teaser terror peek at the eerie eruptions emanating from a new Howlround happenings. Culled from an imminent chiller entitled ‘the debatable lands’ this is the unforgiving power electronics bleakness of (what we take to believe is called) ‘a melt saetr’. A scalding slice of isolationist harsh noise gouging that scowls, scars and skirts the defiant and damaged terrains of the likes of Sissy Spacek and Tayside Mental Health, happy pop this isn’t, sheer brutal bludgeoning it is. Approach with due care and trepanning deflecting headwear Mark Losing Today
Howlround are delighted to announce that sixth studio album The Debatable Lands (for studio read ‘Mum and Dad’s dining room table’) will be released at the end of the year and is now available to pre-order from Touch.Expertly cut by Jason at Transition and impeccably mastered by Stephan Mathieu, it’s a surprisingly abrasive four-track vinyl LP, but if you order it directly from the Touchshop, you get an additional six tracks, one of which ‘a-melt-saetr’ can be heard here. And that track has already gained the above review from Mark Losing Today, for which we’re much obliged!
Official PR blurb: In December 2017, Howlround (Robin the Fog) was invited to perform at “The Winter Solstice Soundscapes” event for the recently opened record store “Vinyl Café” in his home town of Carlisle, Cumbria. Inspired by the reception to his first ever performance in the great border city, he covered his parent’s dining room table with the same equipment, stretched loops of tape around his mum’s seasonal candlesticks when she wasn’t looking… and this LP is the result. The only equipment used on the album is two 1/4” reel-to-reel tape machines and one microphone. The sounds created are entirely at the discretion of the machines (much of them derived from ‘closed-input’ recordings) and all tracks were produced in a single take. There are no edits, no overdubs and no additional effects.
This marks a new, heavier direction for Howlround, a project better known for more ambient work. Described as ‘Tapeloop Techno’, thick knotty tangles of dense, pulsating bass are an echo of Robin’s early days making bad dance music, while the abrasive snarls of feedback swirling around these tracks point to his more recent embrace of indeterminacy and chance composition. Previous vinyl releases on Psyché Tropes, The Wormhole, A Year in the Country and Front & Follow as well as his own label The Fog Signals have shown a deep understanding of the possibilities of tape manipulation. On The Debatable Lands Howlround eschews the usual field recordings in favour of exploring the interior world of the machines themselves.
The album was officially unveiled last Friday on Resonance FM’s Bad Punk show, though in actual fact only one track from the LP was debuted, along with another from recently issued Psyché Tropes LP A Creak Retimed. The rest of the show was performed as a live session, with regular host Johny Brown and special guest Dolly Dolly reciting great works of poetry from the region with Howlround tape loops providing a live backdrop. Have a listen below if you missed it or would like to listen again:
Thanks to Johny and Dolly Dolly for another splendid performance – our first together since Gallery 46 in Whitechapel last August. Thanks must also go to engineer Matt and Inga Tillere for these fabulous photographs (as usual)! Further information can be found on the Bad Punk website. Tune in every Friday at 10pm, it’s always worth a listen!
Robin The Fog 