Twalif X – Racker & Orphan: Audio Visual Archive 6/52

“Twalif X is an audio journey through one night; the album was recorded between dusk and dawn on the 12th/13th May 2014 in Robin Wood, Bears Wood, Knott Wood and on Eagle Crag. All recordings were captured on one microphone and processed/mixed by N. Racker.” (Quoted from the album’s accompanying text.)

“…sometimes it is as though when listening to Twalif X that you are almost next to these explorers and you find that you have travelled with them to the otherly darker corners of the woodlands and landscape. A work that is both calm and quietly unsettling, experimental with bursts of folkloric melody that appears with the coming of the dawn…” (Quoted from A Year In The Country).

The imagery for the release was created using photographs taken during the outing by Racker & Orphan which were than collaged and intertwined with original artwork by A Year In The Country.

N. Racker is also known as Samuel McLoughlin, who has worked as samandtheplants and with Alision Cooper (Magpahi) on the Natural / Supernatural Lancashire releases on Finders Keepers Records.

D. Orphan is also known as David Chatton-Barker, who created the Folklore Tapes project, which is described as:

“…an ongoing research and heritage project exploring the folkloric arcana of the farthest-flung recesses of Great Britain and beyond. Traversing the mysteries, myths, nature, magic, topography and strange phenomena of the old counties through abstracted musical reinterpretation and experimental visuals.”

They have also collaborated together alongside Dean McPhee on the label/project Hood Faire, which has has often focused on releasing work by its three instigators, both under their own names and as Racker&Orphan and also released a split cassette with Crystal Mirrors (Alison Cooper and Gwendolen Osmond).

Alison Cooper, Sam McLoughlin and David Chatton-Barker also collaborated as Echo of Light and performed at the Wyrd Britannia festival:

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything quite like this. It has been described as incorporating the projectionist as pupeteer and having watched it, I think that is an apt description. To an electronic and acoustic soundtrack of (I think) largely improvised music, two of the collaborators were only present behind a screen from which they essentially live-mixed/live-created a series of projections using a series of physical props, found natural materials and artwork, which in turn were also used to create some of the soundtrack. Which means what? Well, at one point an old bird-cage was placed upon a wind-up gramophone turntable and then as it span it struck a series of prongs to create music… not dissimilar in its own way to the workings of a traditional music box but on a grander and more arcane scale. Accompanying this was a traditional spinning wheel which also appeared to be creating music… Alongside such things, there were also projections created which borrowed from the tropes and imagery of Folklore Tapes releases/world… As a set of work it appeared to be an exploration of the hidden in nature and folklore which surrounds it (the pattern under the plough?).” (Quoted from A Year In The Country.)

Elsewhere at A Year In The Country:

Elsewhere:

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