#bloxham tapes

[bluetapes]

I sat on this one for almost a year after recording it - in which time a glut of ambient drone church organ albums appeared and everyone was probably sick of the form by the time Rothko dropped - but I'm glad I made it and that it found a home and receptive ears!

You can buy it at me Bandcamp: https://cutalonelyfigure.bandcamp.com/album/rothko-horizons

[bluetapes]

Technically released at the end of 2019, the first Cut A Lonely Figure release was In Sea, In Circles, In Concrete; recorded in parallel with the Bloxham Tapes-released Rothko Horizons. Probably less immediate than that release, but I like it just as much. Pay what you like here: https://cutalonelyfigure.bandcamp.com/album/in-sea-in-circles-in-concrete

[bluetapes]

Cut A Lonely Figure - Rothko Horizons - Sunrise (side B)

https://cutalonelyfigure.bandcamp.com/album/rothko-horizons

[bluetapes]

This is what my album on Bloxham Tapes looks like.

This is what it sounds like:

https://bloxhamtapes.bandcamp.com/album/rothko-horizons

[bluetapes]

Cut A Lonely Figure - Rothko Horizons - Sunset (side A)

https://cutalonelyfigure.bandcamp.com/

[dustedmagazine]

Alison Cotton — Only Darkness Now (Bloxham Tapes/Cardinal Fuzz/Feeding Tube)

Only Darkness Now by Alison Cotton

It’s been a busy year and a half for Alison Cotton; since mid-2019, she’s released a host of solo music, as well as a number of records as one-half of the Left Outsides. Both her solo and duo work serve as a testament to the fact that minimal lineups don’t suggest a lack of ambition. When she overheard me listening to Only Darkness Now, my mother, who’s partial to Renaissance vocal music, asked, “Is this Thomas Tallis?” If there was ever a place where fans of centuries-old polyphony and psych-rock heads could find common ground, it might be found in Cotton’s music.

Like her 2018 album All Is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre, Only Darkness Now gives you a sense of what to expect beginning with the title. This is a fundamentally nocturnal album, structured around the kind of rituals that take place after the sun has set. Two of the album’s five tracks have appeared elsewhere:  opener “Behind The Spiderweb Gate” (the one that prompted the Tallis comparison) could first be heard via Longform Editions, while closer “Shirt of Lace” initially appeared on a 10” via Bloxham Tapes. Context is everything, though, and hearing these two compositions — neither of them short — within the confines of a larger work offers an interesting shift in perspective.  

This album feels decidedly nocturnal, and distinctly wintry. A long drifting section towards the end of “Shirt of Lace” keeps the drone going in a way that evokes nothing quite so much as breathing, even as Cotton plucks strings around it. (This song in particular rewards listening on headphones.) “The Hill Was Hollow” counterbalances sparsely-arranged violin passages and thrumming percussion. Cotton is equally prone to singing resonantly and using her voice as an instrument; both qualities can be heard on “In Solitude I Will Fade Away.” What emerges, then, is an album that feels as immersive as a landscape, with qualities both urgent and archaic.  

Tobias Carroll

[bandcampotheque]

Listen/purchase: The Arteries of New York City by The Arteries of New York City

[benedictdrew]

https://bloxhamtapes.bandcamp.com/album/the-ughhh-ballads

Bloxham Tapes BT12

Bloxham Tapes are proud to present the label’s 12th release: 'The Ughhh Ballads' by BENEDICT DREW.

Drew is an artist who works in sound, video, sculpture, installation and performance. He is also a fearless explorer of our fractured isle. Previous releases have seen him crawl through oceans of Tory slime and sift the psychotropic neural networks of half-hammered, food-fasted commuters. 'The Ughhh Ballads' – electronic music from the Isle of Thanet – continues his exploration of tainted transit, inside and out.

A psychedelic gong bath for the Leave Means Leave generation over two sides of magnetic tape, 'The Ughhh Ballads' is a conduit for confused good feeling/bad feeling coagulation. (So spake George Clinton: “Good thoughts bring forth good fruit. Bullshit thoughts rot your meat.”) Drawn from uneasy mental and metal journeys from coastal Kent to the capital, the spool drifts through ambient bliss and unsettling murk. The buffet car is now open, but due to a staffing shortage, service is limited.

Consider 'The Ughhh Ballads' the unofficial soundtrack to an advisory referendum. The gestalt entity of the Quiet Coach at dawn and dusk has been sucked, whole, into the genie’s four-pack. Summon up the courage to crack open a tin and make a wish (caveat: there’s a 48 per cent chance of distress).

Please Remain on the Trans-Thanet Express as it’s ready to Leave.

Play at maximum volume.

Play on the threshold of your dreams.

Play until it plays you.

“Forget the bile: DM for enquiries.”

credits

released April 8, 2019

All compositions by Benedict Drew, 2019

Electronic music from the Isle of Thanet

Represented by Matt’s Gallery, London

benedictdrew.com

With thanks to Catriona Clayson,

Plastique Fantastique, Rebecca Lennon &

Judith Carlton

Sleeve design by Luke Drozd