Wednesday 7 October 2015

Terminal Moraine

Portrait of the Young Man as Landscape Dronologist, Scotland '95
In September 1995, at Kindling House in Coorparoo, Brisbane, I recorded three of the four tracks on my debut release, the Terminal Moraine cassette. 

The recordings were made on my Sony Walkman, using a Casio MT 40, shortwave radio and feedback via a toy keyboard with microphone. I didn't own an amp, so built-in speakers were the order of the day. I was in effect a practitioner of quiet noise.

The second track on the cassette was made the following year with a baby monitor and Yamaha CS01 synthesiser. Following his repeat yet polite petitioning, I recently returned the synth to its owner (Tom Beaumont), nearly 20 years post-loan.

I used to think of these pieces as 'landscape drones' -  the sound of plates tectonic and glacial drift, albeit recorded in sub-tropical suburbia.  

The cassette was timidly 'released' to select friends in a micro-edition of 16, each with painted cover art. It was only a small 20 minute sample of the hours of recordings made during that period.

In a sentimental moment, I recently digitised the work from the master tape to make this 20th anniversary edition available for download. It's a noisy and wobbly old thing!

LC September 2015.





                                 
Kindling House, Coorparoo, 1995

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