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Simon McCorry – See Blue Audio (previews)

fave listenings of this month
*
in the pic: Brian McBride

"musica assoluta" (settembre 2023)

'Flow'
Simon McCorry
See Blue Audio SBA 024

1. Flow 01
2. Flow 02
3. Flow 03
4. Flow 04
5. Flow 05

Release date: 10 September 2021

lnk.to/SBA024

See Blue Audio: ambient / electronic / beatless / cinematic / downtempo / eclectic / introspective… Shade rather than light...

Simon McCorry provided the first release of 2021 on See Blue Audio, the 'Nature in Nature' EP, so it seems appropriate that his next contribution to the label comes at the end of summer as the nights begin to draw in. The four tracks of 'Nature in Nature' contained contrasting moods and studio techniques, and reflected a wide range of influences, whereas on this new release, 'Flow', Simon directs his sonic gaze on the ambient side of his creative palette. Electronically produced it may be, but 'Flow' is also deeply rooted in nature and its mythology, and for the twenty-fourth release on See Blue Audio he has fashioned a richly autumnal, eventide collection of music.

Part-Indian, part-British and based in Stroud in the UK, Simon describes himself as a "cellist sound-sculptor of ambiguous environments." 2021 has already seen three major releases in the 'And Where Are You Really From?' solo album on Polar Seas Recordings alongside collaborations with Toronto-based guitarist anthéne (Brad Deschamps) on 'the equation of time' for Whitelabrecs, and fellow Stroud musicians Andrew Heath and Phonosonic as Konstruct with 'Three (squared)' on Rusted Tone Recordings. Solo projects and further collaborations are also forthcoming on Hush Hush Records, Whitelabrecs, Rusted Tone, Woodford Halse and Hidden Vibes later this year, as well as a return to live performances, and sound design and film score projects. 'Flow' sits neatly in-between this body of work, while occupying its own unique place in time and space.

'Flow' consists of five beatless sonic landscapes of varying length and without specific titles, but with subtle changes in movement and atmosphere. As the title suggests, the music can be experienced as a river that is visited at different locations as it travels along its course. All five originate from a single improvisation using Eurorack modules. The stems were then passed to cassette tape and underwent further processing to create a degraded feel, rather like something buried under millennia of peat and then uncovered at a future date. Peat gives a clue to their origins and a recent trip to the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides.

This world of weather-beaten moorland and rocky crags conjured up images of ghostly figures, which took the form of stones that had been left over from the Ice Age by passing glaciers. Their presence felt so human to Simon and profoundly eerie, particularly at sunset when these stones would play tricks upon the eye as if performing the role of watchers, both of earth and the celestial world above. Thus, a connection was formed – a single line or an axis - rooting the human world with that of Planet Earth and the heavens. In one sense, these stones, or what lies beneath them, contain something that is buried and gradually degrading over time beyond measure, but in another sense, they remain silently waiting to be uncovered and reanimated.

In fact, it's not just this visit to the Isle of Harris that provided such dynamic inspiration; it followed similar experiences and chain of thoughts after similar trips to stone circles in the Lake District and the islands of Orkney. On returning to his studio in Stroud, Simon began the process of musical distillation of these ideas that has finally found form in 'Flow'. It may well be appropriate to use adjectives like immersive and deep listening to describe the end result – perhaps even contemplative or metaphysical – but elegant and melancholic could equally apply. Such words can also be used to describe a river and the passage through life it symbolises with its constant flow.

Mastered by Ian Hawgood.

Photography: Simon McCorry.

Flow

'Flow 03' (extract) – Simon McCorry (See Blue Audio SBA #024)

'I the Storm'
Simon McCorry
See Blue Audio SBA 045

1. The Earth's Sorrow for All Things That Pass
2. Misericordia
3. These Scalding Tears
4. The Ever-Evolving Reflecting Mirror

Release date: 22 September 2023

lnk.to/SBA045

See Blue Audio: ambient / electronic / beatless / cinematic / downtempo / eclectic / introspective… Shade rather than light...

