Dostrotime [2024]

For me, the lockdown of 2020 will always stand out as a remarkable time partly for the viscerality of its terrors, but also because of its novel, eerie, sublime silence. It afforded me (and no doubt other fortunate loners) a respite from the incessant distractions that can get in the way of important things such as doing nothing – or recording music. The cancellation of all live commitments meant the prospect of a year's worth of itineraries, airport security, hotels and no sleep was erased, and for some time I experienced a simple happiness not familiar in my adulthood. In a way it reminded me of being a child, where one knows big and awful stuff happens on the horizon but the current moment is a blissful sanctuary. Without customary interruptions, time elapsed differently: Dostrotime. I recorded extensively during that unusual period and went on to use some of that material as the basis for the rescheduled live shows of '21 &' 22. These events were remarkable for their tangible atmosphere of jubilation that lockdown was over and this album is indebted to the exhilaration of those shows. It is an attempt to capture the peculiarity of music catalysed by lockdown being part of the celebration of lockdown's demise.
Tom.

Arkteon 1:
“This piece was performed using a long-scale electric guitar, which I prefer to the regular type as it offers increased clarity and sustain. The sound is a mixture of its piezo and magnetic pickups, recorded through an Eventide H8000 running custom processing, on this occasion just adding some eq and a bit of reverb.”

Enbounce:
“This track started out as a live mixdown of an extensive array of hardware, including a Yamaha CS-80 and a Roland V-Synth XT, with a Roland TB-303 bassline alongside Roland TR-909 and TR-707 percussion. The guitar was then overdubbed using the same set-up as 'Arkteon 1' to provide distortion, whilst also triggering a custom monosynth that adds ring modulation on the string bends. The material is adapted from a piece originally made for my BBC Daydreams soundtrack.”

Wendorlan:
“’Wendorlan' was created on an entirely digital system, a development of what I called System 4, which was used to realise Damogen Furies during 2014. The 'Wendorlan Sunday 16th October' vocal is from a pirate radio advert for a rave at the London Astoria, broadcast in 1993. Towards the end of the video, text appears saying, 'Sung by David Bowie on a sinking raft: "Talisman Red said he thought it was the break into the future."' This describes an event in a dream I had shortly before the video was finished.”

Duneray:
“This tune uses a custom gate-reverb that I put together whilst working on Be Up a Hello. It can most obviously be heard on 'Vortrack (Fracture Remix)' and this piece was recorded not long after that, also using a TB-303 (here in combination with a Roland SH-101 for tonal variety and polyphony). The hardware aspect of the sound sources can be heard clearly at the end once the percussion stops, with the compression-swell bringing up the background noise as the synth notes decay.”

Kronmec:
"Mellotron samples are used in this track with alternate chords being pitched up by a microtonal interval. The monosynth bass sound is a recent iteration of my ongoing part-time efforts to programme a TB-303 copy, obviously building in more flexibility. Anyone who has tried this might agree it's a challenge to approximate the square wave, though it helps to use pitch-correlated variation in the pulse width. In this you can hear the pulse width being pushed towards 0% -- not possible on the original machine.”

Arkteon 2:
“This piece uses the same set-up as 'Arkteon 1', however, the guitar is tuned differently. It uses the regular E-A-D-G-B-E as a basis, and the top E is tuned at regular pitch -- but down from there successive strings are tuned up by increasing microtonal intervals. This was achieved by putting a g-clamp on the tremolo bridge to force it to remain static at a specific positive deflection. Not convenient for playing, but it worked.”

Holorform:
“This is the oldest track of the set, with the original version recorded in 2018, and subsequently remixed last year. It was put together using the same approach as, for example, 'The Coathanger' from Just a Souvenir. The basic method involves taking an instrumental performance (in this instance a guitar solo) and then adding processing step-by-step, progressing in time, thereby controlling effects in a way far more complex and precise than would be possible live. The persistent notion impelling this approach is how I picture a kind of futuristic sci-fi musicianship.”

Akkranen:
“The starting point of this piece was the famous ravestab used in detuned form on 'Droid' from Torque on No U-Turn, though I didn't manage to retain the minimal approach of Ed Rush & co. Like the other hardware-based pieces it was recorded directly to 2-track, so it was a case of nailing the real-time adjustments all in one go. It uses the same gate-reverb & TB-303 combination as 'Duneray', and, in particular, it was essential to get the filter tweaking right so the reverb stood out at the appropriate moments.”

Stromcor:
“This track was great fun to play at shows and is an unashamed bit of bass-shred, though the studio recording differs in places from how it was performed live. It was recorded using my modified Music Man 6-string bass processed by the same H8000 set-up that was used for the guitar on 'Arkteon 1', this time featuring some ring modulation and a wah effect from an H9 pedal. In the intro a TR-909 can be heard processed through external amplitude envelopes.”

Domelash:
“Like with 'Akkranen', a hint of No U-Turn paranoid minimalism kicks this one off, though, again, it ends up going maximalist. It uses a custom sequencer I put together bit by bit over several years, which is also used on 'Wendorlan' and 'Stromcor'. Amongst other things it enables me to detach sequences from the main tempo whilst retaining control of that detachment, which you can hear clearly on the break programming in the opening section. The custom gate-reverb is also used throughout.”

Heliobat:
“Various bits of hardware were meticulously tuned and programmed for this track, which also features the long-scale guitar of 'Arkteon 1'. An SH-101 can be heard in parts of the melody, and a Yamaha FS1R generates a fair amount of the polyphonic material. The intro section uses a form of pitch intonation such that the major 3rds are (unlike in equal temperament) a whole-number ratio of the corresponding root note.“

Arkteon 3:
“This piece uses the same set-up as 'Arkteon 2', including the tuning. I originally intended other instruments to accompany the guitar performance but in the end thought it made more sense as a solo piece. There is also an 'Arkteon 4', but somehow it just didn't fit the album. Despite spending hours varying signal routing, cable configuration and playing position in relation to sources of interference, in the pauses 50hz mains hum can be heard. Along with the other 'Arkteon' pieces, it was recorded in autumn of '22 after a busy summer of playing live shows.”

Just saw the mail. Includes a link to an audio called "XY.wav".

EDIT 1: Website has changed.

EDIT 2: Running the WAV file through an oscilloscope brings out what seems likely to be the album/EP title. Courtesy of @exitonly.

EDIT 3: The album is called Dostrotime. Thanks for the info @perunamuusi @logboy.

Pretty sure it's an audiobook.