catalogue

SLATER, SAM

I DO NOT WISH TO BE KNOWN AS A VANDAL (BEDROOM COMMUNITY)

SLATER, SAM - I DO NOT WISH TO BE KNOWN AS A VANDAL 153537
format:
1 CD
release:
29.07.2022
label:
BEDROOM COMMUNITY
genre:
Electro/Funk
item ID:
153537
barcode:
5051142009616
I kept on visualizing a body, suspended just at the point where gravity took over, and the figure was falling from their feet to the floor.

Frozen at this midpoint, there wasn't much to say which way they were going - suspended between collapse and recovery, they could almost be getting back to their feet.

Perhaps I was punch drunk from 2019, however I noticed very soon the zero-gravity feeling of being suspended between these two points was all around me; the impression of a caring democracy hamstrung by 2D visions of old empires; the climate in it's seemingly terminal demise and the ever emboldened ideas for a functioning future looming from the smog; the suspension between the immortality of my 20s and the strange feeling when everyone starts to get sick more; the feeling that everything is suspended between collapse and recovery, and I am unsure which way it's heading.

The record was made just before the pandemic started, working closely with the distinct feed-backing Dorophone sounds of Hildur Gudnadóttir, Yair Glotman's thunderous double-bass, James Ginzburg's devotion to precise form and muting my reverb stems, the microtonal brass and woodwinds of Hilary Jeffrey and Sam Dunscombe and the infinite intimacy of Icelandic singer-songwriter JFDR.

From Berlin, I would flag sounds I loved; some twitching strings, the stolen alto voice from an abandoned English chorale, some words from a climate scientist fleshed into a poem.

These email attachments struck up a sort of sonic pen-pal program, with each person sending a sound, some words, some creative parameters and responding in turn.

It became an exercise in receptivity, in which openness itself became a creative voice, hushing my tendency to micromanage every detail.

These interactions were pulled together in late 2019 into a single piece written for two sides of a single 12" vinyl; one side describing collapse (Darn!) and the other, recovery (Kintsugi).

Influenced by the 70s concept prog records of my childhood, the album loops without ending, so you were never really allowed to rest in safety, or wallow in the mess for too long.
 
  • Tracklisting
  • 1.1. DARN! I
  • 1.2. DARN! II
  • 1.3. DARN! III
  • 1.4. DARN! IIII
  • 1.5. KINTSUGI I
  • 1.6. KINTSUGI II
  • 1.7. KINTSUGI III