As summer fades and the nights draw in, our collective consciousness can take a turn towards the melancholic. We may feel this cyclical change at both a micro, individual level and as part of a greater cosmic dimension, but its presence is undeniable. We can find ourselves in the eye of a storm, and that storm could well be within us. This is the theme of the forty-fifth release on See Blue Audio: 'I the Storm' by Simon McCorry.

Mixed ethnicity, part-British, part-Indian, and "cellist sound-sculptor of ambiguous environments", this is Simon's third release on See Blue Audio. It follows a prolific couple of years of releases on respected labels on the ambient music scene like Oscarson, Shimmering Moods, Whitelabrecs, Hidden Vibes, Rusted Tone Recordings and Polar Seas. As with Simon's first release on See Blue Audio, the 'Nature in Nature' EP from 2021, where the title track was created for a short film featuring Japanese contemporary dance artist Satoko Fukuda, so 'I the Storm' began its life in the theatre. All four compositions were written while collaborating with choreographer Travis Clausen-Knight on 'I the Storm', part of the Fabula Collective production 'Momentum'. Although not originally intended for the show, they ended up using 'These Scalding Tears' in its entirety alongside other original music from Simon, with 'Momentum' receiving its premiere at Sadlers Wells Theatre in London in September 2022.

Another important component in the backstory to 'I the Storm' is the serious health issues and periods in hospital Simon experienced at the end of 2021. As disharmony in the body can also lead to disharmony in the mind, this became a time of deep personal confusion for the artist. Seeking spiritual answers, 'I the Storm' is largely influenced and indebted to the sacred music of the 12th century Benedictine writer and visionary Hildegard von Bingen, even though it has a veneer of contemporary sonic landscapes.

'I the Storm' consists of four beatless compositions of varying length based around asynchronous live looping with the cello, a method Simon has been experimenting with for a number of years. This new work takes the process in another direction as all the loops remain 'open' in overdub mode. Five loops of five different lengths always recording and adding new material as the older material slowly fades away on each repeat. Sounds cascade and circle around each other in a network of loop and delay; sometimes like a call and response, sometimes like reverb or an audio smudge, or a choir of cellos, or dense string orchestration and harmonisation. There are moments where the music is on the edge of going out of control and tipping into chaos; a tightrope is being walked.

All the tracks on 'I the Storm' were played and recorded in one sitting. The chaotic nature of the method means this is the only way, but each piece also exists as its own dramatic whole, while contained within are smaller sections or movements travelling through different emotional states and spaces.

'I the Storm' was not conceived or executed as background ambience; this is not linear or gentle listening. Nothing is hidden, all emotions are raw, and it was designed to be experienced by the listener as such. As the track titles show, ours is a world of tumult and turmoil, of agitation and upheaval, and where the storm that's within us all ebbs and flows throughout life.

Mastered by Taylor Deupree at 12k Mastering.

Image: the Sound Camp.

I the Storm

'I the Storm' (preview) – Simon McCorry (See Blue Audio SBA #045)

Hexfarm is 

Phil Bywater - Saxophones/Flutes
Dane Renshaw - Drums
Mat Ward - Bass Guitar/Vox

The first new track from Hexfarm - who  have managed to jam once a year in 2022 then 2023 for the first time in many many many years. 2 of us now live in Australia with our Japanese residing Drummer flying in once a year for some fun. This was recorded remotely and hot mixed in my home studio - rough garage sounds : ) Lots of improv stuff on tape to see the light of day too in the vault

Momma Don't Like You No More - Hexfarm

From The Deep

Hartland

Angus MacRae & Curve Ensemble - Hartland

“Ronde” by Marco Lucchi 

I added Vocaloid singing to Marco Lucchi’s “Ronde”.
https://soundcloud.com/marcolucchi/ronde
I would like to thank Marco for giving me this opportunity.

