Hello you. Busy weekend lined up for Howlround as the machines head out on the road for our first pair of live dates this year. First up is a Touch Presents… evening at Iklectik in Lambeth North, a welcome return to everyone’s favourite former Buddhist monastery in support of fellow signings UnicaZürn. We last played together at SuperNormal festival back in 2017 and I can vouch that their live shows are something of a spectacle!
The following day I’m heading to Guildford for the 2nd Moog Symposium, hosted by the University of Surrey’s Institute of Sound Recording and rescheduled from last year. The second day of a weekend of talks and performances in memory of Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson, the day-long programme includes talks from David Stubbs, Richard Norris and David Ball of The Grid and culminates with live performances from Howlround and Important Records’ legend Eleh, an artist who needs absolutely no introduction. Rumour has it that a second release for Touch is in the pipeline, following 2010’s Location Momentum, but no details are present at the moment. Anyway, it’s an excellent line-up and should make for a most stimulating day. Further information and limited tickets are available here.
Grateful thanks must go to esteemed blog [The Present Continuous] for including Howlround in a recent lengthy article exploring modern trends in tape music, alongside such giants of the scene as Hainbach, Amulets and of course the great William Basinski. A fascinating primer on the subject and highly recommended reading. I’m most flattered to be included in such company, of course, although I must admit I had never realised that new Howlround album The Debatable Lands contained such things as ‘whimsical in-jokes’! That album is of course now available both online and from all good record shops, so feel free to order yourself a copy and see if you can spot them. Anyway, a doff of the cap to Mr. Daniel Williams for a fascinating read.
And finally, some brand new tape music can be heard adding additional atmosphere to the recent Radio 4 documentary In Tooth And Claw, presented by Charles Foster and produced by the great Michael Umney. It’s an investigation into human relationships with the natural world, particularly those of writers and poets, and explores the darkness that so often seems to dwell at the heart of such encounters. Charles teases out the threads of violence – human, animal and ecological – which run through so much nature writing and asks why we find solace and peace in places haunted by competition, destruction and death as the press release would have it – and the soundtrack incorporates field recordings from some of the locations they visit, sounds of wind and water threaded through the machines and subjected to a modicum of violence themselves. It’s a compelling listen, so click here to tune in.
Robin The Fog 