Tag Archives: The Voices of Time

The Voices of Time (review)

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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.

- Review by Adam Williams for Fluid Radio

The Voices of Time (Handstitched*)

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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.