Pleq & Spheruleus - Quietus Gradualis [Time Released Sound]

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of collaborating with Pleq again, as we had done on the 'A Silent Swaying Breath' album. We were invited by Time Released Sound to create work to spread across two 3" CDRs as part of their special chocolate box series, with Colin from the label creating unique artworks for packaging. There were two editions on offer in limited supply, the primary being an insane and elaborate edition of 80 which have since sold out. The took the form of a pop-art inspired game, complete with pieces, also housing both discs containing our contribution to the series.
The second version of pairs both tracks onto a 5" CD, contained within a wallet. This is still available to order (at the time of writing) from Time Released Sound:
http://timereleasedsound.com/shop/releases/pleqspheruleus-picture-sleeve/

Sound wise, Pleq and I worked hard to create two slowly developing soundscapes, full of subtle detail and accompanied by a helping of tape hiss. The theme for the project and concept behind the titling is centred around the slow and gradual process of decay and disintegration. The sounds condense this lengthy journey that all objects, buildings and people are subjected to as a simple existence is slowly warped and changed by the hands of time. The two individual tracks are titled to reflect the different angles of this process. Apologue refers to the stories, legends and folklore that rise from the passing of something. The folky feel to the track swells and falls to indicate the changes that the story carries with it. Slowly with time, it becomes diluted.
Vestiges refers to the physical evidence that remains; things that are left behind and refuse to disappear completely. This piece is consequently much deeper and contains a gritty power to it. You can listen to a sample here:

[escala 2:3] vv.aa. – escala 2.3

http://escalared.com/archives/651

A massive three part compilation album with some of the finest names in the scene, completely free!

Some of you may be familiar with the Escala netlabel and others may have noticed the Sismografo Spanish national radio program that regularly hosts shows featuring top quality experimental music. I was honoured to be invited to get in on the action and teamed up with American artist Jared Smyth, whose recent work on new Japanese label ANALOGPATH has been one of my personal year highlights from 2012. Our short piece is called Transignal and is the starting point for a collaboration EP that will be available for free on Audio Gourmet later this year.

PRESS RELEASE:

escala 2.3 is a joint project between Escala netlabel and Sismógrafo Radio3. A massive release divided into three volumes which brings together many of the best ambient, drone, soundscape and electroacustic music producers.
A unique compilation to keep abreast of the latest proposals in advanced music that presents a matchless quality among the experimental scene, both because of the artists who make it up and of the included unreleased tracks.

Recent Spheruleus remixes

Over the last twelve months I've managed to make a few remix appearances that have as yet gone unmentioned on here. I thought it would be worth bunching them together on a post so that you can check them out and also get yourself acquainted with the rest of the albums that they appear on.

I'm always keen to remix material so if anyone out there needs something reworking for a release, please get in touch here:
audiogourmet(at)gmail(dot)com

JOSCO - 0611 (Spheruleus Version)

So to kick this post off, most recently I had a remix go out on Somehow Recordings, as part of this remix album for Josco's 0611 EP out last year on the same label. It has been renamed Khan Tam - ngan - Roum Kan and has only just been released this week. For now, without an available digital copy, you'll have to act fast to get a copy of the CD from the label:
http://www.somehowrecordings.co.uk/page16.html
Other remixers include Shaula, Alessio Ballerini, Nobuto Suda, Joshua Carro, Damian Valles, Mushy and Fernando Carvalho
PLEQ AND LAUKI - XII (Spheruleus Remix)

Also on Somehow Recordings and out earlier this year, I was invited by my friends Pleq and Mikel Lauki to remix a piece from their The Anatomy Of Melancholy album. I'm in good company, with other remixes from Offthesky, Antonymes and Maps and Diagrams. The disc sold out fast, but you can still get yourself a full digital version at the above link.


y0t0 - URIARRA ROAD (Spheruleus Remix)
Released in July last year, this remix of y0t0 (one half of Hessien) came out on Fac-Ture as a digital only release. Fac-Ture is a label run by Fluid Radio boss Daniel Crossley and is curated as exquisitely as both the posts on Fluid Radio and the music sold in its Stashed Goods store.
I'm also delighted to join a roster of remixers consisting of Jasper TX, Seaworthy, Field Rotation, Relmic Statute, Ghosting Season, Downliners Sekt
The album is still available for all at a measly £2 and if you still can't stretch to that, my remix is on offer for just 30p.

