Label: Opal Tapes

恐らくこのタイトルが1stリリースになると思われるLewis / Breatherというコンクレート作家が制作した英Opal Tapesからのアルバム作品。彼が長い間生活を共にしたという80代祖父母との生活音を録り溜め、それを元に約50分の長編ミックスコンクレートと仕上げたかなりの高内容作。幼少期の歌声、鳥のさえずり、街の喧騒、マーチングバンド、虫の声、それら小気味良いサウンドイメージを突如カットアップ的に加工したり、また電子ドローンを忍ばせたりと、まるで氏の記憶を高速で体験する様な不思議な感覚に陥ります。延々と晴れないテクスチャーも美しい。

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Truly beautiful, 'Ceremonies From Aporia' is phonography and musique concrete stripped of any and all pretense. I've tried several times to write something up for this but the actual information provided by Lewis / Breather is the best and most honest way to present this astonishing album.

"I moved in with my grandmother and her husband on January 1st 2020. My gran and husband are both in their early eighties and suffer from countless ailments (e.g. COPD, Diabetes).

The estate is a council estate very typical of north west Durham. A mixture of very poor and some not as poor people. I grew up around this area and know it well, I previously lived in Newcastle since leaving home at 18.
I watched the daily routine of administering insulin, taking medicines, using an oxygen machine. I realised I was in the unique position of living with an elderly couple who appeared to be in their last days. Likewise when I looked at the high street in this small village I saw it has also deteriorated. I was watching the churn of time as if it was sped up, or at some pinnacle moment. I watched families drink and party in their gardens as my grandma struggled to breathe, I recorded a man using an impact wrench on a car in the street, everything was absurd and needed capturing.

The best way to describe this album is by imagining the smell of a workingmen’s club. The decades of beer, tabs, piss, and body odour worn into the carpets, staining the upholstery, and discolouring the walls. There’s something very nostalgic about that smell, but it’s a nostalgia steeped in melancholy as I, as a child, viewed the many function room parties through sober, innocent eyes. Christenings, funerals, birthdays, and weddings, they all involved a party at the club. These club parties all signified events in time and were, whether the guests were aware or not, a reminder that everything is fleeting."