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MURMER - We share a Shadow

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Helen Scarsdale Agency hms011 Release Year: 2008 Note: two masterpieces of processed field recordings, almost poetic 'concrete' drones, shimmering & emotional... lim. ed. of 300 with hand water-coloured artwork & letter-press Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.00 More Info MURMER gehört zu jener neuen Generation von Field Recording-Spezialisten, die mit Hilfe von Computerprogrammen eine ungeahnte Detailfülle & Klangdichte in ihren Kompositionen erreichen. Auf "We share a Shadow" (2 Stücke, 46 Minuten) erklingen z.B. wunderbar vielschichtige Metall-Drones, Vibrationen von langgezogene Sirenen-artigen Tönen, rückwärtige akustisch glitzernde Resonanzen, krispelndes Rauschen (Regen?)... etc. - ein einziger Genuss, diese neuartige Drone-Musik in Perfektion, das Selbst scheint sich aufzulösen in diesen Sounds! Die Auflage beträgt leider nur 300 Exemplare, kommt im handgetönen Wasserfarben-Cover. "Murmer is the pseudonym for Patrick McGinley, a man with several passports which have taken him to many a foreign land in search of found sounds of the unsettled, the forgotten, the mysterious, and the beautiful. His field recordings of activated environments (e.g. resonant industrial spaces, windswept telephone lines, bowed branches, gasping ventilator systems, etc.) originate from all of the locations where he has traveled; yet, the documentation of these sounds is the not the terminus of McGinley's work. He is far more interested in extracting a particular emotional, transcendent, or metaphysical kernel from those sounds, and then recontextualizing that germinated sound into sympathetic compositions of magnificent dronemusik. We Share A Shadow continues where Murmer left off with the exceptional Husk album (in collaboration with Jonathan Coleclough), in spiraling his manipulated field recordings as a slow revelation of the environmental sonorities that undeservedly go unnoticed each and every day. Singing frequencies of a bowed piece of metal undulate against a grey tapestry of rain and rasping insects. Golden overtones from shimmering drones quell what agitated textures reside in McGinley's active field recordings, rendering the aggregate sound a nocturnal opiate with considerable potency. As Murmer, Patrick McGinley has produced a handful of releases on ICR, Ground Fault, Drone Records, and Absurd; and he has performed in venues both large and small across North America and Europe. He is also the host the Framework radio show on Resonance FM, dedicated to the consecration of field recordings and their use in composition. We Share A Shadow is strictly limited to 300 copies, featuring hand water-coloured artwork and letterpress printing." [label description] www.helenscarsdale.com "BACK IN PRINT! We thought this gem from the Helen Scarsdale Agency was going to stay out of print forever, but due to a fortuitous pressing plant glitch (when are those ever fortuitous?), a small second pressing has now been made available! Here's what we've said about this album when it first came out in 2007: Proprietor of the Framework radio show on Resonance FM for many years now, Patrick McGinley has implored his listeners to "open your ears and listen" to the world at large, presenting an impeccable series dedicated to field recordings and its use in composition. So, it goes with out saying that the field recording and the found object are commonplace within McGinley's own sound art constructions which he records under the moniker Murmer (and not Murmur, mind you!). Given his predilection for wandering throughout the European countryside for all that it has to offer (not just limited to environmental sound), his recorded output has been somewhat limited. We Share A Shadow is his first proper solo album in almost three years, although his collaboration with Jonathan Coleclough did stand out as one of the dronemusik highlights of 2006. Consisting of two very long pieces, We Share A Shadow is a notably restrained album whose dark beauty reveals itself with a slow and deliberate pace. The first untitled piece opens with sheets of cold rain scuffing the smooth arcs of bowed metals, whose Feldman-like swell and collapse recalls the late period work of Bernhard Gunter. As the rain gently fades, a composite drone emerges out of those rasps and vibrations from the bowed metals and intensifies through dissonant timbres subtly agitating the shimmer and filigree of the gilted drone. Throughout, windswept debris ricochets across the stereo field casting an ominous cloud onto the sustained tones. The second piece is an even darker affair with a motor grinding against a piece of metal in the distance while a somber, almost doomscape piano plods in the foreground. With plenty of low frequency rumbles and spectral activity lingering in the background, this piece is almost like KTL remixing Xenakis at 16 RPM. Needless to say, this is an incredible album. Gorgeously packaged in hand water-colored / letterpressed sleeves, SECOND PRESSING ONLY 175 COPIES!!" [Aquarius Rec.]