Skjølbrot
Maersk CD available now–
Maersk is the first Skjølbrot cd – 7 tracks of machine rhythms, bass pressure, crumbling choirs and eviscerating noise built on a tangled foundation of historical events, places and associations – from the exocet strike on the Jahre Viking oil tanker, through Xenakis’s presence in Paris during the ‘61 Algerian Massacre, to the typhoons that swept through the shipbreaking region of Chittagong.
Recordings of walks and locations serve both as raw materials and as scores through which the music traces routes, forging contingent musical paths in the mess of noises, events and connections. Sentimental melodic fragments and anchoring piano chords accumulate alongside the base sonic materials of noise and digital electronics until finally the foundation is erased or transformed and the music is cut loose.
CDR with hand-printed cardboard sleeve, notes and photocard. 39 mins.
Listen:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
:::::::::::::
Currently in progress is an album of songs based on the hymns and archives of the small, late 19th century religious community centred on Benjamin Blackwell’s glass works in Lanarkshire. Blackwell, an American émigré, returned to Scotland in the 1860s after a series of personal tragedies and the “Great Disappointment” that swept through America in the wake of the unfulfilled millennial prophesies of William Miller. His theology, revised in the light of these events found in the Bible a subtext describing God’s weakening and slow withdrawal from human affairs.
Images:
Email: skjolbrot [hat] gmail [dott] com