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Lawrence ENGLISH
“Approach”
From Lawrence English
I often find myself thinking about the opening line of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." When the book was written in early 1980s, a dead TV channel was a deadened grey of noise. Revisit the book now though and its character has shifted, for in the digital age a dead channel is a richly saturated sky blue. The referential effects of time are not constant, but they rather provoke new perspectives and ideally new understandings.
This album, Approach, is an echo that has travelled with me for 33 years, even if I wasn’t fully aware of it. It’s a record about memory, about how seemingly cursory encounters shape us and how experiences accumulate in time. It’s a distorted mirror catching the diminished glow of the fires that forged me.
The record draws its root from Yoshihisa Tagami’s seminal manga Grey. In many respects this album is a soundtrack to that manga. What makes Grey unique, in the west at least, is that it was amongst one of the first Manga to be translated and distributed outside of Japan (yes, even before the touchstone that is Akira). It was one of the first droplets that has since become a torrent pouring outward from Japan. It was also the first Manga I bought for myself, when I was 13, and read as a serial.
I tend not to think or speak very much about my teenage years. I had some profound experiences that have carried forward, I forged deep emotional partnerships that carry to this day. The majority of that time however was something of a slog, a day by day performance of self-preservation. Those years were a quiet war to push back against expectations for a way of being I had no interest in sharing.
All boys’ schools, one of which I attended, are a maleficent prison if you are not participating in, or as was my case you are maintaining an antithetical position to, hegemonic masculinity. There’s no real need to detail my experiences but suffice to say several years after high school a classmate approached me in a stationery store and asked for my forgiveness for what he had done to me. I was only too happy to give him that relief, it was obvious he wore scars from those experiences that seemingly ran deeper than my own.
I don’t find myself dwelling on those negative experiences partly because during those years I was a sponge for culture. It’s difficult for me to quantify how much cultural consumption happened during my teen years, but I recognise now how formative so many of those exposures have become. An example of this came into sharp focus last year when I happened to remember, and then re-read Tagami’s Grey.
As laconic and occasionally unlikable as the main character, Grey, might have been I associated deeply with their sense of determination. Grey’s rejection of societal expectation (which is foregrounded by the edition’s introduction penned by speculative fiction author Harlan Ellison, who highlighted the class politics that haunt the storyline), and his refusal to accept the immobility of systems, and social codes, clearly resonated with me. Add to this a delightfully nihilistic optimism matched with unquenchable rage and that young version of me was sold; I knew already that sensation of rage, when applied with focus, would be my fuel throughout those years.
This record then is also a kind of sonic postcard retrospectively drafted for that very unsteady and volatile version of myself. It’s more than that of course, but I want to recognise and thank that belligerent young person, who seems so distant to me now. I recognise that their way of navigation, their determination to be curious and try to discover who they were, not who they were told to be, allowed this version of me to exist today. It also pays homage to the family and friends (and the cultural artefacts such as this manga) that helped cushion and guide that young body and mind. Without them, it’s difficult to know how I might be in the here and now.
14,00€
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Lawrence ENGLISH
“Viento”
In the summer of 2010 I had the opportunity to visit Antarctica through an invitation extended by the Argentine Antarctic Division. It was nothing short of life-altering, as I am sure anyone would suspect.
Upon departing from Buenos Aires for the iced continent the Hercules transport aircraft, under direction of the Argentine military, made a routine stop at an airbase outside Rio Gallegos.
What was meant to be a few hours layover turned into several days as, on landing, a strong wind storm blew in unexpectedly. Conditions exceeded expectations, and before long it was clear the transport could not take off. The situation was only compounded by adverse weather along the Antarctic Peninsula.
Whilst the scientists and military personnel we were travelling with bunkered down in their quarters, I found myself drawn outside into the howling air. The wind in Patagonia is, well, breathtaking. Literally, there were moments where it was so physical, that it was difficult to catch my breath. Across three days I recorded abandoned buildings, lone trees folded over in fields of tundra-like grasses, quivering road signs, wailing fences and other objects shaken into life by the wind. It wasn't a comfortable experience by any means, but the multiplicity of sounds I was able to capture, I hope, speak for themselves.
The Antarctic recordings were made during two blizzards at Marambio and Esperanza bases. During the blizzard in Marambio, the temperature dropped to -40 degrees centigrade (with wind chill) which made recording particularly challenging. The wind battered the base’s structures and telecommunications equipment, making a range of unsettling, phasing choral drones and deep low frequency vibrations that resonated inside the base itself. The blizzard at Esperanza was mild by comparison, but still strong enough to coat penguins in layer of snow as they huddled together during the worst of the storm.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of completing these compositions and since that time, I have had the pleasure to diffuse them on numerous occasions. With those experiences in mind, as well as the format on which these works are now being made available, I have revisited them and completely remixed and remastered the pieces.
Listening back to these recordings I am struck by the sheer physicality of the wind. It's rare that you feel physically reduced by the motion of air, but in both Patagonia and Antarctica that is just how I felt. A small speck of organic dust in a howling storm.