A preview of what's to come...

Here's a sneak preview of a new project for 2012, that will mark the first release on my new label Tessellate Recordings. The first album is a lo-fi Spheruleus record that pits ten melodic pieces on a bed of noise and static. It is themed around the Cyanometer, which is an instrumnt designed to measure the level blueness of the sky. The album will be available this July in a highly limited edition run of 50, plus a digital version.

PRESS RELEASE:

The cyanometer is a circular measuring instrument made from graduating shades of blue, originally created as means to measure the blueness of the sky. It was invented in the late 1700s by Horace Benedict de Saussore to assist his studies and fascination with the sky. He correctly supposed that the level of blueness visible in the sky was as a result of the amount of suspended particles present in the atmosphere.
 In recent times, not much has been written about cyanometry and a quick scour of the internet will yield you little in the way of further reading.

It was on a particularly crisp blue day, the sort that would have had Saussore engaged, cyanometer at the ready when Harry Towell (Spheruleus) happened upon the concept for his latest project. He embarked on a long walk through the surrounding countryside in Lincolnshire, UK with the intention of drawing inspiration for a new body of work.
 He had hoped that the quiet farmland, trees, fields and electricity pylons would provide the spark required to propell his work with sound yet on that day, it was the sky that fixated him and thus Cyanometry was born.

Back in the studio, Harry set about weaving his collection of acoustic instruments into his usual style of rustic melancholy. Inspired and fresh from his walk with a theme in mind, he allowed the resulting lo-fi sounds to retain their melodic properties and set them against a backdrop of noise, radio interference and vinyl crackle.
 Field recordings taken during the walk and at other locations filter into the mix; an old lady pushes her trolley through the backstreets of a sleepy village, ice cracks under foot on a cold morning and the cogs and gears of a bicycle turn, all the while permeated by fragments of forgotten radio broadcasts.
 The final stage of the recording process saw Harry team up with work colleague and piano owner Neil Winning to round off this set of short recordings with an additional element.
 After a short period of tweaking, the final outcome was married with track titles to reflect the varying moods of the sky.

For those new to the Spheruleus sound, Lincolnshire (UK) based artist Harry Towell has been releasing experimental material since 2008 on labels such as Hibernate, Under The Spire, Time Released Sound and most recently a collaboration with Ekca Liena on Home Normal.
 When he is not manipulating frequencies whether acoustic or otherwise, Harry spends his spare time curating netlabel Audio Gourmet and now its new sister label Tessellate Recordings.

Tessellate Recordings specialises in issuing hand-made limited edition CDrs and accompanying digital versions, releasing albums just a few times a year.
 'Cyanometry' is available in a limited run of just 50 copies, with the first 20 sold featuring a hand-stamped tessellating hexagonal pattern in different shades of sky tones. The remaining copies are plain recycled card with hand-stamped titling. Inside is a disc containing the album with printed artwork designed by Christian Roth of Resting Bell, the album tracklist and credits, a 4x4 photographic print of the album artwork as well as a unique image taken just for you.
 Also, there will be a handwritten thankyou note.