曼殊沙華あやしき赤の藥玉の目もあやに炎ゆ草生のまどはし
木下利玄（1886-1925）

The red spider lily shines dazzlingly in the grass like a bewitching red decorative paper ball, disturbing my mind.
Rigen Kinoshita (1886-1925)

出典：『木下利玄全歌集』五島 茂 編　岩波文庫
Source: “Complete Collected TANKA(Japanese Short Poem) by Rigen Kinoshita: editing by Shigeru Goto”　Iwanami Shoten Publisher
Art work: nekoroom via Pixabay

Marco Lucchi "Ronde"

Marco Lucchi  "Ronde"

A track produced for Naviar Records Haiku Challenge; one week to write and record a track in response to the haiku posted.
'Lazing in shadows
conceding the drawing room
to moonrays'

Lazing In Shadows (naviarhaiku504) - Adrian Lane

The Perfect Armageddon Bride

'Nature in Nature' EP
Simon McCorry
See Blue Audio SBA 015

1. Background Thermal Radiation
2. Nature in Nature
3. Prometheus
4. Entanglement

Release date: 29 January 2021

lnk.to/SBA015

See Blue Audio: ambient / electronic / beatless / cinematic / downtempo / eclectic / introspective… Shade rather than light...

For the first release of 2021 and the fifteenth on the label, See Blue Audio welcomes a new artist: Simon McCorry with the 'Nature in Nature' EP.  The name may well be familiar to followers of the ambient and experimental music scenes following a string of releases on his own Close Recordings imprint as well as labels like Disco Gecko, Naviar and Herhalen. Press coverage has also come from the Quietus, Mojo, Monolith Cocktail, Dancing About Architecture and the Sunday Experience, and radio play on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 6.

Part-Indian, part-British and based in Stroud in the UK, Simon describes himself as a “cellist sound-sculptor of ambiguous environments.” The ambiguous environment he explores on the four tracks of 'Nature in Nature' are drawn from the electronic side of his palette, but the influences and techniques of other forms from his musical range, including his training and career as a professional cellist, are also present. A rich combination of field recordings, adept loop-based cello compositions and atmospheric improvisations have given Simon the tools to fully exploit the sonic possibilities of the cello through a host of treatments, effects and analogue modular synthesis; from droning stillness and thrilling harmonic simplicity to abstract microtonal atmospheres.

All of which leads to the 'Nature in Nature' EP, which was recorded in the latter half of 2020. Three of these sonic explorations were created using analogue modular synthesis and without the computer as a sequencing tool. The opening track, 'Background Thermal Radiation', draws on the swirling patterns of late-night static from the distant days of cathode-ray tube television, where patterns could be detected amongst the chaos, and a kind of dark energy is summoned into musical form. Simon has described the creative process as something akin to divination, perhaps even shamanic, and there is a strong sense of him tapping into something primordial here.

The title track follows with 'Nature in Nature' originally commissioned by Japanese contemporary dance artist Satoko Fukuda for her short film of the same name. As the title suggests, nature plays a central theme in both the video and accompanying soundtrack from Simon, but he has taken his sound sources from man-made materials associated with his childhood growing up in London that have been abandoned and then reclaimed by nature. Sounds generated from scrap metal and wood, and a mini-cassette dictaphone combine with the cello to create a delicate but vibrant musical tapestry. The video for 'Nature in Nature' is available on Fukuda's YouTube channel.

Prometheus, the pre-Olympian god who gave fire to humans and was brutally punished by Zeus, supplies the theme for the third track bearing his name, and this brooding, slow-motion soundscape contains elements of both fire and ice. If the music so far has been predominantly beatless, this changes with 'Entanglement', which closes the EP, where Moog-style sounds lead into the beats and chimes of some kind of otherworldly clock.

With the 'Nature in Nature' EP, Simon McCorry explores the interface between the natural world with its myriad sounds and harmonies, and the strange unpredictably of human life, always in a state of physical and spiritual migration. Mainly improvised, strangely romantic, occasionally gothic, and built around the quirkiness of analogue circuitry rather than binary code, this is a particularly apt soundtrack to open a new year where uncertainly and anxiety still preside.

Mastered by Taylor Deupree at 12k Mastering. 

Photography: Kathrin Waibl.

Nature in Nature EP

'Nature in Nature' EP (preview) – Simon McCorry (See Blue Audio SBA #015)