Recorded on location in Patagonia and Antarctica in the summer of 2010.
Mixed and mastered at Negative Space 2022.
18,00€
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Lawrence ENGLISH
“A Mirror Holds The Sky”
From Lawrence English
In late months of 2008, I had the great fortune to spend some weeks in the Amazon. The visit, facilitated through Francisco Lopez’s Mamori Artlab residency, remains one of the most deeply affecting experiences I have had. Each time I hear a Screaming Piha, which many would identify instantly thanks to their prevalence in Werner Herzog’s Aguirre Wrath Of God and Fitzcarraldo, I am transported back into a place that, to this day, features regularly in my daydreams.
The reason this place made such an impression is simple; the Amazon dwarfs us. This is not some vulgar display of power on its behalf, rather its a tangible reminder of our place in, and on, this planet. Once you step into the Amazon it prompts us (strongly) to refocus the perspective we hold of ourselves, of our ways of being, of our understandings and it (not so gently) reminds us that we are but one very minor function in an equation that extends in all directions across time, and space.
Living in Australia, tropical rainforests are not foreign to me. I would even say I am rather at home in them. My family, who lived and worked on the land of the Ngajanji people, had an admiration for, or in the very least a respect of, the rainforest. What makes time spent in the jungles of the Amazon different however is the scale and sheer volume (metaphoric and literal) of the life that inhabits it. Hundreds of thousands of narratives are in play moment to moment, their interactions flow together forming a perpetual cascade of arrival and departure, fertility and decay - these fundamental states are intrinsically linked and constantly informing one another.
The jungle is never silent. Even when you might expect the Amazon to be hushed, in those hours before dawn or in the heat of the midday sun, it is hardly what could be described as quiet. What might be true to say though is during these moments where the chorus of insects takes a step back, the jungle opens just a little. To listen in the jungle is to listen in close relief - in every square metre, thousands of insect cry out, their voices reducing the horizon of listening to a matter of centimetres at certain times of the day (and night). The sensation is sensorially disorienting and frankly, overpowering.
In those moments where you can get a sense of dimension and depth, the dynamism of the environment comes to the for. The abundance of birds, mammals, beetles, flies, ants and so many other creatures are a source of constant and evolving fascination. In the lakes and rivers too, the hydro-sonic environments are perpetual and effortlessly deep. It’s humbling to acknowledge how little we come to know of that which lies just below us.
A Mirror Holds The Sky is in some ways an act of acoustic and temporal compression. It is a rendering down of the lived in moments and environments that became points of intense listenership. If I am to be honest, it has taken me the better part of a decade to know how to approach this archive of materials. I owe a debt of gratitude to Chico Dub at Festival Novas Frequências, who very gently encouraged me to realise a piece for diffusion as part of his program in 2019. That invitation retuned my ears and in the process unlocked a way of approaching the mammoth 50+ hours of recordings I had gathered during my time there. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to my wife Rebecca, who was instrumental in gathering some of these recordings. Her ears reflected an entirely other set of interests than my own and without that, this piece would be substantially less than what it is.
Recorded in Dec 2008, Lago Mamori, Amazonas.
18,00€
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LP
Lawrence ENGLISH
“Observation of Breath”
Do you remember the last time you were breathing consciously? Either way, you are likely doing it now. On his new album "Observation of Breath" for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground label, Lawrence English worked exclusively with an organ for four compositions that are exercises in "maximal minimalism," as their creator himself notes in a nod to Charlemagne Palestine, who coined this term. While it seems somewhat fitting that those four pieces based on a steady flow of air were conceived and recorded in a situation of accelerated standstill caused by a respiratory disease, the Room40 founder is not so much concerned with capturing the zeitgeist than rather incorporating the spirit of time itself.
"It is a record about presence and patience," he explains. Exploring the unique sonic affordances of a singular instrument, "Observation of Breath" is not only devoted to the durability of sound but also to its density. That it marks his debut on Hallow Ground after having shaped its sound by mastering most of the label's releases in recent years is just as fitting then as its release following albums by Kali Malone and FUJI|||||||||||TA, whose innovative work with organ instruments have facilitated a rediscovery of their possibilities.
English's compositions however are neither directly indebted nor responding to these musicians. His exploration of the organ's many facets started a decade ago when the composer was given access to an instrument built in 1889 that is presently housed at The Old Museum in Brisbane. After it had already played a crucial role on his seminal albums "Wilderness Of Mirrors" and "Cruel Optimism," last year's self-released "Lassitude" was the first record that English entirely composed and recorded with that instrument. "During the soft lockdowns, I spent many days playing to an empty concert hall, recording the pieces that became >Lassitude< and then, this album," says English in regards to an unfortunate situation that fortunately provided him with time and space-two major themes but also key qualities of the four new compositions. In this sense, he goes on, "Observation of Breath" resolves a number of the questions originally raised by "Lassitude."
23,00€