TSR01 Spheruleus - Cyanometry will be released on 12th July 2012. It will be available to pre-order 2-4 weeks before the release date.
TESSELLATE RECORDINGS www.tessellate-recordings.com

Credits

 released 12 July 2012
Recorded and produced by Harry Towell
Piano by Neil Winning
Cover photo by Paul Randall
Artwork by Harry Towell
Additional photography by Harry and Baz Towell

Instruments used:
Piano, classical guitar, violin, duduk, ukulele, harmonica, glockenspiel, trumpet, bugel and keyboard

PREVIEW TRACKLIST:
01 Blue Cast
02 Sky's The Limit
03 Blueprints
04 Horizon
05 Inhibition
06 Scattered Light
07 Suspended Particles
08 Lined With Silver
09 White
10 A Grey End To A Blue Day

Pleq / Hiroki Sasajima / Spheruleus - Time and Language [Felt]

http://digital.feltcollective.com/album/time-language

I'm proud and honoured to have my very first vinyl release, courtesy of Felt, a label run by my friend Byron. It is a long distance collaborative project between Pleq, Hiroki Sasajima and I, called 'Time and Language' mastered by Taylor Deupree.

PRESS RELEASE:

The third instalment of Felt welcome's three upcoming artists on a really special collaboration project. Pleq, Hiroki Sasajima and Spheruleus manage to overcome the sheer geographic distance that lies between them to produce a really wonderful studio album.

Pleq and Hiroki Sasajima are from bustling capital cities; Warsaw and Tokyo respectively, which has naturally had an impact on their sound.Whilst Spheruleus is from a quiet Lincolnshire town in the UK,surrounded by farmland. As a result of the inspiration drawn from
their different environments, the solo output from these three artists is all quite different, with Pleq exploring glitch, drone and sometimes downtempo styles, Hiroki working mainly with field recordings and digital processes and Spheruleus focussing on acoustic instruments.

Whilst it took several months for the three artists to
craft the final outcome, the listener gets a sense of not a studio album but rather a live improvised session. The sound is compound as if they were all in the same room performing together and yet you can clearly distinguish the three different approaches of sound design, overlapping and yet never barricade each other. The tracks are inspired by the language barrier and obviously the physical distance between the artists, and are named after a certain time of day that everybody in the world experiences, irrespective of timezone or language differences. Almost as if they are trying to capture various everyday life emotions and transcode them to a non-language, universal and appealing form. The oneness and
togetherness of music.

Throughout this record, Hiroki Sasajima's field recordings and drones are carefully adapted by Pleq with the addition of gentle drones and glitching textures, with Spheruleus weaving in subtle acoustic sounds using his instrument collection. Together, three far-flung sound artists have created a short and beautifully cohesive selection of moods, designed for the turntable and beyond.

 

All tracks written & produced by Bartosz Dziadosz,Hiroki Sasajima & Harry Towell

Mastering by Taylor Deupree
Album cover by Nefelie Pd
Drawing by Ioannis Fanariotis

Felt / 3           

Spheruleus - Dissolve

http://music.audiogourmet.co.uk/album/dissolve

SIDE A: Retreat (21:31)

SIDE B: Dissolve (20.19)

In his first solo release since last year's 'Voyage' album on Hibernate, Spheruleus gets the year up and running with this pair of longform pieces called 'Dissolve'.Dissolve is currently a digital only release, presented as a vinyl or tape set with two 'sides'.Both pieces are continuous longform tracks, culled from a wide pool of instruments including guitar, violin, cello, harmonica, vibraphone, french horn, piano and voice. The instrument sounds are blurred into a swirling collage, accompanied by light shards of noise, radio static and field recordings.The cover artwork was provided by photographer Richard Outram, (who also did the artwork for Voyage) and then treated with a canvas effect to make it look like a painting of what would (at first) be the artist's ideal home.

Harry Towell, the man behind the Spheruleus moniker has recently been residing in a living space for a short time, which has for some unknown reason been less than inspiring. He is due to move soon, which got him thinking about the time he has spent living in his current home and how his musical creativity has been hindered by it. He pondered upon what would be the most ideal place to live in terms of inspiring creativity and immediately recalled Richard Outram's beautiful photograph of an isolated house against a backdrop of mountains on the Llyn Peninsula in Wales.The area is very much untouched and the houses are scattered sparsely.Soon, thoughts turned to how such a place of isolation may eventually induce a despairing loneliness despite its obvious beauty. In turn, this gave Harry the inspiration to make the most of his current living space and overcome his hindered productivity with one last creative surge before he moves to pastures new.

