Audiological exploration by Bare Bones.
From the album The Forest / The Wald, which also features work by Magpahi, Polypores, Time Attendant, David Colohan, Sproatly Smith, The Hare And The Moon ft Alaska, The Rowan Amber Mill, The Séance with Lutine, Cosmic Neighbourhood and A Year In The Country.
Available to order at our Artifacts Shop, our Bandcamp Ether Victrola, the Ghost Box Guest Shop and Norman Records.
Revisitation #6a.
Notes And Scribing:
The Forest / The Wald is a study and collection of work that reflects on fragments and echoes of tales from the woodland and its folklore.
Such wooded realms are deeply embeded in our folk and popular culture stories: their boughs and undergrowth being seen as places where spirits both good and bad may reside, visitors from elsewhere in the cosmos have laid down roots or where unwary travellers can come undone.
The album takes as one of its initial reference points Electric Eden author Rob Young’s observations of the roots of the word folk as being “…the music of the ‘Volk’, a word born of the Teutonic Wald, the wild wood where society was organised ad hoc, bottom-up and frequently savage…”; places where rituals endured and perplexed their heirs.
Although today they are often tamed and managed it takes but a wandering into the heart of one to realise just how near to being far from the comforts and securities of civilisation we are.
In amongst The Forest / The Wald can be found field recording folk that captures greenwood rituals performed in the modern day, echoes of fantastical childhood rhymes, sylvan siren calls that tremble through tangles of branches, electronics pressed into the summoning of otherworldly arboreal creations unearthed amidst the creeping thickets and elegies to woodland intrustions, solitudes and seasons.
Wald considerations by Rob Young.
Artwork / encasement design and fabrication by AYITC Ocular Signals Department.
Audiological Transmission Artifact #6.
Library Reference Numbers: ATA006N / ATA006D
Transmissions sent, received, transmitted:
“…an album, then, to listen to in undisturbed sittings, as you pick out the stories that it tells. And needless to say, it’s essential listening…”
Dave Thompson at Spin Cycle / Goldmine magazine
“…a response to British folk traditions that acknowledges the history without seeming beholden to it.”
John Coulthart / Feuilleton
“As with previous volumes in the series, the album brings together a number of different genres yet retains a cohesive feel due to the shared aesthetic and common theme of the music within. A recommended insight into the darker and more experimental side of folk music, as well as those artists whose music draws from other genres whilst tapping into the same eerie mood. ”
Kim Harten, Bliss Aquamarine
“…shifting ancient ballads into the now via contemporary electronic enhancements, creating dangerous trans-dimensional paradoxes like Sapphire & Steel warned us again… mixing drones, feedback and woodland ambience to create a beautiful, disturbing evocation of the primeval forest that lives on in our dreams.”
Ben Graham in Shindig issue 62
The Forest / The Wald can also be found amongst the zeros and ones and frequency modulation airwaves via:
Evening Of Light / Golden Apples Of The Sun / Gated Canal Community Radio / You, The Night & The Music and in a circular manner at the phantom seaside radio of The Séance here and here.
Peruse The Forest / The Wald further here.
