages that create the impression of motion. The rotting staircase is flickering static and kaleidoscopic distortion, leaning into organic textures and echoing reverb; all affected with a layered, instrumental composition that gives the sense of coming from or going to a faraway place.
The letters under the floorboards are the three tracks waiting to be uncovered —three compositions leaning towards organic textures and blissful drones. They remain disguised until they are eventually discovered, released from imagination.
Release date: 4 October, limited to 200 copies for the world. Fluid Audio and Handstitched* have joined forces to release an EP by Hessien entitled “Obelisk|Stelea” including exclusive reworking of the original source material by Solo Andata, Jasper TX, Zelienople and Konntinent.
“Obelisk” – as Hessien’s landscape evolves, the sound continues to push into an environment littered with obstacles. Although not obvious at first, there is a relationship between these objects; a focus on submerged, hazy rhythms and textures that mirror the unconventional landscapes and surrounds. Prominent on this release is the human voice, represented in snatches of field recordings and overheard conversations, including vocals contributed by Jane Williams. Acoustic tones continue to underpin the tactile electronic arrangements – loops, delays, e-bow, cello, pedals, creaking furniture and low-fi hiss rearing up then dropping away as quickly as they came.
“Stelea” – these four pieces have been intercepted in various states of formation by – Solo Andata – combining distant parts of the original composition with their faultless signature sequences, unmistakable and balanced. The ever-prolific Jasper TX – weaving his acoustical, drone-style magic into the mix, floating into a territory with a never-ending haze as the backdrop. Zelienople – an open-handed reinterpretation shines and guides the way forward with acoustic/prog interestingness, flowing with a staccato pulse. And finally, Konntinent – transporting the listener into an irregular, avant-garde-like version, fuzzed-up, resampled and re-routed via a tape deck.
All four reworks have been broken down, inspected, and then put back together. Four pieces becoming eight tales of dislocation, separation and musical connectivity. Hessien and the four remixers conspire a bizarre plot and an equally bizarre, larger-than-life conclusion.
Packaged in letter pressed covers that slip nicely into organic silk screened cotton pouches, this Handstitched* /Fluid Audio split release is limited to 200 copies. An 8-page full colour booklet containing exclusive images and 4 specially commissioned poems by Estela Lamat, themed around the 4 original songs by Hessien, also accompanies the release.
Songs 1-4 produced by Hessien (Charles Sage & Tim Diagram) 2010. Recorded on location in Queanbeyan, Australia and Cambridgshire, UK. Songs 5-8 remixed by Jasper TX, Solo Andata, Zelienople and Konntinent.
1. A Letter from Engels
2. Gazed and Pale Reflections
3. Five Sisters
4. Breaking Webs
5. Gazed and Pale Reflections – Solo Andata Remix
6. A Letter from Engels – Jasper TX Remix
7. Five Sisters – Zelienople Remix
8. Breaking Webs – Konntinents’ Analogue edit.
Available soon through Fluid Audio, Norman Records and Experimedia.
There’s a free download of an exclusive Hessien Track “We Don’t want to Live in Your Dreams here
To check out more info, buy the CD and to check out some super-cool images and short audio samples of “Obelisk|Stelea” visit Fluid Audio
From the forthcoming album “Home is where the Ghost is” by Hessien,
an animation-piece for the track “Part of You” by zenbullets in a super square format.
Released mid-November after the release of “Obelisk|Stelea” is the album by Hessien
“Home is where the Ghost is” released in a limited edition run of 100 digipak, cd album.
After the highly praised “Fyris Swan” (Hefty) and “S/T” (12K), Solo Andata return with “Ritual”,
a meticulously-crafted album emphasizing an engagement with the unknown.
‘Ritual’ is Solo Andata’s third full-length album and also the inaugural release for the Buffalo-based label, ‘Desire Path Recordings’. This limited edition 12”LP consists of four glorious sonic ‘topographies’ that are altogether spellbinding, eerie, visceral and energetic. ‘Ritual’, similar to Solo Andata’s self-titled album on 12k, is fundamentally made up of organic sounds, such as primitive gongs, bells and bowls, wildlife and environmental recordings, sacred chants, the vibration of human cancerous cells, cleavers, and prepared piano. These four pieces seem to work toward a repetition or ‘ritual‘ between disparate elements so as to transport us, via a magical spell, to dense otherworldly habitats. In fact, the title of the twenty-minute piece Incantare translates as ‘to chant’ (a magical spell upon), which derives from ‘in’, into, unto and ‘cantare’, to sing. For the eight-minute piece Carving, there exists a ‘ritualistic’ image similar to that of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, where an intricate carving device inscribes the Condemned prisoner’s sentence onto his flesh. The whole affair of ‘Ritual’ is bound to leave listeners mesmerized by its vividness and bewitched by its intensity. Desire Path Recordings
Special project in benefit of the victims of the earthquake + tsunami in Chile. Book+CD+DVD @ porchile.net