Aside from this, the rest is left wide open for individual interpretation and it is hoped that the imagery and titles evoke thoughts that each listener can relate to themselves.There are currently no plans for a physical issue of 'Dissolve'. However, if you're a label interested in releasing it then please get in touch here audiogourmet@gmail.com

Credits

released 24 February 2012

All sounds recorded and arranged by Harry Towell

Photography by Richard Outram

Photo editing by Harry Towell

Spheruleus - Voyage [Hibernate Records]

http://store.hibernate-recs.co.uk/products/12687

'Voyage' is the latest album from Lincolnshire based sound designer Harry Towell. Released under his Spheruleus guise, this album utimately provides a soundtrack to a doomed sea-voyage. Through eight different movements, 'Voyage' chronicles everything from the immense pride felt as the ship sets sail to depicting the horror and heartache of its sinking. The album then closes with detailed passages that portray the decomposition of the ship as it begins to rot deep under sea.

This album is well researched with Harry having explored his chosen subject thoroughly. For the two years in which the album has been in the making, the young sound designer studied the history of great sea disasters and also took inspiration from soundtracks such as Gavin Bryars’ ‘The Sinking Of The Titanic’ and Gareth Hardwick's 'Of The Sea And Shore'. Although the Titantic's infamous fate was naturally a strong influence on the project, 'Voyage', does not refer to any particular sinking ship. Instead, its purpose is to sonically depict the various emotional aspects that lie within a failed sea voyage, as felt by all those who are affected by it.

Once the concept for 'Voyage' had been born, Harry revisited one of his old demos from early 2010 and decided to make this the spine of the album. He then used his instrument collection including; guitar, violin, trumpet, bugle, zither and keyboard to add several layers to the demo. In doing so Harry has been able to develop his chosen theme and create the character required to turn this forgotten treasure into the album it is today. As a poignant exaggeration of the events that unfold through the track 'She Sinks', there is a contribution from Russian pianist Alex Tiuniaev that opens and closes this dramatic track. He also performs on the track 'Clouds Swarm', as it heads into a crescendo.

Aside from his solo production work, Harry also records with brother Stuart under the name Paper Relics and runs the Audio Gourmet netlabel, which specialises in 15 minute EPs designed for shorter 'tea-break' listening. His work as Spheruleus has seen him release through netlabels such as Test Tube, Resting Bell, Earth Mantra, Audio Gourmet and in March 2010, his first physical album 'Frozen Quarters' was released on CD format by the Under The Spire imprint.

Mastered by Rudi Arapahoe at Purgatory Mastering

Photography by Richard Outram and Daniel Crossley
Design by Jonathan Lees

Limited edition CD pressing of 200. Released 07/10/11

INTERVIEW:

http://www.tokafi.com/15questions/interview-spheruleus/

You can find out a lot more about this album through this interview on Tokafi. It covers the thoughts behind the project, the sounds and ideas that helped create it and lots more...

REVIEWS:

The Silent Ballet:

http://thesilentballet.com/dnn/Home/tabid/36/ctl/Details/mid/384/ItemID/4496/Default.aspx

Fluid Radio: http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2011/09/spheruleus-voyage/

Was Ist Das?:http://www.wasistdas.co.uk/voyage.htm

Beach Sloth: http://beachsloth.blogspot.com/2011/11/spheruleus-voyage-71.html

To Eleven: http://toeleven.net/tag/spheruleus/

Zen Effects: http://zeneffects.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/spheruleus-voyage/

MIX:

In conjunction with the release of Voyage, Spheruleus has made a mix featuring some of his favourite nautical themed tracks. You can stream it here:

Marine Broadcast by Spheruleus on Mixcloud