MUSIC
Andrea Gabriele / A Red Cat in the Dog House / J.Cardema aka R.Kaard / Peter Yu Yung Ta / Bobby Kebab / Colossius / Digi Galessio / Planet Soap / Lluvia Acida / Maps And Diagrams / Mika Martini / Daniel Jeffs / Danieto / Marcelo Leturia-Ottavio Berbakow / Mario Toro
VIDEO
Bhautik Joshi / Geert Wachtelaer / Arturo Almanza / Versa Studios / Andrew Burgess / Epix / Faarm / Leonardo Orellana / Gordon Macdowell / Oktopus Tv / Jorge Sato / David Sant / Alvaro Tapia / Ozan Tekin / CDP Studios / Volkan Ergen / Giuliano Scan / Valentina Serrati / Juanjo Fernandez / Laura Skocek / Lionel Muñoz / Sebastián Soto HMSTR / Bertran Escolà / Toshihiro Oshima
Additional video loops by Lucid House
PHOTO
Alba Escayo / Alexandra Glyptis / Andrew Knowles / Carlos Albalá / Carlos Diaz / Chris Friel / Corey Sch. / Daniel Kevorkian / Dominik Banasik / Donovan Rees / Edmund Levekis / Edward Olive / Erika Pham / Flavia Schaller / Francisco Porcel / Guillermo Casas Baruque / Herman Kolgen / Isa Marcelli / Jon Jacobsen / Jorge Sato / Lester Weiss / Levan Kakabadse / Lio Muñoz / Luis Muñoz Villarroel / Mari Loddo / Matthew Ahern / Maya Newman / Murat Harmanlikli / Paul Cooklin / Sebastián Utreras / Tim Martin / Tim Rafferty / Toshihiro Oshima / Toshifumi Jodai / Tsukamoto P. Mutsumi / Volkan Ergen / Walter Edwards / Zep Wernbacher
After much demand for ‘Skurjn’ to be released in digital format, the ep is now available at Bandcamp. Below are reviews from Cyclic Defrost (AUS) and Norman Records (UK).
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The long-distance collaboration between “acoustic noise artist” Charles Sage in Australia and Tim Diagram of the band Maps and Diagrams in the UK, Hessien makes its debut with a 20-minute EP limited to 100 copies in hand-stitched cork sleeves. (It will eventually see digital release, though). Recorded either late at night or early in the morning – depending upon which side of the time difference you look at – these compositions feel cast in a fitting sort of half-light. Manipulated field recordings are mingled with strands of acoustic guitar and hazy effects, blurring the lines between all of those ingredients.
The EP is steeped in quietude, starting with the shivering ‘When I Look Down 3’ and the especially translucent ‘The Blundering Pilot’. The middle track, ‘Small Earthquakes’ is more atmospheric than the others, while ‘Neroli Orange Blossom’ is slightly disconcerting somehow yet still quietly vibrant. Each could be a mirage, always wavering and never quite revealing its true form. The closing title track has a lullaby quality to it, and there are similar moments of tranquility elsewhere on Skurjn. Yet there’s an air of uncertainty to it, thanks to so many tiny, fleeting details. Doug Wallen
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In between hanging around with Aussie sound art artist chap called Charles Sage, Tim Martin (Maps & Diagrams) has been hob knobbing and hanging around with Dennis Nilsen and Jeremy Bamber, Crazy times! Tim & Charles (no Jeremy an Dennis though…) have created some music under the guise of Hessien. They’ve collaborated to make a rather lovely 5 track EP called Skurjn. Like the other releases on the Handstitched label it’s lovingly packaged in some hand stitched cork and uber limited (there’s 100 of this one). Well nice!! This is dreamy stuff…. beautiful post rock style guitars over fuzzy soundscapes. Plenty of micro noises and electronics going layering over the field recordings to make a complex yet accessible lump of ear noise. It’s very busy yet un cluttered. Listen to it with headphones though and you’ll be amazed at the level of detail and the richness of the music comes alive. Fans of Moteer, Mobeer, Manual will lap this up!! This will make a superb addition to your 3″ family but be quick as the last 2 releases on the label sold out in hours!
‘Skurjn’ by Hessien was released 29 January 2010 as a limited edition mini cd, housed in hand-stitched cork sleeves on the Handstitched* label (UK). The video was produced by Tom Hudson in 2010. Music by Hessien 2010. To hear audio samples or buy ‘Skurjn’ visit Norman Records, the most highly skilled handlers of music in the UK, if not the world.
This self-titled Hessien ep was originally released for free download from Hessiens’ web site in December 09 as a prelude to the ‘Skurjn’ ep on Handstitched* Recordings. After much demand for these songs to be released in flac/lossless formats they have been remastered and now appear at Bandcamp for easy, accessible downloading. There is also an extra, bonus track ‘Varieties of Parable’ that didn’t appear on the original ep.
Hessien appear on Fluid Radio Friday 19 March with an exclusive hour-long mix, tune in at 7pm BST. Fluid Radio and now available to listen to via mixcloud
Tobis Lilja – Days Pass Faster
Spinform – Yppersta Utposten
On! Air! Library! – 195
Hessien – Monsoon
Tarantel – When We Almost Killed Ourselves
Library Tapes – VIII
People Press Play – Studio
Tobias Lilja – My Teacher Died
Goddamn Electric Bill – Clouds and A Bee
Maps and Diagrams – T’horbed Earth
Mogwai – Wake Up and Go Berserk
Hessien – Gazed and Pale Reflections
Dictaphone – K2
Opitope – A Quiet Morning Arriving to the Valley
Tunng – Tale from the Black
Zelienople – Little Little Eye-Full
Hessien – Neroli Orange Blossom
Dirac – Bantu
